The latest on Chuck, the penultimate epi of Heroes

First of all, congrats to Chuck - this excellent show has been picked up for when the writer's strike is over, for a full season. This show is like watching a wonderful movie (Office Space meets Alias?) for an hour every week. I love it!

So, this episode lacked the power, wit and grace of the previous one, had way too many plotlines, and just fell flat. Let's hope the next episode, which, if the writers don't get working soon, is going to be the season finale, isn't the big disappointment that last year's season finale was. I was pretty much looking forward to Hiro kicking Peter's butt in this episode, but, sadly, they're saving that for next week. Have you ever heard of an "idiot" plot? This means everyone has to be an idiot for the plotline to work. So, this week, Maya, Peter, Mohinder...Micah's cousin...wow, how incredibly easily manipulated are these characters? I hate losing respects for my imaginary friends.
On the plus side, it was nice to see Claire standing up for herself with Elle.

On a somewhat related note, if you love superheroes and poetry, or someone you love does,
This book makes a great holiday gift!

Cautionary Tales - Daddy Issues and Why Can't Every Episode of Heroes Be This Good?

Okay, where did they dig up the writers for this episode? Have these writers been asleep for the first seven or eight episodes? How is it that suddenly, Heroes becomes funny, snappy, heart-rending, and action-packed after a snoozer of a half-season? I was literally jumping up and down off my couch and pacing the whole episode? What happens next? Argh! No, Writer's Strike! Don't take away this new and improved Heroes!

So many witty lines ("What is your power - human punching bag?" "Do you still have Mr. Muggles Doggy Bath?" Dark!) And how great was Mrs. HRG tonight? Finally he faced his fears about his own death, and became his kick-ass old, sort-of-evil-sort-of-good self? And how weird is it that the writers complicated the boring characters of Mohinder and Matt Parkman? Good times.

Also, the whole Hiro investigating his father's murder, and paying his last respects in back time, was pretty great. "We have the powers of gods, but that does mean we should play God." Superheroes, man, all those moral and ethical delimnas.

Four Months Ago...and Chuck, Meet Summer!

It's a sad story because you just know Chuck is going to get cancelled because of the strike. But when Chuck (ie Seth Cohen, the older-and-more-spy-like) met Summer in last night's episode (Chuck Versus the Truth) I just wished the show would go on forever. So much fun!

On Heroes, we finally got to solve some of the mysteries (How Peter wound up with amnesia, how Nathan was healed, how DL died) but others were left unsolved - like, how did the Bennett's get back together? This, again, is a show that is just getting back together just before the writer's strike will cause it to go dark.

And I am a writer, so I support fair wages for work performed, but at this point, I think they're doing themselves more harm than good. One of their key sticking points is getting paid for downloads of episodes, and I think that's still such a new revenue stream (ie not that successful a revenue stream) for companies that the big media networks aren't going to budge on it. I've always worked for a set-fee for my media contributions, and never got a per-download bonus or anything. That would be nice, though. How about it, MSDN?

Heroes Moving in the Right Direction, just in time...

Yes, the last two episodes of Heroes have moved towards the action, bringing the characters together, setting up a conflict and challenge for the Heroes to confront (Adam/the Virus.) Why did it take SO LONG to get going? One of my poetry professors told the class, people have short attention spans, your poems must provide constant rewards for the reader or they will stop reading. Applies to television too. Too little reward, and your loyal fans dissapate.
And now that the writers' strike is upon us, will it derail the momentum? Even worse, does this mean the end of "Chuck," "Reaper," et al and a deluge of reality television and game shows?

In other news, the Buffy comic (Season 8 - see Dark Horse Comics for more details) has been really wonderful. I heard that Joss Whedon and the actress that played Faith are going to team up for a weird "Dark Angel" type series where "blank" human superbeings are imprinted with memories and abilities for nefarious missions. Could be good, could be awful. I'm reserving judgement til I hear more.

