This is going to have to be a short one, as I’m relentlessly busy, but wanted to at least jot down a few thoughts on the Heroes 2nd season premiere.

HEROES S02 E1: “Four Months Later”

‘Significant underwhelmed’ is probably the best phrase to use here. It’s yet more proof that series creator Tim Kring is one of the weakest writers on the show, and yet more proof that Heroes is the kind of show that needs significant traction in its story in order to function. Admittedly, the opener of season 1 didn’t really impress me either, but I guess I wasn’t expecting such horribly manipulative nonsense like Noah Bennet finally going postal on his copy shop boss, or the somewhat predictable shock that Claire’s new anti-establishment acquaintance (and almost guaranteed future boyfriend) has an ability himself (and, rather weirdly, seemed to have mastered the art of flying in a very camp, Peter Pan stylee…). There were, admittedly, some nice moments- Stephen ‘King Midas’ Tobolowsky showing off his power was one of the little touches the show is best at, and I wasn’t expecting Adrian Pasdar to be back so soon– in fact, with Peter Petrelli’s regenerative powers, I was actually laying money on the other brother turning up with amnesia. I will freely admit, I wasn’t expecting Peter to turn up manacled in a cargo container in Cork (I smell some incredibly bad accents just around the corner), but there was a certain sense of dead space in this episode, of the writing spending most of its time simply putting things in place rather than genuinely grabbing our attention. While the first episodes of Buffy seasons could sometimes be uneven, they understood the necessity of reinventing, updating and almost acting as a new pilot episode for the show. This may have brought new viewers up to speed, but even the murder mystery felt somewhat rote, while the plotline with Hiro stuck in the past with David Anders (Sark from Alias, once again demonstrating his rather creaky and overdone English accent) as his childhood hero seems to be heading in a rather woefully comic direction. But, as I said, I felt like this last time, and by the end of episode 2, my jaw was on the floor. All I can say is, they’d better hurry up…