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April 12, 2008

Another Reason Why I Should Be in Charge of the Major Networks

I've made no secret of my love for the show Heroes. Well, let me rephrase. Approximately seven-eighths of the first season of Hearos was pretty much some of the best TV ever. Then that season ended and it was, well, not the best ending. In fact, it was one of the worst season finales I can think of. Then I got all geared up for the second season... and it kinda sucked. It was missing all the things that made the first season cool--you know, stuff like character development and a coherent story. Oh, and Hiro was in fucking feudal...

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December 4, 2007

"Powerless" or "A Good End to A Subpar Story"

Tonight was the finale of Heroes's second volume, titled "Generations." Even after the completely underwhelming finale to the first volume, I was really pumped for the second one because the writers kept talking about how much we'd get to learn about all of the different characters' backgrounds and stuff. Can you say "backstory"? But, in the end, we didn't really get a lot of worthwhile information. We know who founded the Company, but they're all mostly dead. Except for Parkman's dad, who's disappeared, Angela Petrelli, who's a supercrazybitch, and Bob, who's just a bad father. And Adam, of course--let's hope...

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November 27, 2007

"Truth & Consequences" or "When Average Is Good"

As much as I love it, Heroes really has not been as good this season as it was at its best last season. Perhaps that's why good episodes like tonight's are still kind of disappointing. This would have been an average episode last season; this season, it's one of the best. Still, there was some good stuff and, as is unfortunately the case nowadays, some pretty stupid stuff. Peter, Adam, and Victoria Pratt We're off to save the world again. Only not really because Adam is a sociopath, but Peter's too stupid to see that, even when Adam kills someone...

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November 20, 2007

"Cautionary Tales" or "Fuck You, Mohinder"

Alright--another episode that reminds me of how good this series can be. From beginning to end, this episode was full of suspense and action. And, more importantly, it ostly executed well. For the first time in a while, each of the narratives felt cohesive and believable--with the exception of Hiro's decision to (yet again) travel back in time to try to save someone's life. Still, there was no Niki (although she was mentioned), and no Wonder Twins. That, right there, is a good thing. Hiro I still love Hiro, but the writers seem to be at a loss as far...

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November 13, 2007

"Four Months Ago" or "Again?"

Last week's episode continues to be this season's high-water mark. After the revelations and questions they presented, tonight's flashback episode was rather anticlimactic, especially since it didn't really give us much new or interesting information. Moreover, it's a retread of a concept the writers used last season: take us into the past so that we understand our characters' present. The title of last season's analagous episode was even similar--"Six Months Ago." Unfortunately for those of us living in the present, last season's episode was much better. The primary problem is that tonight's episode didn't do much to fill in any...

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November 6, 2007

"Out of Time" or "Now, That's Much Better"

I had been growing increasingly frustrated with the lack of quality in Heroes episodes. But tonight's episode really brought it back around. Everything--from the character development to the completely unforeseen (at least by me) twists--made this a great episode. I think it was definitely the best episode so far this season. I'll take things in order from least shocking to most shocking. Claire, West, and Mr. Bennet There wasn't anything too shocking here. Obviously, West was eventually going to find out who Claire's dad was. And obviously it wasn't going to go well. And obviously Claire was going to be...

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October 30, 2007

"The Line" or "It's Deja Vu All Over Again"

I think this was another decent episode. It was more good than bad, but not anything too special. We finally got a good amount of Hiro, a decent amount of Claire, and even a little Peter. Though I didn't mind the absence of Nathan and Parkman during the episode, in retrospect, I sort of wish they had been there. And, of course, I wish we had gotten significantly less of the Mexicans. They just make me so fucking angry. But the two things that really stuck out for me were Mr. Bennet's story and the fact that the big overarching...

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October 23, 2007

"Fight or Flight" or "I Want More Kristen Bell. Now."

Tonight's episode was another one without much action, but it was still pretty decent. There wasn't anything terrible about it--other than the lack of Claire--and there were some pretty good things. In fact, to my surprise, Monica and Micah kind of grew on me. I know, I know, they're related to Niki and D.L. Still, I think they might be alright. Niki's a bad influence in pretty much every way, so I'm not surprised that she also influenced her son's suckiness or that, without her, he's not such a douche. Still, I don't outright like them, I just don't mind...