Fight or Flight or: on Heroes, Something Finally Happens!

I was pretty happy with episode 5 of Heroes, in which: things actually happened! Matt confronted his father, "Mastermind" (whoops, I mean "Nightmare Man") and lost him - Elle confronted the Irish mobster brother, and killed him. I mean, at least there was a little action...
In other news, Reaper was picked up for a few more episodes, but no word on my other fave new show, "Chuck."
In still other news, the sexism and jerkiness of Hollywood power players never ceases to amaze...a bit about the doom of the Wonder Woman movie from an article about the Justice League movie on IGN.com:
"There may be another -- and nastier -- reason why a Wonder Woman spin-off film might be questionable now. According to DeadlineHollywoodDaily.com, Warner Bros. president of production Jeff Robinov recently decreed, "We are no longer doing movies with women in the lead." This is reportedly in response to the lackluster performance of two recent female-driven Warners releases, The Invasion and The Brave One."

Heroes Proving a bit...yawn...

Hey guys, sorry I haven't been posting, I was out of town for a few weeks and then had a lot of tv to catch up on.
I'm sorry to say it, but the new season of Heroes has been a whole lot of not exciting for me. I can barely stay awake through a whole episode. With the most interesting characters split up and in different locations and timelines, and a lot of new characters (I call them the Heroes Others) that no one cares about, well, who can blame me?
But, two new shows have been stepping up to entertain - Chuck and the Buffy-esque (laughs, fighting against darkness, kooky friends, bad parents...) Reaper.
I haven't got my hands on the new issues of the Buffy comics either, so I will report on those later as well.
Bionic Woman hasn't been all that great (what it lacks in humor in makes up for in Alias-rip-offs?) Is there anything else I should be watching? Are you like me, getting fed up with the woefully unfocused sophomore year of Heroes?
(PS All you Pushing Daisies fans...yes, I've seen it, was clever and cute, but you know, I can't commit to a show I know for sure is going to be cancelled before the season is up...)

Geeked out Chuck, Four Months Later

Okay, I know I'm supposed to talk about Heroes, but...

How great was it that the new show Chuck (an homage to The Man With One Red Shoe, Johnny Mnemonic, Alias, and other twisty genre shows) name-checked my childhood computer and favorite game in the first five minutes of the show? I mean, I learned to program on a TRS-80 and my favorite game was Zork! My mom and I used to write down maps for each other for the maze. Geeked out!

So what did ya'll think of Four Months Later? I think I was so excited to have Heroes back that the actual event let me down a little. I did like Typhoid Mary (I mean Maya - yet another comic book ripoff, but I liked the actors and the angle) AND Claire's new flying stalker boy. I was disappointed with the way Hiro's dad went down (literally) and that Hiro missed a chance to say goodbye.

New season - wht r u watching?

Of course, I'm looking forward to the return of Heroes, and later on, Lost. Distinctly missing Buffy and even Alias.
But the new shows...what should I watch?
Here are my thoughts for now:
Chuck (the tale of a geek turned spy) seems like it might be appealing.
Reaper, the story of a boy whose parents sold him to the devil, might be good too. I've watched the first episode of Beauty and the Geek (oh, how I love that show, I admit it, it's like delicious evil caramel popcorn.)
But good female-centric genre-crossing action? I'm feeling a little "eh" about the Bionic Woman, probably because I'm old enough to remember the first iteration...

