Monsters of Television

Reborn again for the very first time.

Noel: I guess before we wade too deeply into this nonsense, we should probably trade Heroes histories with one another. I watched — and even liked? — Season 1, but quickly found myself frustrated with the show by Season 2. The writers’ strike hit, cutting the show off at its knees that year, which sort of solved that issue. Looking at the episode summaries for Season 3, it’s entirely possible I watched at least the first half of the season, but I legitimately can’t remember if I did or not. Which isn’t a great sign.

In any case, I ended up ditching the series because it was a show that borrowed a lot from comic books but never seemed willing to really commit to being a good comic book series (hi, The Flash!). Creating a mythology whole cloth — and the series was perhaps the biggest success (barest meaning of the word) of a post-Lost network TV landscape in achieving that goal — may’ve just been too much for it to sustain…and the characters were all kind of awfully written.

Nick: I have not watched more than ten minutes of the original Heroes run. To me, Heroes was just the show that came on after Chuck that had Jess from Gilmore Girls and some guy named Zachary Quinto fangirls were fangirling over. I had the vaguest of interest in what happened on the show but then I was also good. Like, I knew that Sylar was into playing the head-squeezing game but I was very much okay not knowing anything else.

What interested me most then (and why I’m intrigued now) is that there was talk at the time when Chuck was paired with Heroes that Zach Levi should be on the superhero show and that, one day, if the fans would ever let Chuck die, that transition would happen. Well, it finally did. And he plays a villain. I never bought the times that Chuck was evil so I’m curious how much I’m going to buy in here. I’m going in with an open mind, some clear eyes, and a full heart. Much like with Parker Lewis, that can’t lose. Read more »