New episodes of both Heroes and My Own Worst Enemy air tonight on NBC, and I'm on the cusp of dropping both from my "must-see TV" list. Last evening, I watched last week's recorded episodes, an important factor in my viewing regimen these days, because--quite frankly--neither show deserves a full hour of my precious time, me being all busy these days solving the problems of the economy (step one: investors need to stop talking about the "fears of a recession;" we're in a recession NOW, asshats).
I don't buy the theory, postulated by magazines such as Entertainment Weekly, that "serial" dramas like Heroes suffered the most from the writers' strike earlier this year. If that argument includes the writers are a disgruntled bunch having a hard time getting back into writing after getting a basically crappy offer from the producers, then I'm more inclined to buy into it. But if it's just the standard "the show has been gone for too long" theory, no. Bad writing is bad writing.
Heroes has too many characters. Even when it was new, it had too many characters. The two most expendable--now and then--are Greg Grunberg's Matt Parker and Sendhil Ramamurthy's Mohinder Suresh. Parker is the least well-defined character in the bunch, and Mohinder has always been just someone there to explain the unexplainable.
But for my money, it's also time to put up or shut up with what has become the Laurel and Hardy of the series--and NOT in a good way--Hiro (Masi Oka) and Ando (James Kyson Lee). We had a glimpse of "Future Hiro" in the first series. Since then, all the promise this character showed then has been pissed away into comic relief. This year, once again, they also serve the dual purpose of exercising my finger on the fast-forward key of my remote.
Even during the second season, as the show continued to introduce new "heroes," the fans complained...it seemed like the producers heard them. Now we're into "Volume Three: Villains" and what do we get? EVEN. MORE. CHARACTERS. A whole slew of lame bad guys, most of them ripped off, power-wise, from existing comic book baddies. Annoying speedster Daphne (Brea Grant, seemingly a clone of Kristen Bell) is the Flash; Eric Doyle (David H. Lawrence XVII, yes, THE 17th!) is the Puppet Master; even newly revived daddy Petrelli (Robert Forster) is the Parasite. At least give us something original.
I think we all want to see the same thing on this show, the thing that we loved about the first season: this group of disparate people, drawn together by their shared uniqueness (pardon the oxymoron), fighting together against a common menace. I know it takes time to set that up, but I don't see that happening this season. With all the back and forth in time, all the added characters, all the changing of sides (Sylar is a good guy now? That move metaphorically castrates the character in one searing swoop; Peter is good AND bad; Mohinder is turning bad, but who cares?), there's barely enough space left to run the commercials. And oh, yeah...Milo Ventimiglia's over-the-top acting this season is bad enough...stop with having two of him on screen at the same time, please.
What's the solution? Beats me. It seems to me this series had it down pat in the first season. Then they got smacked by their own success and visions of spin-offs and syndication and licensing danced through their heads. I'll give the show another couple of weeks...but I don't know if I'll make it to the end of this "volume." The way the show is going, that word has a different connotation, a much more weighty one.
NBC's new Monday night series is My Own Worst Enemy starring Christian Slater (for the record, I am enjoying Chuck again this year, but I don't have much faith in it lasting too much longer). This is a spy drama which must have been pitched as True Lies meets Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The True Lies DNA is evident: The schlubby sidekick, the super-agent with a hidden second life, involving a loving wife and kids (Seriously--who cast the son? He looks like the offspring of the gardener.). It's an interesting premise: An assassin hidden inside a person. Slater is both Edward Albright and Henry Spivey, controlled by a chip implanted in his brain. Henry is the good guy, Edward the trained killer, turned off and on by a shadowy government agency (headed by James Cromwell and Alfre Woodard). Only the chip is broken and Henry and Edward exchange places at the worst possible times. You'd think hilarity--or at least hijinks--would ensue, but so far it's been Henry coming back when Edward has to kill/torture/maim someone, and Edward being around when it's time to perform husbandly duties with the comely wife of Henry, played by the comely Madchen Amick.
How many times can they do this? I'd have a much better time watching this knowing it was a finite series, with a definite ending, like the BBC's excellent Jekyll. I mean, where is this going to go? It's been on TWICE, and it's pretty much the same ol'/same ol' both times. And while Slater is a likable enough actor, I just don't think he's the guy for this job. I'm going to give this one more try--tonight--and then it's goodbye to both Henry and Edward. I guess I could say I'm of "two minds" on the show right now, but that would be TOO easy.