The Unaired Pilot of Heroes

So, bought the Heroes DVD yesterday and watched the deleted scenes and the unaired pilot. I could see why they retooled the pilot - the pacing felt slow and awkwardly off and with subtitles like "I'm Being Followed By a Moonshadow" - unavoidably cheesy. The pilot that aired ended up being better. However, I liked the idea of showing DL and his powers earlier than the third episode (though I'm glad they cut the subplot of having DL out to kill Nathan) and let's face it, Radioactive Nuclear Physicist/Terrorist Amid made a lot more sense than "randomly radioactive Ted" who didn't even really have a backstory. I know why they cut it, I'm just saying.
In regards to the deleted scenes, I was really sad they cut out some funny stuff (the Matt and Clare discussion ("What's Twilight Zone?" "They still have Flinstones, right?") and Hiro and Nathan's Lone Wolf or lonely Uuuf talk) as well as the fact that Clare's little brother was also an adoptee - setting him up to be superpowered as well...
Anyway I was glad to have it last night, since I've injured my back it was nice to have something to take my mind off of it. Fall premieres can't come soon enough for me. What new shows will you be watching/recording? I think I'm going to give the weird "Chuck" spy show a try, along with maybe one other - I can't fit too much more television into my schedule, what with Heroes and Lost already in rotation...

Mother Jones, shortchanging female comic book supersuperheroes

I would be remiss if I didn't address the article from Mother Jones Magazine: Supergirls Gone Wild: Gender Bias In Comics Shortchanges Superwomen

This was sort of a no-brainer for me (really? a lack of strong female characters? Stripper-wear abounds? Women stuck in refrigerators? I've never heard of anything like this before...not!) But anything to raise awareness, I guess, of the abuse and cheap-lazy-writer-gimmick use of rape of women in comics.

Joss Whedon's Fray is a good example of a comic book character who can kick ass, get into and out of trouble without any help from the guys, and manage to have an actual personality (with good AND bad attributes - wow!) I've always been a big fan of the Witchblade character, Sara Pezzini, although she is drawn like stripperella in metal bondage wear, a. because she had a real job as a cop and b. containing her own violence is a big an obstacle to her as stopping the violence acted out against her by others, which says something about female...and human...reactions to power.

More women would read comics if women were portrayed as realistic, strong characters with gray areas and not just stick-figure-with-boobs male accessories. This is not a mysterious revelation, people, it's common sense. We want to see ourselves, but better.

I don't usually stick poetry in this blog, but two poems that sort of sum up my feelings on 1. the cliches of women in comics and 2. violence against female comic book superheroes:

Female Comic Book Superheroes

are always fighting evil in a thong,
pulsing techno soundtrack in the background
as their tiny ankles thwack

against the bulk of male thugs.
With names like Buffy, Elektra, or Storm
they excel in code decryption, Egyptology, and pyrotechnics.

They pout when tortured, but always escape just in time,
still impeccable in lip gloss and pointy-toed boots,
to rescue male partners, love interests, or fathers.

Impossible chests burst out of tight leather jackets,
from which they extract the hidden scroll or antidote,
tousled hair covering one eye.

They return to their day jobs as forensic pathologists,
wearing their hair up, donning dainty glasses.
Of all the goddesses, these pneumatic heroines most

resemble Artemis, with her miniskirts and crossbow,
or Freya, with her giant gray cats.
Each has seen this apocalypse before.

See her perfect three-point landing on top of the chariot,
riding the silver moon into the horizon,
city crumbling around her heels.

Women in Refrigerators

“Not every woman in comics has been killed, raped, depowered…turned evil, maimed, tortured, or had other life-derailing tragedies befall her, but given the following list…it's hard to think up exceptions…” Gail Simone, from the Women In Refrigerators web site

You never rescue us, always ten minutes too late.
You find the note on the counter about a surprise in the fridge.
And in the next frame the surprise, the punch line:
Susan or Sally hacked into pieces, left to chill.

If by some chance we do grow powerful or popular,
we are blinded, kidnapped by demons, put into wheelchairs,
impregnated by rape. Our memories are stolen. We lose
children and husbands, are condemned to asylums.

If we’re lucky, we are changed into the villainess.
Frankly, we’ll take the spandex, play
the supporting role as long as it buys us time,
until someone comes along to free us,

to write us back to our real selves:
our dormant wings undamaged, injuries healed,
we rise once more to command the wind, put on armor,
race against the slivered edge of night.