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October 16, 2007

"The Kindness of Strangers" or "Setup Takes Forever"

We're only four episodes into the season, so we have to expect some episodes where there's not a lot of action. Things have to get set up for later in the season. That work has to be done, and it's always a challenge to keep things interesting even though you're mainly just setting the board up for the rest of the game. That said, I think this episode did an adequate job. It had some pretty decent revelations and some nice character development. Here's what I thought, organized in the most logical way I can think of: Claire I have...

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October 9, 2007

"Lizards" and "Kindred"

Due to a DVR mishap, I wasn't able to watch last week's episode of Heroes until tonight. And, of course, there was a new episode on tonight. So I'm going to discuss them together. I'm going to do this by character this time. Hiro God, I love Hiro. And I really want him to hook up with the swordsmith's daughter. Too bad he's got that whole "maintain the integrity of the timeline" thing going. Still, I think it's almost certainly going to happen. There's no way Hiro pretending to be Kensei was a one-time thing. And there's no way that...

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September 24, 2007

"Four Months Later . . . " or "Well, that Didn't Suck"

Needless to say, I was a little apprehensive as tonight's Heroes episode started. But--perhaps because my expecations were extremely low--I liked the episode. It wasn't groundbreaking or excellent, but it was a decent way of showing where the characters have gone since the debacle at Kirby Plaza, and I think that most of the characters are set up to have really interesting story arcs this season. We start with Mohinder giving a lecture about a plague that's killing only those that have special abilities. Again, Heroes is ripping off storylines from the X-Men comics. The first time they did this--when...

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September 23, 2007

An Open Letter to Tim Kring, Creator and Executive Producer of Heroes

Mr. Kring, I have to say that I am extremely frustrated and disappointed. Before the last TV season started, Heroes was one of the few new series I was excited for. In fact, I was extremely excited about it, but I feared that it would get cancelled relatively on. While the show's premise--ordinary people learning that they have extraordinary abilities--appealed to me, an old-school comic-book geek. Still, I was afraid that the public at large wouldn't understand or, more likely, that the creative staff would fail to take their characters seriously. Needless to say that I was pleasantly surprised. In...

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May 23, 2007

"How to Stop an Exploding Man" or "How to Stop a Season from Kicking Ass"

Due to my tardiness with this entry, my esteemed colleague Mr. Vice has already posted his thoughts on Monday night's Heroes season finale. I'll offer my own thoughts here, but I have to say that I agree with almost every single one of Mr. Vice's criticisms and, overall, I was extremely disappointed by the finale. First, I think that the Sylar-Peter fight was so lame I can't believe the writers, editors, directors, actors, and producers actually offered that worthless attempt at a confrontation. After literally a whole season of building up the confrontation between the two most powerful people in...

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May 15, 2007

"Landslide" or "It's All Set Up"

The producers on Heroes have said that the season finale is three hours long but split up over three episodes. I think that a pretty accurate description: last week's episode was very expository and did little more than bring the main characters to New York to set us up for the big finale--the explosion (or the prevention thereof). This week's episode was a little bit more of the same, although there was more action, more revelations, and certainly more deaths. And it took the final step towards setting up next week's season finale. Peter learned to control Ted's ability--he managed...

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May 8, 2007

"The Hard Part" or "Setting up the Dominoes"

Goddamn, I really liked this episode. First of all, I really like the relationship between Peter and Claire. I really like the fact that Peter talks to Claire like she's a real person without being condescending. I think she deserves that, and he seems to be the only person who really does that. I think she likes that, too, even if she's not always down with his save-the-world imperative. It was nice to see Claire and her dad reunited. I really hope Claire doesn't end up having to shoot Peter in the back of the head. Oh, and Claire looked...

