Somedays I really hate doing stuff on the web.

I just wrote this great post all about how I just watched the premiere of the new show Heroes over at Yahoo TV and how much I LOVED LOVED LOVED LOVEDLOVEDLOVED it, and then I saw this thingy at the end labled "tags" and so I clicked on the innocuous looking "?" button and whoops! There goes the whole entry.

So, rather than posting the whole damn thing again, lemme just say that if you like well done, CHARACTER-driven drama, ever wishes you could have superpowers and either have or are willing to make a hole in your schedule Monday nights at 9/8 Central, this is something you NEED to see.

Understand, with the advent of DVRs/TiVo, I've become virtually unable to watch any TV show at the time it's broadcast.  I tape so much that I often end up watching stuff I've taped while taping more stuff - but this show is so good I plan to make it real "appointment TV" and watch it when it actually airs - I don't want to wait a minute longer than I have to to see it.

Some of what I love the most about it:

* Yeah, it's "sci-fi" and will probalby be something of an "action-adventure" show in the long run, but, at least in the premiere, what special effects there were were used sparingly and subtly.  These people have powers and abilities, but the makers of the show have found ways to show what they do without having to use a dazzling array of graphic effects - stuff just ... happens.  I'm sure a lot of that has to do with TV show budgets as compared to movie budgets - who cares - they do it quite well, and it helps the story stay more focused on the characters themselves rather than what they can do.

* The charactes are believable, real people, and there people you can care about.  Hiro (what a great name for a character in this show) is wonderful!  My favourite exchange in the whole episode is when one of his co-workers asks him "Why do you want to be different" and he responds "Why do you want to be the same" - beautiful, isn't it?  And such a perfect summary of one of the biggest sources of conflict in the world.

* This show has been written about all over the net.  NBC has put out who knows how many promos for it, and their website has about 15 or 20 I watched just tonight. I've read just about everything I could find, and watched all the clips I could find, and even with all that, by the end of the show, I discovered that not everything in this jewel had been "spoiled" yet.  There were a few things that I didn't even come close to guessing might happen, which was great!

* It's by Tim Kring, who also does Crossing Jordan.  Now, CJ isn't a perfect show - there have been some serious stumbles along the way (Dad, the "long-lost" brother and mom's murder mystery anyone?), but through it all, Tim has stayed not only true to the characters, but he's also developed them in very organic ways.  Jordan is still a rebel who is terrified of commitment, but she's started thinking more before breaking rules - having discovered that they can have some benefits - and she's becoming more willing to risk trusting someone enough to let herself fall in love.  Lily was a kinda scatter-brained, shy, wallflowery receptionist when the show started who's grown into a woman to be reckoned with when she believes she's in the right, who still remains happily outside the mainstream, but can "blend in" more when necessary, and who has worked hard to become a strong, tender grief counselor who can truly make a difference in people's lives.  Macy has gone from veritable Rock of Gibralter Who Is Never Wrong to a flawed man, realizing he has been a less than ideal father and looking at himself from the doldrums of middle-age wondering if he likes at all what he sees.  Yet when I go back and watch seasons 1 episodes, I don't feel like I'm stepping into a room full of strangers - the essence of what each character was to start with is still there, but you can also see how each involved into who they are now.

* Kring is also able to phase out elements of a show that aren't working without disrupting the show itself.  When Crossing Jordan first came on the air, it's central "conceit" was that Jordan solved crimes largely by taking the evidence she found during her autopsy and forensic investigations and then "play-acting" the crime with her father.  One would play perp and other vic and by submerging themselves in the act of the crime, they could determine who of their suspects had done it. Sometime around the end of the 2nd season, Kring either decided that the "gimmick" wasn't working or the fact that Ken Howard was leaving made it necessary to drop that element, but either way, it stopped being a feature of the show.  The thing was, even though I watch CJ regularly - and watch a lot of the A&E repeats - it wasn't until an episode last season when Jordan and two of her friend did a similar re-enactment that I realized they hadn't being doing them for a while.  It took me almost *3* seasons to realize that the element of the show that was supposed to have been what "set it apart" from other crime-drama shows wasn't being used anymore.  And I hadn't noticed it because by the time it went away, it was really just an "oh yeah, we're doing this thing now" bit to the story - the focus of the story had become the characters themselves, and it didn't need "gimmicks" to keep the show interesting any more.  Given that "Heroes" is character-driven from the start, and that they're not going with a bunch of special effects out of the gate, its giving it a great foundation

Well,I'd say that's kind of a nutshell view of my thoughts right now, but that's more like a freaking coconut tree (I have issues with brevity, though, y'know)

At any rate - here's the point of this whole post:


Watch HEROES Monday Night at 9pm/8pm Central on NBC - it'll be worth it!