(Poems by Jeannine Hall Gailey, from Becoming the Villainess, Steel Toe Books, 2006

Comic Con News...

The best news out of Comic Con...Futurama's first movie-on-DVD (which will be on Comedy Central next year as well) will be called "Bender's Big Score" and released THIS YEAR probably in November. I've already watched the clip (and the panel) on YouTube...

And Heroes will be back in only one long (and a few weeks) so I'll have more to chat about then - some cool-looking new tv shows on the way...

If any of you want to share any other Comic Con news...it will be welcomed!

Villainess Appearance at ComicCon

Listen, I know I usually try to keep my supervillainess identity on this site a secret (thinly veiled, perhaps, but still...)
But I was so geeked out and excited by the following that I have to post it. My name was listed without my actual last name - which, you know, increases the mystery - but a group of people are presenting on High and Low Art at ComicCon, and my book is one of the topics! Eeeee!

Here's the listing from the ComicCon Schedule:

Saturday 1:00-2:30 Comics Arts Conference Session #11: High Art and Low—Richard Becker (CSU Northridge) discusses the nature of the narrator and authorial self-insertions in comics, like those of Lee and Kirby, Gerber, and Morrison, and the schism between schools of storytelling in which the writer is very visible and another in which the writer seeks to be completely invisible. John A. Walsh (Indiana University) examines Grant Morrison’s Doom Patrol stories and their punctuation by appearances of and allusions to similarly fracture, damaged, and outcast artists and works and asks whether the members of the Doom Patrol are artists or heroes and if there’s a difference. Jason Mott (UNC-Wilmington) uncovers the history of comic book superheroes and traces their evolution from serving purely as devices of metaphor for poets to becoming the subject of extended development and progression by award-winning poets such as Brian Dietrich in Krypton Nights and Jeannine Hall in Becoming the Villainess. Room 30AB

Sure, the talk is opposite the Q&A with the "Heroes" cast and crew - but that wouldn't stop you from attending, right? I wish I was going to be in San Diego July 28! Anyone who goes and gives me a report of that session gets a free Supervillainess gift!

PS - I'm listed only two column inches away from Masi Oka!! It's almost like meeting him!

Buffy Comics - Season Eight Issue 2 and 3

A brief review of the second and third issues of the Joss Whedon post television show Buffyverse comics - in which Dawn is a giant, Amy is attacking Buffy with a dreamscape haunted by Ethan Rayne (and images of Spike and Angel) and Buffy must be awakened by the kiss of true love (who can that be?) Andrew continues to be Andrew with the slayerettes, and did I mention Willow comes back but is then sucked into a portal?
These comics definitely keep the appeal of the show - clever dialogue, the easy comaraderie of the "Scoobies" and our curiousity over what these guys have been doing since Sunnydale blew up. Not quite as good as seeing it "in real life" - or in a television or movie format - but definitely the Buffy fix I have been looking for. I hope the series just keeps getting better. My only complaint is that there are too few pages and that sometimes I can't tell Buffy is Buffy because of the way they draw her - sometimes distinctly like SMG, sometimes just like a generic cute blonde, which can be confusing.
I have actually pre-ordered the 4th issue from a real-life comic book shop down the street.

Stop an Exploding Man by Flying Him Into the Sun?

So, the season finale. Yes, there were some plot holes (um, why didn't Sylar and Peter use, like, ANY of their mulitple powers? Freezing? Melting metal? No? And why didn't Peter fly himself out of dangerous range, or have Hiro teleport himself away?)
But, there was a lot to enjoy - Ando and Hiro's final exchange ("You look badass." "Really?") HRG's first name reveal, and Claire's "I already have a family" and subsequent face plant after jumping out a window...the flashing images in Sylar's eyeballs...
So, Lost finale tonight. Then we'll have to find something new to occupy ourselves with...

Landslide - and what's next?

