Monday, September 17, 2007

Review: Heroes

Heroes Season 1 came out on DVD a couple of weeks ago, and The Spouse and I got it from Netflix (actually, we rented disks 3 and 4 from our local video store because we were impatient) and watched it. We enjoyed it immensely.

Good writing, good acting (great casting), high quality production values (including really perfect use of CGI to flesh out various locations), great camera work, and a fabulous soundtrack (which isn't out in audio form yet, more's the pity). Overall, it's one of the best shows I've seen in a long time.

What I'm mostly worried about going into Season 2 are (a) having to go from a DVD marathon to week-to-week broadcasts; and (b) how do you top Season 1? A big problem with a lot of SF/Fantasy work is that the first volume (book, season, whatever) establishes the backstory and the universe (which is, after all, a whole lot of the fun), and later volumes can't do more than embroider it or maybe reinterpret it.

One minor quibble: we were both able to predict a major plot point in the season finale based on a prophetic dream they showed us about 2/3 of the way through the season. It seemed fairly obvious. But there were enough twists and turns throughout the season that had us chortling and OMFG-ing that I can't really hold that against them too terribly. (There was one episode mid-season that had a really big plot hole in it, but I cannot at this moment remember what it was, so I guess it didn't stress me out too much.) The pacing was pretty good, too.

Bottom line: highly recommended.

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