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September 25, 2006
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can't stand contrived profundity. Remember that scene in Armageddon where, as New York faces imminent annihilation, the camera alights on a child? He's standing on the hood of a car in his slum, staring into the sky as if pondering big questions about the universe and what it's really all about. "He's a disadvantaged child! The world is ending! This film means something!" scenes like this scream, and yet it's clear that this alleged deep-thinking took place in a conference room amongst studio execs.Heroes, NBC's would-be fall golden child, degenerates similarly. A sci-fi drama with an ensemble cast, it's enjoyed numerous comparisons to both X-Men and Lost. It shows many ordinary people with extraordinary bone structure squinting Godward for no discernable reason as orchestral music crescendos around them. This is intended to prompt you, the viewer, to wax existential on the nature of humankind. But this kind of density feels absurdly out of place on network television. It's 9 p.m. on a Monday, and we're sporking General Tso's straight from the box.
The plot of Heroes does indeed seem similar to that of X-Men: A group of seemingly unconnected strangers scattered across the globe each discover they harbor an until-now dormant superpower — a nurse in Manhattan finds he can fly when he hops out of bed and stops short of the floor; an office drone in Japan discovers he can bend the space-time continuum, allowing him to teleport; a Midwestern high-school cheerleader is rendered invincible to injury. Linking them all is a teacher in India whose father, suddenly dead, had predicted an imminent leap forward in human evolution (via that weightily named venture that everyone's vaguely heard of, the Human Genome Project). The characters, through various plot twists, end up in New York for what we can assume will be a meeting of the suddenly swelled minds. Adding to the drama, all of this takes place beneath the corona of a solar eclipse.
Ham-handedness aside, the problem with Heroes is that it doesn't understand that this type of show is not about lofty philosophical conundrums. This is about us: our own sense of powerlessness and yearning to be bigger than the subpar lives we've built for ourselves. Most of us feel like martyrs in some ambiguous fashion, short-changed by work and our landlords and taxes. What we want is to be recognized as such. When people imagine themselves as superheroes saving the world, they're not doing so because they're worried about the planet. They're doing so because they're worried that they're not getting the recognition they deserve.
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Most of the acting is exactly what you'd expect from a network TV show with Hollywood-epic ambitions. Characters actually say things like, "Have you ever felt like you were destined to . . . " (wait for it) " . . . be something more?" It's not always so shlocky. When the cheerleader ventures a quiet "I love you" to her mother, who responds with a deadpan, "But?" you briefly feel like you could be one of these people, which is what you really wanted in the first place.
In my opinion, one problem with television right now is that it's divided itself into programs so self-consciously highbrow and lowbrow that the brow in the middle has all but disappeared. It's as if by loading their lineups with drivel like Dancing With the Stars and The Biggest Loser on one end, and deep-thinkers like Six Degrees and Jericho on the other, the networks believe they've struck a balance that adds up to something like Zen when it all comes out in the wash. But as anyone who watched TV in the '90s knows, it's actually the middlebrow that holds the true wisdom: Seinfeld, The Simpsons, Frasier — these were shows that explained life back to us with precision and clarity, that were philosophical without all the silly little melodramatic devices employed by Heroes. Personally, I'll take the d'oh of Homer Simpson over the Tao of Heroes. n°
| ABOUT THE AUTHOR: | |
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Will Doig writes for all sorts of fabulous and exciting magazines. He was |
Commentarium (7 Comments)
I don't know. . . expecting superheroes to act like selfish children is a bit nihilistic, don't you think?
Isn't this an era that demands melodarama? I grew up on shows like The Simpsons, Seinfeld, and Fraiser, and they were all relevant to the time when they aired, but I'm not sure I would say that any of them would retain that relevance if they were introduced into the fall line-up today. Don't get me wrong, I loved all of them, but I think shows like Heroes speak to a different sort of desire, and it has nothing to do with establishing a sense of connection with the characters, or having the world "explained back to you." We live in a world that we simply can't understand, and television has responded to that by giving us characters who are in a position to change that fact, regardless of whether or not we can see ourselves in them. We all want to be able to influence a world that's spiraling out of our control, so we look to Superman, the X-men, Batman, and others for meaning we can't find in the mundane.
NBC has been promoting this show furiously, but so far, all the commercials have just made me want to not watch it. I might enjoy a newer version of The Greatest American Hero, but this isn't it. It's too complicated, and as the review says, it tries to be more profound than it really should. I'd say, "I guess we'll see," but I don't plan to.
Please god tell me the cheerleader in the picture isn't that mormon chick from the Real World? Please?
Will, it would have been nice if you had WATCHED it. The nurse in Manhattan didn't find out that he could fly until the end of the episode when he jumped off a building and was CAUGHT by his BROTHER, the wannabe Senator!
You got several other "minor" details wrong, too, but missing such a major revelation scene smacks of someone who not only was not paying attention, but who had an agenda to slam this thing from the get-go.
So much for your editorial veritas, I guess.
Next time you review something, at least do your readers the kindness of watching the show, and not just the trailers.
The show is decent. I think it's too soon to tell if the writing will suck or not, whether the characters will overcome their own weaknesses, or if that will be explored. He forgot to mention the internet stripper who's reflection killed the loan sharks. That was pretty twisted for TV. There's definite promise here. So I'd give it a chance...
PS... The Simpsons is STILL in production and still relevant... doh!
Now you say something