How cool was last night's episode? HRG's: "Your last thought." Even Niki, upon seeing Matt: "Didn't I throw you out a window?"
And how many shows have the cohones to kill off three or maybe four of their main characters in a non-season-ending episode? Ted, I expected. Linderman had it coming, as did HRG's terrible boss, the backlit Eric Roberts. I mean, Lost teases us for weeks with Charlie's possible death - only one character! Heroes serves up action!
So, who will stop the exploding man? Will Hiro? Or will Nathan step in and fly the bomb to safety at the last minute? Will Sylar find, kill and eat Candace's brain, giving him the dangerous ability to shapeshift? What are your spoilery guesses for the season ender?

Spin-off

Pre-Landslide Posting:
NBC has greenlighted a new spinoff of Heroes to take up the space that the new episode gap left us this year called Heroes: Origins which will be kind of standalone episodes about other Heroes not included in the show. Sounds cool to me!

PS Has anybody else been getting back into Lost? I swore I would stop watching that show, but I've watched pretty much every episode the last few weeks. Compulsive!

The Hard Part - Otherwise known as "The Holding Pattern"

An okay episode. I thought an epi focused on Sylar would be more interesting.
My favorite line was Claire's "The universe could not be that lame."
Who is betting that Mama Petrelli in that last scene was really evil shapeshifter/Mastermind Candace?

Cannot wait for the final two episodes!

String Theory - It Just Don't Add Up!

OK, sorry to be the annoying fangirl here, but...tonight's episode has so many logic holes it made my head hurt. "Take That, Causality!"
1. Why didn't Matt "reads minds" Parkman realize the president was Sylar instead of Nathan?
2. Why didn't Haitian "reads memories" superguy realize the president was Sylar instead of Nathan? and why didn't the Haitian's neutralizing powers reveal Nathan as Sylar?
3. If Claire was never killed by Sylar, why did he regenerate when Hiro stabbed him in the alternate future universe? Also, Claire never died, so why did Hiro think she did?
4. WTF?

In future, my dear writers, don't pick up time loops that you're not powerful enough to handle.

In other news, I went to a reading by Peter S. Beagle, author of The Last Unicorn, and many other cool things. It turns out he's a Buffy fan! Who'd a thunk it? And his favorite actor from the show was Spike. And that his father told the story that appeared in BTVS - the one where Dawn brings her mother back from the dead with demon power - which was apparently ripped off from a famous sci-fi author. Ha! Anyway, Peter S. Beagle was super cool, and now I have a signed copy of the alternate version of The Last Unicorn signed to my little brother, who is also a huge P. S. Beagle fan.

PS For my birthday, couldn't they have done an alternate universe that made more sense?
PSS I'm excited about the little girl who apparently has the power to take down Sylar. But, since he wasn't the exploding man after all (as Peter explained in anti-logic alternate future universe) - maybe it doesn't matter?

.07 Percent and the future that probably won't happen

Was the "fight the future" line from Isaac supposed to be a winking reference to the X-Files movie? And what about HRG's "Cherry Pie" line referencing Twin Peaks? However, as fanboys from Aintitcool have pointed out, Heroes current plotline most baldly references the graphic novel "The Watchmen" and the X-Men's Future/Past episodes. In fact, some might say they "lift the entire plot from" rather than reference.
Nevertheless, I was happy to have my show back last night. It took me a few minutes to really engage with the characters again. I was looking especially forward to the Peter/Sylar face off, but was ultimately disappointed (uh, invisible Peter - when you see glass floating in the air, either move the glass into your enemy with telekenetic powers, get on the damn ground, or, you know, sneak around your enemy while you're invisible and bash him on the head! Didn't all that training teach you anything? Oh, and Mohinder? After you knock out a bad guy, go ahead and take him out all the way. Don't just leave him to kill the hottest guy on the show!)
I was sorry, but not surprised, about Isaac's death.
The whole "future that won't really happen" thing - next week's episode, reminds me of the "possible futures" that Charles Wallace and Gaudior got thrown into in Madeleine L'Engle's "A Swiftly Tilting Planet." A good thing we had that book as children, or we'd never know how to follow all the comic books' timeline logics. "Might-have-been" moments must be spotted and changed!
And who will end up being responsible for the explosion - Peter? Sylar? Nuclear boy what's-his-name? Tune in next week for the inevitable drawing out of the answer for another week!

