[Hello, friends. Thanks to a bitter contract dispute between Time Warner Cable and Austin's local affiliate, I'm currently unable to watch any NBC programming, including Heroes. Yes, I suppose I could go out and retrofit my TV with a regular old antenna; granted, I could probably look into switching cable providers. But I'm optimistic this whole thing will resolve itself soon–and it damn well better before 30 Rock premieres–and that I'll be back to the grind before you know it. In the meantime, I'm handing the reins to my critical better Noel Murray, whose penetrating insights and elegant wordplay will throw all of my shortcomings into stark relief and immediately make you forget all about me. Hail to the usurper! –Sean O'Neal]
Usurper? I think not. More like Last Man Standing. The only reason I was tapped to fill in tonight is that I seem to be the only TV Clubber besides Sean who's still watching Heroes–and to be honest, after last week's episode, I was planning on dropping the show from my TiVo queue. At least I think I was. I mean… I wanted to quit. I really did. But there's something about Heroes' sublime silliness–and, I'll be honest, its often way-cool special effects–that keeps me watching, even though I spend half of each episode tearing my hair out.
The biggest problem plaguing Heroes since the start of Season Two has been the sense that Tim Kring and his writing staff only know one way to tell a Heroes story: Time travel, visions of an apocalyptic future, brother against brother, good guys becoming bad guys becoming good guys, critical wounds becoming mere flesh wounds, pointless new characters introduced and dispatched, Parkman worrying, Hiro bumbling, Sylar sneering, Suresh doing nothing, big finish, reboot. After the justified drubbing "Chapter Two: Generations" took, I'd hoped that Season Three would be a little more creative about its approach, but either Kring is stubbornly, admirably committed to repeating the same patterns for some higher purpose, or he really has no idea what the fuck he's doing.
Tonight's episode was such a mish-mash of standard Heroes themes and plot elements that it was practically an homage to itself. Jumping back and forth between Now and Four Years From Now, "I Am Become Death" continues the world-gone-topsy-turvy tomfoolery that Season Three has been pushing hard. Last week, Noah Bennett was partnering up with Sylar to capture the recently escaped supervillains; this week, Scar-Peter told Nice-Peter that he needed to seek out Sylar for help in preventing Suresh's superheromaker drug from sweeping the world, and destroying it. Also in Four Years From Now: Claire still has dark hair (and a serious mad-on for Peter, scar or no), Nathan is president (and married to Tracy), and Parkman has a kid with super-speedster Daphne (and is still looking after the now-tweenage Molly).