What happens in Texas

[redscharlach]

Despite the fact that I rarely do anything but watch the telly, I'm stuck in a televisual time lag this week. However, I've now managed to get caught up with James May's Toy Stories, with the full story of his plasticine garden (conclusion: I still adore him), and also with last week's guest appearance of a certain augustly buttocked personage on The Sarah Jane Adventures (conclusion: I still find it impossible to give a hoot about The Sarah Jane Adventures. Sorry, folks).

And speaking of TV time lags, this week's episode of Heroes also took a step back into the past, albeit it a little further than BBC iPlayer normally allows.

Here are a few thoughts about Once Upon A Time In Texas:

• Goodness me, we're back in the Burnt Toast Diner and it's season 1 all over again. Despite the fact that the plot fumbled the complexities more than a bit, there were lots of things to love in the set up: Hiro/Charlie being unutterably sweet together, Hiro having his little Quantum Leap moment, the running gag about Future Hiro's sword (or lack thereof), Ando being clueless (what's Japanese for plus ça change?), the part where I desperately rummage in my memory to work out who had met who in previous episodes... ah, the memories.
  
  
• And of course, season 1 Sylar and that darn cap again. Strictly speaking, he probably should have been even more growly and violent and somewhat less urbane and funny back then, but my love for him is so freefloating and pointless that I just don't care. He's served with the original watch (yay!) and a few retconned brain surgery skills with a big side order of handwaving. (The latter will be needed to ignore the fact that if he could understand brains without cutting heads open, his entire modus operandi would be shot to hell.) I adored him and Hiro having their back-alley showdown, and "I'm a doctor" (well, Hiro's the Time Lord, so you're more like the Master, surely?), and his weird thoughtful moment after he cuts out Charlie's clot, and... well, everything.
  
  
• "You're alone. No one will mourn your death. No one will shed a tear." - Well, apart from the 50,000 wailing fangirls and boys, that is. Hiro's predicted future is, of course, based on the fake funeral from the end of last season; little does he know that there are actually MORE Sylars now than there were before, not less. And besides, Sylar's already come up with an answer to this conundrum, and it's not "ooh, I must make people like me!": it's "in that case, I refuse to die, ha!" And even if he's forced to spend eternity sitting alone in the kitchen at parties, at least he's got Tahitian pancakes to keep him warm.
  
  
• So, can Hiro bribe Sylar into fixing his brain issues too? Or will Peter get there first? Or will Sylar and Peter have to engage in seventeen rounds of no-holds-barred naked jelly-wrestling to determine who gets the job, possibly leaving Hiro to expire quietly in the background while the viewing public are distracted? I do hope it's the latter. (Sorry, Hiro. My hormones want what they want.)
  
  
• Given this show's cavalier attitude to the space-time continuum, I'm going to roundly ignore the predestination paradox created by the fact that if three-years-ago!Hiro comes back from three years plus six months ago and is told that Charlie is alive, present-day!Hiro won't ever go back in time to fix her death in the first place. Instead, I am just going to sit here and repeat the words "Wibbly wobbly timey wimey" to myself until it all goes away.
  
  
• Of course, there are plot-protection reasons for yanking Charlie into the present day, so that Don Qui-Hiro can keep questing after his Dulcinea for a while longer, but I do find it frustrating that she's basically still a helpless chick waiting to be rescued. And if the men of Heroes are anything to go by, she could be waiting for a loooong time. (I'm picturing her hanging out at an interdimensional bar with Caitlin, discussing how their respective boyfriends should never be left in charge of anything for more than two minutes.)
  
  
• This week's weakest element by far was Bennet's plotline. I see why he's hard to rewind back to his semi-evil season 1 self, seeing as we now know he's Mainly Decent with the occasional lapse into Just Doing My Morally Gray Job. But it was massively hard to raise any interest in his half-hearted workplace flirtation with his previously non-existent colleague, since it clearly couldn't have any proper consequences, otherwise we'd have seen them. At least they didn't actually get it together, which would have been way out of character, I think. Still, it goes to show that every workplace needs its own Haitian, particularly after the Christmas party.
  
  
• Got a bit excited that Lancelot Isaac was going to be in it. Got a bit disappointed when I realized it was only in repeated footage. Bah.
  
  
• Ha ha, endless hilarity that Samuel's first squashed butterfly is Mohinder! I'd be tempted to leave him squashed, but that's just me. At least it's a cast-iron excuse for his absence so far: "Sorry, was unable to attend any previous episodes due to being extensively DED. Love, Mohinder." It's a wild stab in the dark, but I'm guessing that he may not stay that way for long.
  
  
• In conclusion: the first episode of this volume to have a really "Ooooh!" premise. A bit of a shame, then, that the execution was more "Oh" than "Ooooh". It's a subtle vowel difference, but SO important...