Intuitive aptitude
I watched 9 hours of Heroes last night, and am primed to watch at least four more hours today. I really can't tell you how much I love being able to marathon a show, especially one that I am not entirely invested in. When you're watching a show on DVD, it's fine if you hit an episode that didn't impress you - you just move on to the next one. I feel like this is deeply important to my successful viewing of Heroes, I show that I have shied away from until now because various smart people warned me away from it because of its gender issues. And oh, wow, are there gender issues. So many that I would totally have stopped watching a few episodes into season one, despite my curiosity about the plot. Sometimes there's only so many steps back to take for perspective. But I started watching the show for one reason, one character in particular, and that's what continues to carry me through: a shadowy bogeyman who cuts people's heads open. I'm once again hooked by a villain.
Seriously, I'm having trouble typing because I think about Sylar and I just kind of start flailing. I love bread crumbs villain introductions: a tape with his name on it, a creepy message on an answering machine, a key to a perfect (and them promptly emptied out) apartment, a series of creeptastic serial killings, and a guy in a baseball cap whose face remains almost entirely in shadow, even when it seems like he's about to kill two of our main characters. I watched nine episodes in one day, and only got about 5 minutes of Quinto, the majority of which his face obscured by shadow, and, still, it was totally, totally worth it.
I'm spoiled for the end of the first season, which I'm actually kind of grateful for, because I know that Sylar has a good arc - Heroes feels like the kind of show who can talk the big talk and then spill its mytharc like a cup of coffee on a slippery set of stairs - and so I'm comfortable getting invested, knowing at least that I won't suffer from pangs of disappointed hopes (seen the finale of Battlestar Galactica, STARBUCK?), at least where Sylar is concerned.
The women, though, oh, the women. I get that the idea of Claire as a cheerleader is both meant to be shockingly ordinary and anti-superhero, but a cheerleader who you can beat up as much as you want is still a troubling character to create. And Niki, the single mother who has no other way to earn money than to strip on the internet, and who, in fact, has a twin self, who takes over in moments of rage, who does things that a "good girl" would never do is deeply troubling. I think the first and most significant problem is that Claire and Niki, taken on their own, are poorly sketched but potentially interesting characters; however, when you line them up against the other heroes, their plots become degrading and offensive. Hiro gets to the future New York to learn about what he's supposed to do to help save the world; Claire gets attempted rape and accidental homicide, and comes back to life exposed on an autopsy table. Mohinder gets the mysteries of an estranged father; Niki is forced to strip for mobsters, get attacked, black out, kill mobsters, and bury them in the desert while her son sleeps in the backseat.
It doesn't help that the supporting cast of women are almost entirely defined by other male characters. I don't know anything about Simone except that she has a dying father, a heroine addict boyfriend, and a potential love interested in Peter. Claire gets a stereotypically wretched rival (who gets killed by Sylar!) and a fellow-victim confidant, who is there to show Claire that she really should crash the quarterback's car to stop him from hurting someone else, oh, and a mother who mostly seems to care about breeding her prize dog. Even the conversation Niki has with Micah's grandmother is all about Micah's father. Nathan Petrelli's wife? Injured an accident that her husband caused, stays out of the public view during her husband's campaign so she doesn't make him look weak. Even Matt's wife (Matt, who keep calling him Weiss, oops) has a defining character moment - having an affair with Matt's superior. I think the only supporting female I don't loathe when she's on the screen is Matt's FBI partner Audrey, who, unless the plot clues are leading me astray, seems to have some unresolved issues with Sylar.
I'm only working with what I've seen so far, but I've heard things get hinkier in the second season. And I know I'm being harsh, but it's hard to let the little things go when the big things are Claire and Niki being attacked, assaulted, and in need of rescue that comes from something outside of themselves.