One more day til the new Heroes! Who can wait? Mohinder - dead? HRG - can he escape? And what's the deal with Hiro being in the near future?
Buffy "season 7" comic - number 2 - is out!

Heroes teaser, best line

How great was the Heroes teaser during 30 Rock last night? SOooo cheesy, yet so delicious!

Best line from last night's The Office?
I'm not a hero. You know who's a hero? Hiro from Heroes. And also Bono."

Lindeman and the Company - and Buffy!

Finally got ahold of the new Buffy comic, "season 8" - where Buffy is leading a gang of slayers on covert ops across the world, Dawn is a giant, Xander's still one-eyed. The cover of Buffy with the Scythe - out of this world.

So, from the spoilers, it looks like Lindeman has a healing ability - much like those healing aliens from the X-Files who healed Mudler's mother - and could be the head of "the company without initials."
And, in yet another X-Men ripoff, Hiro and Ando see a future in which mutants - I mean Heroes - are tagged and hunted by the president after the explosion in NYC. Can they stop this future from coming to pass - and will Nathan become president?

Who else thinks April 23rd is way too far away?

Heroes season finale spoilers

Check out this from scifi wire:
http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/index.php?id=40615
Looks like we're in for a "cliffhanger" type ending of the season. In three parts. Hrmph.

Miyazaki News, Heroes Update

All righty, ripped right from the headlines of Nausicaa.Net, a fantastic-sounding update about Miyazaki's new movie, featuring animals that want to become human and a boy on a cliff:

March 19, 2007 Miyazaki's Next Film AnnouncedHayao Miyazaki's next film was announced today. The title is "Gake no ue no Ponyo" (Ponyo On A Cliff) and is scheduled for release in the summer of 2008.The plot revolves around the Princess goldfish Ponyo who wants to become human and 5 years old boy named Sosuke. Key words of the film are "father", "mother", and "a cliff". While not announced as the location Tomo-no-Ura in Seto-naikai is the likely setting as Miyazaki spent some time there last spring.The model for Sosuke is Goro Miyazaki (Hayao's son) when he was 5 years old.This film is expressed in a watercolor and pastel-like freehand drawing. Studio Ghibli President Toshio Suzuki mentioned, "70 or 80% of the stage is the sea. How will we express the sea and a wave in a freehand drawing, it's the director's challenge."Additional news and commentary from GhibliWorld.

The next epi of Heroes will be titled .07 percent, which I believe to be a reference to how many people will die in the NYC exploding man incident unless it is stopped. I hope HRG can get out of the clutches of his horrid company.

Witchblade fans - here' some news from Aintitcool.com:
"Bandai will be releasing their edition of the Witchblade manga in June. Top Cow, publishers of the original Witchblade comic will first be publishing the manga in a colored, flipped edition before Bandai's right-to-left, black and white version."
I've heard the Japanese Sara will no longer be a cop...

Parasites Lost

The rundown of the latest Heroes episode...
Oh, Mohinder...you were so close to not being chumped.
I liked Nikki finally outsmarting Jessica. Way to go, formerly useless girl!
It's important to watch the reflections of your shape-shifters, HRG. Wow...they cribbed X-Men's Mystique without even changing her sex/attitude/personality, the way they did with Wolverine etc. That shape-shifting character is so horrible. I don't like villainesses who don't have a sense of subtlety or nuance. Note to Heroes writers: it's always best for the bad guys to have some likable characteristics, and heroes to have some unlikable ones.
That's why Lindeman's reveal was so great - the cooking speech, etc. Happiness versus meaning. Maybe Linderman hopes to be a sort of evil Xavier - controlling and collecting the mutants for his own purposes?
The last image of Mohinder was so heartbreaking. I hope Peter kicks some ass next time...the wait til April will be too terrible!
PS How great was it that the Haitian's secret contact was...Claire's biological grandmother? And, in case you didn't know, Haiti's citizens speak French and Creole.

