Geeking Out About: Heroes Reborn (Or Maybe Not So Much)

I’m one of the few people willing to admit that I actually enjoyed the original Heroes for far longer than I apparently should have, so when I tell you I was not horribly impressed with the re-mix, you get a full understanding of what I mean.The show is promising,  infuriating and paradoxically boring. I’m going to keep watching it but I’m definitely giving it a very strong side-eye.

Well, for one thing, I did not care for the powers depicted in this episode, the characters were annoying (some of them should just DIE!), and the plot was a little less than engaging. It didn’t even reach the minimum levels of engagement that I had with Minority Report, or I was just sleepy.

Okay, it was nice to see Noah Bennett again. His reappearance and plotline was one of the shows highlights. Not very high, but when compared to the rather lackluster plots of the other characters, it was awesome. The least engaging plot line of the entire episode was the video game vixen, named Katana Girl. I do not like to watch video games. I will play just about any game but I am not a spectator. I like to get in the game and fiddle around in there, but that’s’ what her entire plot seemed to consist of – watching someone else play a game that you don’t care about and have never played yourself. And how this is a useful power is anybody’s guess. Also, this is an example of fight scenes that are thrown into a show because someone noted in the script, “action scene needed in this space”. I just was not feeling this character at all. She appears to be thrown in so that we can get lots of shots of her shiny, leather covered ass, (I get truly tired of looking at women’s asses on TV.)

Kiki Sukezane plays Miko in Heroes Reborn.

Katana Girl is also the least interesting character. It means something when I cant tell if she was supposed to be a real person who just  looked like Katana Girl or if she was a live-action version of a video game character, brought to life. Her fight scenes were stiff and slow and meant nothing  to me and I’ll be glad when Hiro shows up to show her how that shit is done.

The two most annoying characters in the entire show were the husband and wife team who were spirited away to the lab by Teleporter Tommy. Luke and Joanne are easily the two most hate-able people on television right now and they were only on screen for maybe thirty minutes.My biggest problem with them, is the one I have with all Crusader types. So ,their plan is to eliminate all Evos from the earth by shooting them one at a time? Really? All of them? That’s a Hell of a lot of killing to be doing, especially for just two people.Is there a network of them? Are they two members of some sort of sleeper cell? Hell if I know.Not saying they haven’t been successful and somewhat lucky in their endeavors til now but c’mon guys! One at a time?

Judith Shekoni joins the Heroes Reborn cast as Joanne.

We don’t learn what their particular beef is with the Evos. They don’t bother to ask a single question at the lab. They just walk in on some people engaged in mysterious computer activity and without any warning, not even a “FREEZE” or “PUT YOUR HANDS UP”, they start firing. They didn’t even bother to ask why the lab is there, where it is or what it’s for. That and the two of them are just sloppy. Its a wonder they have manged to survive as long as they have. What happens when they run up against an Evo that can’t be taken down by a bullet? Although there appears to be no chance of that happening because, so far, none of the heroes I’ve seen have been all that awe-inspiring.

Zachary Levi plays Luke in Heroes Reborn.

One of the more interesting characters is the mysterious man whose been following and helping Tommy, and El Vengador. I don’t know. Maybe I just like Mexican Wrestlers. I liked Carlos too and I also liked the idea of a kind of Evo Underground, shepherding the secret heroes into Canada. And how cool is it to be able to turn metal objects into  24K gold? It’s the only superpower in the show, that I wanted.

Incidentally, I was wondering if people in that world had the internet? Why would you go to some unknown place, to see a bunch of unknown people if the Evos are as persecuted as they say they are? At least an online community would give them some idea of their numbers or something. Either the Evos are too rare, have too little power or are just highly disorganized. My theory is that most of the Evos are middle-class, middle-of-the-road Americans, who have never know the persecution of a minority class, so most of them (at least the ones who are White) have no structures or communities in place to protect them, and for some reason, it does not occur to them to form any. It would seem, like Tommy and his mom, that they’d rather go it alone.It is interesting that being a member of a numerical majority seems to be working against the White heroes and they would probably start isolating themselves, as it would  harder to hide in a marginalized community or know who just to trust among other White people.

It’s telling that the Evo Underground is located in and through a Hispanic neighborhood, by a people who have known at least some form of persecution. The structures already exist, in such places, to engage in secretive activity. I imagine such undergrounds probably exist in many of the more marginalized communities, run by people who know what its like to live in a state of constant fear from the state and its agents. These are also the  kind of communities that would be the most  resistant to the propaganda used against the Evos as they would already have an attitude of resistance against state policies that had been used against them, in the past, for example.

Robbie Kay joins the Heroes Reborn cast as Tommy.

Another thing that bothered me, the heroes introduced at the  top of the episode, only to have these people get killed off right away by Luke and Joanne. Yet another reason to hate the two of them. I found those characters interesting and they were knocked off without ceremony, only to be replaced by crap like Katana Girl. She better get waaay more interesting in future episodes.

Its not that I hate it. I’m just feeling a bit underwhelmed.

I was very excited for the first ten minutes or so, then as my enthusiasm slowly started to flag, I  wondered why I wasn’t enjoying it more than I was. Mostly all this episode did was make me miss all the old characters, like Claire and her extended dysfunctional family. There’s no sense of awe or  joy or wonder, there’s more than a bit of confusion, and a lot of these people are distinctly lacking in personality.

I can’t  quite hate the show yet, because it just started,. and there’s still  room for improvement. Good Gob, but  is there room!