I have a feeling I wouldn't have kept watching Heroes if I'd started watching the first season it was airing. Like Dollhouse, the amount of criticism I had for each episode would have eclipsed my enjoyment and I would have eventually just given up, despite my curiosity and despite the elements of the show that I thought were both compelling and engaging. Watching Heroes on DVD, I can mainline episodes and keep a distance from the parts of the show that I find displeasing. I can stay up until 1 in the morning waiting to get a glimpse of Sylar, enjoying a smaller part of a larger story that is managing, despite the other inadequacies, to keep my attention. Also, to scare the fuck out of me.
Seriously, I'm having trouble typing because I think about Sylar and I just kind of start flailing. I love bread crumbs villain introductions: a tape with his name on it, a creepy message on an answering machine, a key to a perfect (and them promptly emptied out) apartment, a series of creeptastic serial killings, and a guy in a baseball cap whose face remains almost entirely in shadow, even when it seems like he's about to kill two of our main characters. I watched nine episodes in one day, and only got about 5 minutes of Quinto, the majority of which his face obscured by shadow, and, still, it was totally, totally worth it.
I'm spoiled for the end of the first season, which I'm actually kind of grateful for, because I know that Sylar has a good arc - Heroes feels like the kind of show who can talk the big talk and then spill its mytharc like a cup of coffee on a slippery set of stairs - and so I'm comfortable getting invested, knowing at least that I won't suffer from pangs of disappointed hopes (seen the finale of Battlestar Galactica, STARBUCK?), at least where Sylar is concerned.
The women, though, oh, the women. I get that the idea of Claire as a cheerleader is both meant to be shockingly ordinary and anti-superhero, but a cheerleader who you can beat up as much as you want is still a troubling character to create. And Niki, the single mother who has no other way to earn money than to strip on the internet, and who, in fact, has a twin self, who takes over in moments of rage, who does things that a "good girl" would never do is deeply troubling. I think the first and most significant problem is that Claire and Niki, taken on their own, are poorly sketched but potentially interesting characters; however, when you line them up against the other heroes, their plots become degrading and offensive. Hiro gets to the future New York to learn about what he's supposed to do to help save the world; Claire gets attempted rape and accidental homicide, and comes back to life exposed on an autopsy table. Mohinder gets the mysteries of an estranged father; Niki is forced to strip for mobsters, get attacked, black out, kill mobsters, and bury them in the desert while her son sleeps in the backseat.
It doesn't help that the supporting cast of women are almost entirely defined by other male characters. I don't know anything about Simone except that she has a dying father, a heroine addict boyfriend, and a potential love interested in Peter. Claire gets a stereotypically wretched rival (who gets killed by Sylar!) and a fellow-victim confidant, who is there to show Claire that she really should crash the quarterback's car to stop him from hurting someone else, oh, and a mother who mostly seems to care about breeding her prize dog. Even the conversation Niki has with Micah's grandmother is all about Micah's father. Nathan Petrelli's wife? Injured an accident that her husband caused, stays out of the public view during her husband's campaign so she doesn't make him look weak. Even Matt's wife (Matt, who keep calling him Weiss, oops) has a defining character moment - having an affair with Matt's superior. I think the only supporting female I don't loathe when she's on the screen is Matt's FBI partner Audrey, who, unless the plot clues are leading me astray, seems to have some unresolved issues with Sylar.
I'm only working with what I've seen so far, but I've heard things get hinkier in the second season. And I know I'm being harsh, but it's hard to let the little things go when the big things are Claire and Niki being attacked, assaulted, and in need of rescue that comes from something outside of themselves.
I have a feeling I wouldn't have kept watching Heroes if I'd started watching the first season it was airing. Like Dollhouse, the amount of criticism I had for each episode would have eclipsed my enjoyment and I would have eventually just given up, despite my curiosity and despite the elements of the show that I thought were both compelling and engaging. Watching Heroes on DVD, I can mainline episodes and keep a distance from the parts of the show that I find displeasing. I can stay up until 1 in the morning waiting to get a glimpse of Sylar, enjoying a smaller part of a larger story that is managing, despite the other inadequacies, to keep my attention. Also, to scare the fuck out of me.