In the immortal words of Bender - "Oh. Your. God."

This whole episode - yikes! I would say one of the best yet. Genuinely tense and emotionally impactful, too. When Matt shot Claire to save her adopted mother - when Hiro's father revealed that "the company" was going to take Claire if she started to manifest - when radioactive guy - (he's a menace to himself and others? I don't know - he is definitely NOT a good guy, and I'm not feeling so friendly towards Wireless, who put him up to the hostage thing, either) went nuclear after being shot- the scene of HRG hugging his doomed family under the eyes of his creepy boss - Claire's expression when the Haitian shoots her adopted father...
Overall, this episode both builds and destroys empathy for "The Company Man." I mean, he betrayed and shot his own partner for doing the same thing he would later do with Claire - shielding her from the eyes of his bosses. You also have to wonder - why was it so important to save the cheerleader? What heroic acts has she got in front of her? Easily the most heroic of all the characters except Hiro, Claire has acted bravely in the face of danger, risking - if not exactly her life - a lot of pain for others. And kudos to the young actress (who also played a wily babysitter on Malcolm in the Middle) who makes us feel so invested in the character. She would have made a great Buffy.
Questions from the promos - looks like Simone may not be dead after all? Or is she one of Isaac's tormented visions? Or she's a zombie? Oh, why can't we have new Heroes episodes every night?

Heroes Death - Unexpected? and Japanese pop art

Okay, before we go into the Heroes death, I wanted to talk about some way cool pop art from two women artists about my own age - check out:
http://www.galerieperrotin.com/artiste_.php?id_=17&nom_=Chiho%20Aoshima&dossier=Chiho_Aoshima#
By Chiho Aoshima
and http://english.kaikaikiki.co.jp/artworks/list/C5/
for work by Aya Takano
Super cool anime aesthetic, but demented and good. I wish I could do this kind of thing!

So, I bet, if you read any spoilers at all, anywhere, you probably knew Simone was going to die. Not a huge surprise. And we know there's another death coming on March 5th. I'm betting (and this is not a spoiler, just my conjecture) that Isaac's going to die in the next two episodes as well. The surprising thing about this episode was how it was kind of slow, slow, then unexpectedly full of action - and how unremittingly dark it was. I mean, it's nice to see cheerleader finally unleash on HRG, and Peter use his powers to actually kick some ass (even if its poor Isaac's) and go all Matrix - but I miss the moments of humor, which even Hiro and Stan Lee couldn't supply this episode. Mohinder...he's probably high on my list of goners, as well. Who's next on your list?

Run!

So, this episode was okay, it advanced the plot, but Mohinder shouldn't have been so easy to fool - but I thought it was great when Claire threw a rock at her bio-hero-father's car, and then when she told HRG, "You're NOT my real father." Of course, she doesn't know he's grounding her to keep her safe from Sylar, who is still on the loose and more powerful every minute - hey, now he can melt stuff! And how sad was it when Claire's adopted mom could no longer recognize her own previous Mr. Muggles?
PS When is Hiro going to get his powers back already? And I heard the terrible news that Hiro won't be part of season 2! Oh, okay, how about getting rid of the only character anybody cares about!
I was also happy Lost was back to characters I actually cared about - I mean, Desmond is at least sort of interesting, compared to the blandly weird Others.

