Emma
12-04-2006, 09:41 PM
<img src="http://www.fanbolt.com/forums/images/avatars/heroes/101806heroes11.jpg" width="85" height="85" vspace="5" hspace="5" align="left" border="0" alt="Heroes, NBC"> With some shows, you wait forever for payoffs. With "Heroes," you catch a buzz before each break. NBC has achieved the networks' dream: It makes you wish commercials would come.
The fall's biggest hit is also its most creative, and that gives giddy hope to those of us less motivated by dollar signs than delirious fun. Tonight's mid-season finale of "Heroes" (originals resume Jan. 22) offers a full-throttle thrill in every segment - a moment that startles you, amazes you, provides the kind of adrenaline rush TV just doesn't deliver anymore. Not that we're not impressed by today's thoughtful dramas or one-camera comedies, but we miss the old visceral jolt of a "Miami Vice" or "All in the Family."
"Heroes" is funny, too - tonight we get several more "I have something I have to tell you" confessions - and it's certainly soul deep. But it's also a gut grabber. There's no way to predict what's coming, not with the way shocks are shrewdly unleashed by ace director John Badham ("Saturday Night Fever," "Point of No Return"), back serving the medium that launched him ("Night Gallery").
The show's special-power characters keep coming together around the save-the-cheerleader-save-the-world prediction. As they discover each other, they deduce more of their destiny, their abilities and their limitations, as crowd-pleaser Hiro (Masi Oka) sadly learned last week. Midland, Texas, is getting mighty crowded, what with shatterproof cheerleader Claire (Hayden Panettiere) saved from the evil Sylar (Zachary Quinto) by borrowed-power Peter (Milo Ventimiglia), fresh in from New York, trailed by brother Nathan (Adrian Pasdar). Thought-reading cop Matt (Greg Grunberg) comes from the West Coast to investigate. Time-tripping Hiro is on hand from Japan, soon joined by SoHo future-painter Isaac Mendez (Santiago Cabrera), while Claire's shadowy dad (Jack Coleman), his mind-wiping Haitian friend (Jimmy Jean-Louis) and that befriending Brooklyn chick (Nora Zehetner) have cornered power-pilfering Sylar in a dungeon. Niki (Ali Larter), D.L. (Leonard Roberts) and Micah (Noah Gray-Cabey) reunite on the run. Even Mohinder (Sendhil Ramamurthy) is pulled back in.
<a href="http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/tv/ny-ettvtwo5001849dec04,0,7582788.story?coll=ny-entertainment-headlines" target="_blank">Click here for more!</a>
The fall's biggest hit is also its most creative, and that gives giddy hope to those of us less motivated by dollar signs than delirious fun. Tonight's mid-season finale of "Heroes" (originals resume Jan. 22) offers a full-throttle thrill in every segment - a moment that startles you, amazes you, provides the kind of adrenaline rush TV just doesn't deliver anymore. Not that we're not impressed by today's thoughtful dramas or one-camera comedies, but we miss the old visceral jolt of a "Miami Vice" or "All in the Family."
"Heroes" is funny, too - tonight we get several more "I have something I have to tell you" confessions - and it's certainly soul deep. But it's also a gut grabber. There's no way to predict what's coming, not with the way shocks are shrewdly unleashed by ace director John Badham ("Saturday Night Fever," "Point of No Return"), back serving the medium that launched him ("Night Gallery").
The show's special-power characters keep coming together around the save-the-cheerleader-save-the-world prediction. As they discover each other, they deduce more of their destiny, their abilities and their limitations, as crowd-pleaser Hiro (Masi Oka) sadly learned last week. Midland, Texas, is getting mighty crowded, what with shatterproof cheerleader Claire (Hayden Panettiere) saved from the evil Sylar (Zachary Quinto) by borrowed-power Peter (Milo Ventimiglia), fresh in from New York, trailed by brother Nathan (Adrian Pasdar). Thought-reading cop Matt (Greg Grunberg) comes from the West Coast to investigate. Time-tripping Hiro is on hand from Japan, soon joined by SoHo future-painter Isaac Mendez (Santiago Cabrera), while Claire's shadowy dad (Jack Coleman), his mind-wiping Haitian friend (Jimmy Jean-Louis) and that befriending Brooklyn chick (Nora Zehetner) have cornered power-pilfering Sylar in a dungeon. Niki (Ali Larter), D.L. (Leonard Roberts) and Micah (Noah Gray-Cabey) reunite on the run. Even Mohinder (Sendhil Ramamurthy) is pulled back in.
<a href="http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/tv/ny-ettvtwo5001849dec04,0,7582788.story?coll=ny-entertainment-headlines" target="_blank">Click here for more!</a>