In the late 90’s and early 00’s, television experienced a great stride of live action superhero programs with shows such as Charmed, Smallville and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Although sometimes tending to be too focused on the teen drama aspect, these shows garnered comic fans with their light comic presentation and kept fans satisfied throughout their courses.
Emergence into Television
However, when Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Charmed ended their run Smallville seemed to be the lone show in the genre. However, in 2006 Heroes emerged from NBC as a new competitor. Dazzling perspective viewers at comicon and piquing the interest of many with its foreboding tagline, Heroes was an instant favorite to those who lusted after a genuine superhero TV drama. Exuding with comic book flair and motifs, Heroes’ comic book presentation truly conveyed the feeling of having an actual comic book on a TV screen. It’s ever intense and intricate story coupled with moments of vivacious action enthralled audiences and accumulated much debate the way any popular cultural television show should.
Retrospective Review
If there’s one thing Heroes makes apparent in its opening episode, it’s that its creators a truly trying to make a comic book television show restricted only by TV rules. It’s a decision that not only effects the overall presentation show, but the characters and story as well. While the plot and premise are decisively absurd and lacking believability to emulate those found in comics, the characters themselves are a different story. Heroes contains many characters, but the writers have done an excellent job making each character distinct through both their abilities and their motives. That’s saying a lot considering that most of their abilities can be found in earlier comics with more satisfying usage as well. But Heroes isn’t a show where characters are there to be nothing more than catalyst for their powers, it’s a show where abilities are a catalyst for deep characterization.
It’s not easy to see just how essential the characters are in the first couple of episodes due to an unusual way the writers introduce the characters. To successfully show all the characters perspective on it, the show is forced to jump to different characters numerous times in a single episode. It can be jarring at first, but it’s an excellent choice by the writers to make sure all the central characters are properly developed. This makes some of the stories more interesting to watch than others at the outset since they develop quicker. For instance, Hiro (Masi Oka) and Ando’s (James Kyson Lee) journey to prove themselves as heroes is more enjoying than Claire Bennett’s (Hayden Panettiere) wearisome struggle to appear normal. The most enjoyable storyline however, belongs to Sylar (Zachary Quinto). His obsession with becoming extraordinary and punishing those who fail to use their powers to the fullest is both horrifying and fascinating, a villain truly worthy of cheer.
Unfortunately, some of the seemingly minor characters who play big roles later on in the season aren’t granted much development time. This is a real disappointment considering there are some more minor characters who receive a lot of screen time, but aren’t as essential to the story. As great as the characters development is, the dialogue for the characters never truly elevated pass “adequate” levels, and will at times make the audience wonder if it was intentional. However, none of these concerns are identifiable when Heroes is weaving all of its characters into one storyline. Heroes truly reaches the peak of great television drama when it focuses on tying the characters together instead of introducing new elements.