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May 1, 2007

"Five Years Gone" or "Just Once I Want to See a Future that Doesn't Suck"

Now we know what's going to happen should our heroes fail. And it's not pretty. Unfortunately, the episode raised a lot more questions than it answered. I think it's important to differentiate between questions that are really interesting (for example, how the fuck did Peter and Niki end up together?) and those that are helpful for figuring out what's going to happen in the last three episodes (like how Hiro and Peter are going to get together to stop Sylar?). And we have to remember that the future we saw hopefully isn't going to happen--so all the wacky shit might...

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April 29, 2007

On The List of Things I Didn't Deserve . . .

That ranked pretty damn near the top. Update I won't say what happened. I'll tell you face-to-face, but I can't do it here. Hiro Nakamura is a man with a lot on his shoulders. Although he has the ability to manipulate space and time, he was powerless to intervene when Sylar killed Charlie Ismaels, the love of HIro's life. Although Hiro went back in time to before Sylar killed her, he couldn't save her--it was as though the universe intervened and prevented Hiro from changing the past in such a way that would negate his reason for traveling into the...

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April 24, 2007

".07%" or "The Percentage of the World's Population that Will Die When Peter Explodes"

Goddamn, it's been a long wait for the new episode of Heroes, and it was completely worth it. I'm going to watch the show again and try to commet on some of the more awesome or interesting aspects. The Linderman narration at the beginning I really liked this--it really emphasized Linderman's complete and overriding involvement in the lives of every single character. They changed the Candace morph sequence effect Before, when Candace "morphed," the whole scene, including the background, was obscured. Now, it's a more conventional morph. This is a strange choice, I think, since Candace doesn't actually morph, she...

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April 17, 2007

Mental Clearing House

I wanna write about something or other tonight, but I don't really know what I should write about. There's a bunch of stuff on my mind, but I don't know how important any of it is. I don't know. I guess I'll write one of those random posts where I try to touch on a bunch of different topics. The Virginia Tech Shooting I don't really have much to say. It's kind of hard for me to believe that it happened, honestly. I'm sorry for the loss the friends and families of the victims suffered. Impending Graduation As the counter...

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April 10, 2007

Heroes Withdrawal (Updated)

It's been far too long since there's been a new episode of Heroes, and I have to say that I'm jonesing for a fix. So I've been keeping up with some of the stuff that's been going on in what could be called the Heroes extended universe. First of all, there's Hana's text messages. I got one today, which read as follows:The time 2 act is now. if ur on our side, go to samantha48616e61.com. I have all the info there. b strong, b diligent, and b prepared for anything. The site is Hana Gitelman's blog, where she's trying to...

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March 6, 2007

"Parasite" or "I Have to Wait How Long?!" (Updated)

Although I was slightly disappointed by this episode, it was still pretty good. I think my disappointment stems from the fact that, given last week's awesomeness, I had my expectations set pretty high. And I expected something more explosive to happen. Spoilers. Ok, so, obviously, Peter's going to survive Sylar's attack. The really cool thing is going to see them duke it out super-hero style. Remember: Peter's got all of Sylar's abilities and some Sylar doesn't have, such as flight, regeneration, and telepathy. On the other hand, Sylar has mastered all of his powers, especially telekinesis. While we've seen that...

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February 27, 2007

"Company Man" or "Wow, Claire's Life Sucks"

I don't mean to sound like a broken record, but this episode was just amazing. My favorite to date. Spoilers. There was so much fucking awesomeness in this episode, I don't even know where to begin. I guess the start is a good place. I loved seeing the shots of Matt and Ted just before the Bennets arrived--it helped to show that Matt, while not entirely innocent, was at least committed to the idea of not hurting anyone. That's really important, I think, because Matt's been sliding to the dark side a little. It's nice to see that he's not...

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February 19, 2007

"Unexpected" or "The Best Fucking Episode of Heroes Yet!"

Wow. That was definitely my favorite episode of Heroes so far. I mean--fuck! Spoilers follow. There was so much awesomeness there I think I'm going to have to make a bullet list. Hiro. Though Hiro's been one of my favorite heroes since the beginning of the series, I had recently become annoyed that he hadn't done a lot of actually heroic things. But I think we can safely say that, after today, he is the man. First off, he faced what was arguably his most imminent threat: an angry dude with a gun. But, rather tha wuss out or run...

