Review: Chuck and Heroes, Part II
Well, the Chuck and Heroes premiers came and were disappointing but good enough for me to give ‘em a second round. That day has come and gone and what’s the verdict? Chuck? Thhhbbbppppttt. Heroes? Ehhhhhh….. (beware there be spoilers ahead)
Chuck. Turns out all the badness of the first one wasn’t just pilot episode badness, it was series level badness. Plots and motivations hang together by the thinnest of fraying threads. It had it’s moments where it was funny, but really the mediocre acting and dialogue and plotting condemn this one to the dust bins. I mean, the scene that comes to mind for particularly awfulecularity (that’s right, I made that up right now… spectacularly awful, live it) is when the lady agent talks Chuck through flying the helicopter by remembering him that he played an Apache helicopter flight sim. It was pretty unbelievably cheeeezy.
Heroes? Sort of more of the same as last episode. I mean the Hiro subplot could not have been more cliche. Everything that happened was predictable (ok, I didn’t get that he healed at the end). The Claire subplot? Ridiculous and predictable. “Um, high school teacher? You know all about super powers right? And have all the answers? I mean you’re a high school bio teacher!” Then you knew from that moment on she was going to cut off something and beyond that you knew that that dude was going to be watching. Come ON.
The plot with Maya and her twin (who’s name I can’t seem to find) continues to astound with it’s copycat themes from early season 1 Nikki. A good and bad twin? The bad one kills people, more or less uncontrollably? Great! Love it. The Mohinder story? The one where the Company with infinite resources sends their nerdy professor who has proven untrustworthy in the past all by himself to the third world to deal with a super being with a disease which may or may not be the one they’re studying? Because they can’t afford, apparently, to either bring that guy somewhere for study or they can’t afford to send a companion with Mohinder? And then they completely trust that he got his memory eaten (which he soooo obviously didn’t - anytime Heroes uses that trick of cutting away from a scene to imply the obvious outcome, it’s always not). Oh and the company also obviously, despite knowing everyone’s secrets, can’t seem to figure out enough to tap his frequent calls where he discusses all his plans to screw said Company. The Company is kinda bad at this whole conspiracy thing, eh? (although I admit that I do love that the Haitian, and the fact that he’s just called “the Haitian”, is back…)
I did like it, though, when Momma Petrelli screamed at Parkman in her head. That was pretty sweet. Of course if the failed killing of her turns out to be a genuinely failed killing, that will be one of the lamest plot devices ever. Of course if it failed on purpose, then that’s different.
Oh and don’t forget the whole Irish scene with Peter where the irish guys are totally unamazed by meeting the most powerful man in the world who shoots lightening from his fingers like the Emperor, just without the cloak. I mean they’re like “Dude! You totally can punch armed thugs across the room without touching them and shoot lightening from your hands! Whoooo.. I’m scared.. I’m so scared I’m going to hold this box that will probably take some time to burn in the fire over the fire unless you pinky swear to come rob a bank with me!”
Which isn’t even talking about the fact that they’ve decided to assume he’s robbed a shipping container full of ipods because when you rob a shipping container full of ipods you often also stay behind in the empty shipping container for the length of the ride, completely messed up and throwing lightning out of your fingers.
Anyhow, in case you didn’t gather, I wasn’t overly impressed with Heroes. It was kinda entertaining for the moments between when I wasn’t very annoyed. I’ll probably still watch it mostly to fill the void in my life that only sweet tv can fill, but I won’t like it. And I still didn’t watch Journeyman. I think I’ll wait for the season and if everyone still likes it I’ll watch it all at once.
There it is - what’d you think? Did you love Chuck? Did you not expect every scene in Heroes?
October 2nd, 2007 at 9:40 am
ill have to disagree with felix and his tiny brain on some of this stuff, about heroes anyway. while his points are valid, we are talking about NBC primetime pop-scifi. the weak plots and obvious oversights are to be expected. its fun and the characters are engaging even if annoying at times. As long as someone ends up wearing a cape this season, im a satisfied viewer.
Jake 2.1, i mean Chuck, just plain sucked. Journeyman however, shoes some promise.
October 2nd, 2007 at 9:44 am
All I’m saying is that Lost (season 1), Buffy and even Angel had much tighter scripts than any of this.
And don’t mock my tiny brain. It makes me special.
October 2nd, 2007 at 8:56 pm
The Hiro story is SO awful, disappointing, and boring I don’t know what else to say. The Claire story is predictable, like you said. The Peter Petrelli story is lame but I like his character and his powers make him quite intriguing. Suresh is OK if a little ho-hum, Parkman is OK…am I leaving anyone out? Oh, Nathan is probably the most intriguing one so far just because he only appears for a few moments in each episode and he really hasn’t done anything yet except sulk around in his coat and you just know he’s going to have his day. I also like the Ando character, Hiro’s buddy. Overall, quite disappointed with the first two episodes so far.
October 3rd, 2007 at 6:53 am
You raise a good point! I really liked Ando in these episodes, even though he’s only had really minor parts. I still can’t believe they killed Sulu, but maybe somehow he isn’t dead. Somehow, I get the sense that Mama Petrelli is kinda faking it and she’s the mastermind.
But I’m with you. Disappointed. Sigh.
October 3rd, 2007 at 6:55 am
Oh, I wonder what Nathan’s thing is going to turn out to be. But is it odd that the two storylines that piqued you were the ones that got the least airtime? Heh.
October 3rd, 2007 at 4:05 pm
nathan has added a new heretofore unseen power involving rapid and intense facial hair growth.
i hope that plays an important role. kind of like when the tick grew a mustache.
October 3rd, 2007 at 4:22 pm
Anyone remember those old marvel comics that were basically catalogues of super folks? There was a parody one that marvel put out with such wondrous folks as “Arm hair grow long lad”. Nice.
November 3rd, 2007 at 10:38 am
[...] I was going to write a larger post on how disappointed I am in Heroes. Mostly, the same as my last review of Heroes but I’m annoyed enough to write it again. Then I read sfsignal’s review of season 2 [...]