Heroes season one is one of those shows I think about more than I probably should, yes, I'll say it now it is one of the greats. Not "great for a superhero show," just great, full stop.
Remember what TV was like in 2006, No Marvel Cinematic Universe and no overload of superhero entertainment on every streaming services, but Heroes came in and asked a simple but electric question: what if ordinary people just... woke up with superpowers one day? No radioactive spider and no billionaire with a cave full of gadgets. A nurse in Texas. A girl who cheers on sports teams in California. A man stuck in a cubicle in Japan with a dream of bettering himself. That's the hook and indeed it's still effective.
It wasn't the powers per se but the groundedness of everyone who carried them, that's what made season one special. Hiro Nakamura is still one of the most fun and entertaining characters I've seen on a tv screen, He is the emotional core of the season, a bored office drone whose arc will take him from being a man who thinks he cannot save the world to one who truly can, with a samurai sword and just plain old hard work, He's one to cheer for, And there was cheerleader Claire Bennet who cannot die? Along with her relationship with her adoptive father, Noah Bennet (the guy with the horn rimmed glasses, the guy everyone just calls HRG), is some of the greatest slow-burn tension I've ever seen. Is he trying to keep her safe, or to keep her himself? The show never puts the easy question, and that ambiguity is the point.
But let's be honest , does the show fumble some things ? Sure, the pacing in the back half stretches thin in places, and not every character gets the runway they deserve, Some of the side stories are fillers to get to the end point of "Save the cheerleader, save the world, however here's the thing, even at its weakest, season one never loses its central nerve, that ordinary people, thrown into extraordinary circumstances, will always default to their humanity first. Powers are just the amplifier.
Now let's talk about Sylar for a second!!! One of the top villains the TV show has made in the 2000s. Not because he is loud or theatrical, but because he's terrifyingly quiet. A man who desires what others have and will open anybody's skull just to get it, In each scene that he appears in, the tone of the show cools down. Zachary Quinto was no mere actor, he constructed fear from nothing.
I heard some people say that it was 'over too soon', that it never had this magic again in future seasons, and I agree with some of them, they are correct about that, but that's not necessarily a criticism of season one, it is a vote of confidence in the standards set, there is no judging a mountain by its own size.
What Heroes season one did, that so few shows manage, is make you believe genuinely believe that the person next to you on the train could be capable of something impossible, It was an exceptionally human dream, the possibility that our everyday, mundane existence could be hiding a great secret, It is more than just good superhero storytelling. Now, that's good storytelling, right?
I still refer to it almost two decades later! Not just for the sake of "Memory Lane" but for "Stands The Test Of Time"! “Save the cheerleader, save the world” still rings true for me the first time.
Some seasons of television you watch, this one, you carry with you.
Other images are screenshots from my movie player
Rating: 100/100
Originally posted through scrobble.life/tv.