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February 13, 2007

"Run!" or "Poor Claire" (Updated)

Another straight-up excellent episode of Heroes. Not as good as last week's, perhaps, and definitely more depressing. But still really good. As usual, don't read on if you haven't watched it yet. The biggest story was Claire. I liked the story, but I have to say that I feel really bad for our indestructible cheerleader. First off, she gets in trouble for doing something her moom said she could do. It's not Claire's fault that Mr. Bennet made The Haitian erase Mrs. Bennet's memory, after all. To make matters worse, Claire's frustration with her adoptive father is understandably growing. Now...

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February 6, 2007

"Distractions" or "I Did Not See That Coming!"

Monday night means Heroes. Spoilers to follow. Holy fucking shit! Nathan?! That's just--wow. I didn't see that coming at all. I have to admit that I was pretty blown away. The immediate thing this means is that the people who were rooting for a Peter/Claire relationship are out of luck. In addition to that being statutory rape, it's now also weird pseudo-incest. The more important question is: How is Nathan going to react? He, like Claire's mom, probably thought Claire was dead. So how's he going to deal with finding out not only that she's alive but also that she,...

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January 30, 2007

"The Fix" and an Explanation

I've decided that I'm going to start naming my Monday night posts after the Heroes episode that day whenever there was a new episode on. Tonight's episode was called "The Fix," and it rocked. The usual spoiler warnings apply. If you don't give a shit about Heroes, scroll down. Ok, how was Sylar able to trick the doctor guy into believing that he was dead? Is that another of Sylar's abilities? Why hadn't he used it before? Is the doctor just an idiot? And what the hell is Sylar going to do with Mr. Bennet? I can't wait to see....

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January 23, 2007

Concerning Television and the Many Measures of My Worth

The recent lack of amazing serialized television in my life has been disturbing. But, today, the powers that be deigned it appropriate to treat me to two hours of great television. Spoilers follow, so don't read on if you didn't see tonight's episodes of Heroes and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. First up, Heroes returned tonight after having left several weeks ago. I was left a bitter, empty shell. There were so many unanswered questions: What happened to Sylar? What was the Haitian going to do with Claire? Nikki turned herself in? Hiro fights a what now?? And, in...

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January 22, 2007

The Last First Day

Today is the last time I will ever start a new semester. Today is my last first day of school. Ever. I can't really believe it. When I came to law school, I was incredibly eager to get out into the world, get a job, be a real person. I still really, really want that. I want to move into a nicer apartment, I want to have a good job, I want to buy a new car. I want to be a real person. But the responsibility frankly freaks me out. I can't believe that in four short months, I...

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January 7, 2007

More Respect for Ringo Starr

Getting back into the groove of doing work has been slow going, to say the least. Although school hasn't started yet, I've got a long list of stuff I need to do during the break, most of it Law Review related. It's ok, though--I've had a decent vacation and now it's time to get back to work. I just don't want to yet. I don't have any new year's resolutions, really. If anything, I have two goals: keep from gaining weight and get more organized. My quest for increased organization encompasses both time management (I'm going to get a fucking...

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December 6, 2006

Don't Do It, Claire!

You know how they used to say that marijuana was a "gateway drug" and that, if you smoked so much as one puff of pot, it was only a matter of months before you would find yourself making shit porn on the internet so that you could buy black-tar heroine? Well, I think that Paris Hilton is pretty much a "gateway trainwreck." If you start hanging out with Ms. HIlton, I think it's only a matter of days before your vagina makes its world debut. Put another way, there's no faster way to know that your life is a trainwreck...

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November 18, 2006

A Great Time to Be a Nerd

While trolling around the Internet today, I found this awesome poster for the forthcoming Harry Potter movie. I think it's pretty much unbelievably awesome. I also found a few other new Harry Potter pictures, most notably one of Dumbledore's Army. I pretty much love that picture. You can see Harry in the middle, obviously, then Cho to his left, then . . . were both Padma and Pavarti in the DA, or is that the snitch next to Cho? In any event, then Ginny, then Zacharias Smith, then some other dude. Fred, George, and Neville behind Harry, Hermione to his...

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