Heroes

Starring: Hayden Panettiere, Jack Coleman, Milo Ventimiglia, Ali Larter, Masi Oka, Sendhil Ramamurthy, Greg Grunberg, James Kyson Lee, Adrian Pasdar, Zachary Quinto, Noah Gray-Cabey, & Jimmy Jean-Louis

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Even casual readers of this blog will know that I hate superheroes, so why then did I watch the series Heroes? The truth is that I put it off for a long time, until I unlocked it's secret. They aren't really superheroes and the special abilities that some of the characters posses is only a small part of the story.

All around the country, ordinary people are discovering that they have remarkable abilities. Some see these abilities as the next natural step in human evolution, other see these people as a threat. The show begins with one group trying to understand their abilities and how to use them for good. A second group is trying to exploit there abilities for personal gain, while the third works for a group known as the company, which is trying to contain the whole situation.

From a TV standpoint, this show was really innovative with special effects and a large cast of future stars, but there in lied the problem. The show was so expensive to produce that by the fourth season, when the ratings started to fall off, the show was cancelled. However, thanks to streaming services like Netflix, the die-hard fans were able to prove their love for the show, and six years later, NBC has brought it back for a fifth season, which will supposedly tie up the loose ends from the season four cliffhanger.

The show is continuous and the multiple story lines are vast, so I won't go into them, but I will mention a few stand outs from the cast. Heroes launched the career of Zachary Quinto, who played the villian Syler. Syler has the power to absorb others abilities and become the most powerful of them all, only he is unable to focus leading him in many directions. Sometimes he's helpful, other times he has plans of world domination, and occasionally he just wants to know where he came from. Syler is the deepest, most interesting character of them all, going through a range of emotion and a love/hate relationship with the audience. The ability to portray such a complex character has led Quinto to superstardom and rightfully so.

Next is Masi Oka as Hiro Nakamura, the master of space and time. The Hiro character not only added a lot of much needed levity to the show, but also introduced writers to all kinds of possibilities, such as time travel and alternate histories. To me, these were some of the best story arks they had and it's all the more fun, when the guy leading the charge is hilarious.

Finally is Hayden Panettiere, as Clare Bennett, the cheerleader who can not be hurt. She's the character that most fans can relate to, because she's just a teenage girl caught between the factions. All she wants is a normal life, but can someone that can heal themselves ever truly be normal?

Heroes was terrific science fiction, which covered more story lines and topics in four years, then some shows have covered in twenty. The characters are always changing and the story is continuous, so don't skip episodes. There are constantly changing roles and relationships, which kept the series fresh, moving, and always entertaining. Even if you didn't like one of the story arks, there were still a half dozen more going on at the same time. Heroes is some of the best science fiction you will ever see on TV, it's just a shame that it only lasted four seasons. It is a perfect example of the networks continuing desire to go with cost over quality.