Distractions Etc

So, last night's Heroes episode, Distractions, seemed to up the pace a bit, a bit more action and answers. Having watched X-Men 2 the night before, I almost felt like the cheerleader's mom was going to say "You know those mutants you've heard of? I'm the worst one..." when she showed her daughter her "Pyro" abilities. The actress playing Claire's mother looks so much like her. Other goodness: Hiro and Ando's interactions with Hiro's sister and father. And the license plate number on Hiro's Dad's car - was the same as Star Trek's Enterprise.
I'm just not crazy about the actor playing Sylar's acting skills. Did anyone else feel that not only did the actress playing Claire' adopted mother outacted Sylar, but that the DOG was outacting Sylar? (After all, it is a blood-eating dog. Weird!)
The invisible man pushing Peter off the building, then punching him in the face - hilarious.

News from the Whedonverse

So, Joss Whedon is off the Wonder Woman project. Disappointing, I think it would have been interesting to see what Joss could do with that character. Interestingly, there's talk that the studio's picked up a script with a 1940's-Era Wonder Woman, which would be great - that was really the best era of the Wonder Woman Comic book. Here's the story - posted by Joss - on Whedonesque.
In other Joss news, here's a story on the "8th season of Buffy" comic book on MTV.com. I'm excited to see what they do with it, though disappointed Spike and Angel won't be used much, I think because of cross-market liscensing problems. Yes, another comic book to keep track of!
Someone dropped me a note about Witchblade's Japanese Manga - if anyone has any new info on this, let me know!

Heroes Episode - The Fix

Sooo, overall this episode was bit of a letdown - except for the last two minutes, which revealed Claire-the-indestructible cheerleader's "Pyro" mother, and Hiro's father, Sulu/George Takei.
When the writers spend too much time on Niki's character, the fun quotient of the show goes down, and why they're withholding power from Hiro - which seems pointlessly frustrating.
I did like the new invisible guy, too, although why he seemed so hostile to Peter - I like the idea that his character might be misanthropic, kind of a House-like hero - he seemed bizarrely unwilling ot help Peter, then did a 360 turnaround for no reason.
This show's strength is its use of archetypal characters - pulled right from not only X-Men from Joseph Campbell - with a welcome dash of multi-cultural and feminist story lines - and a fast-moving plot with plenty of rewards (hello, Lost!) along the way. I don't know if the show will be able to sustain itself, but maybe it will attract better acting and writing talent as they go along, which is, as I recall the arc that many "genre" shows improve by.

Slate has a cool article on comics that take on the human side of superheroes here!

So, Heroes episode Godsend: What did you think?
I particularly liked the scene between cheerleader Claire and the Haitian. It reminded me of a Giles/Buffy scene. Would the Hiatian make the coolest Watcher ever? Likes Giles, except instead of tweedy and British, a Haitian who doesn't talk to anyone but you AND has the ability to wipe out people's memories. Yes, pretty kick ass.
I liked the interaction between Mohinder and Horn-Rimmed Glasses guy and Hiro and Nathan (flying man!) Also, the last five minutes...but I thought it was a total copout with the dinasaur statue...
Having been studying some Japanese, I thought it was cool how they had Ando interpret the reoccuring "sign" of the heroes as a set of Japanese characters reprenting "talent" and "God sent."

Sci FI Museum's Hall of Fame

Today The Science Fiction Museum Hall of Fame inducted Anne McCaffrey, one of my favorite writers of childhood. Her best work, in my humble opinion, is the Dragonsinger Series. George Lucas was also inducted, although his best work is, sadly, far behind him now. (Don't even mention the new Star Wars movies. They are dead to me.) I think the best thing he's done in years was his brief appearance on The Colbert Report.

Can't Wait for the 22nd

Looking forward to the upcoming new episode of Heroes. Can't get enough of this show, especially the vulnerable but indestructible cheerleader and Hiro, of course. It almost makes me as happy as Buffy used to. Sure, the dialogue isn't too sophisticated, but the plot twists rock! Speaking of Buffy, also looking forward to long-awaited new issues of the comic from Joss Whedon, picking up where Season 7 left off.
I'm starting this blog so I can chat about the latest geek news, television shows, new Anime, and comics. Hope you enjoy!