My Hero: Season One (review)

I guess it was inevitable: just as superhero stuff starts to be taken seriously (Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man, Bryan Singer’s X-Men), something was bound to come along to dumb it all down. And so we have this witless, desperate attempt at superhero humor from the BBC in the form of a sitcom about a crime-fighter in tights -- Thermoman, from planet Ultron! -- whose exploits around the globe can’t compare, apparently, to his mundane secret-identity life as “Irishman” George Sunday (Ardal O’Hanlon), mild-mannered health-store owner and boyfriend to nurse Janet Dawkins (Emily Joyce). Whether it’s getting delayed saving the world because his costume is in the laundry or dealing with Janet’s meltdown on the occasion of her 30th birthday, well, there’s no everyday event that cannot be made even more boring by the involvement of a superhero. The forced laugh track does nothing to improve the unfunny comedy and its reliance on stereotypes -- men are clueless! the Irish are stupid! women are children! All true fans of the superhero genre will want to throw themselves on a dagger of Kryptonite. Bonus features include a making-of featurette culled from British TV and an interview with star O’Hanlon. [buy at Amazon]

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