‘Heroes’ blogging: “Dying of the Light”

Why does TV suck so much these days? I’m so bored with Heroes. Here’s my thing: I want TV that demands that I actually do nothing else but watch it, that does not let me do other things -- like checking email or ironing laundry or whatever -- while I’m watching. So little TV demands that of me these days. (Here’s what does: Pushing Daisies. Mad Men. And that’s it for American TV at the moment. That sucks.) Heroes used to be that way. Now each episode feels like a whole buncha tedious water-treading to get to the one intriguing moment at the end.

Mr. Petrelli steals Peter’s power. Okay, cool. But that’s the very last thing that happens here. Everyone else is jumping around in time and running fast to everywhere and nothing ever changes -- it’s like there’s an instant counter to every move that anyone attempts, and so hardly anything ever advances.

The marionette guy? Christ, could this be any more monotonous? Gee, a man who can control people, and uses this power to force women to act like they like him? I appreciate that this may be every nerd’s dream, but surely even most nerds realize that that would be a hollow dream that would quickly become a terrible farce, and one not worth living. Is this really how we want to expand valuable dramatic time?

Why bring back Adam only to kill him off? Why fake us out with Hiro’s fake badassness when we’ve already seen -- in the future Hiro who was eliminated when the destruction of New York was averted -- that, yes, he can actually be badass? Are we really meant to care about Matt and Daphne, and if so, can’t they be more interesting? Why is Mohinder so bad?

Oh, man, and brothers fighting? Sylar and Peter going at it? *yawn*

Who’s goin’ evil? Oh, who the hell cares anymore?

(Watch full episodes at NBC’s official site for the show.)

(next: Chapter Seven: “Eris Quod Sum”)