 | Network: | NBC |
| First Run: | September 25, 2006 - Present | |
| Genre: | Adventure/Drama/Fantasy/Sci-Fi | |
| Time Slot: | Philippine TV's C/S Channel: Mondays, 9:00 PM |
The makers of this show made a good decision to preview this series in a comic convention. Which is why the buzz was very strong even before it aired. Well written episodes increased the buzz that made people in other parts of the world, like the Philippines, want to see it too. I was obviously one of them, and it helped that I managed to catch the first episode when it aired on the C/S channel in 2007. I was immediately hooked!
Season 1
First, it is a superhero type of story, next it was sci-fi. What I really liked was that the heroes start out as ordinary people, who just happen to find out they have powers. It makes the characters accessible - they could easily be your neighbor, your classmate, your officemate, or even your relative. It was fun watching them figure out what to do with their powers, as well as realize that there is an organization that knows what they are, even if the people close to them don't. There is also something to love, or if not that, something charismatic about each character - even the antagonists. The viewer can't help but want to know more about these people, and why they are what they are. Proof of how well-written the characters are is that fans even remember the personalities that appear only briefly in an episode (like the people Sylar kills).
My favorite character is easily Hiro Nakamura. He's a true blue sci-fi geek who is comfortable with, and enjoys, having the power to bend space and time. He and Ando Masahashi form some kind of in-house comedy team... since the skeptical Ando finds himself being dragged from one trouble to another by his best friend's eagerness and insistence on fulfilling his "destiny".
My next favorite character is Nathan Petrelli, a character whose attitude about his ability to fly is a complete opposite of Hiro's. A lawyer running for political office, Nathan doesn't want anyone to know about his "freakiness", and would rather show the American public that his is a normal, squeaky clean American family. It is therefore funny to watch him try to deal with his mother and younger brother Peter getting into trouble and getting the Petrelli name in the news for the wrong reasons. Love how he squirms with uneasiness whenever Peter attempts to fly, knowing that he has the power his brother dreams of having.
Imagine how delighted I am whenever Hiro and Nathan meet, usually starting with Hiro addressing the other as "Flying Man!", followed by Nathan shushing him up.
Season 2
In the first season, it was revealed that some of the heroes are offspring of people who also have powers, and a group of this older generation even set up their own organization. It made the plot more interesting and raised a lot of questions.
In this season, the two generations meet and collide. This means an expansion of the world of our heroes ... more characters, and a timeline that goes as far back as 400 years. It is also a lot about powerplay.
However, one big reason I liked Season 1 was because every hero was just getting familiar with his/her abilities. In this season, our heroes, old and new, are already familiar with their powers, and this series has therefore evolved into the usual superheroes vs. supervillains type of story. Monica Dawson, Maya Herrera and her brother Alejandro are the new set of heroes learning about their powers, but their character development here isn't as good as that of the heroes in the first season. The season has ended, and although Monica shows huge promise in the grand scheme of things, I'm still wondering what Maya will be able to contribute to the world with her powers... unless she can control it to just affect one person in a room and then kill Sylar. Or, like the "exploding man", unwittingly cause the death of many.
With Season 2 over, the only way to get through the lull and feed one's Heroes addiction till Season 3 starts is explore the Heroes websites.
The Main Website: http://www.nbc.com/Heroes/
I'd like to say I'm a hard-core Heroes fan. Unfortunately I can't. You have to immerse yourself in the pile of data on their website to do that. And that task is no joke since apart from the usual character blogs, photo galleries, wallpaper downloads, behind the scenes look and brief backgrounders provided by other shows' sites, NBC presents an alternate universe where the companies mentioned in the series have their own websites, and a different story line is unraveling on the web that TV viewers don't see.
To start with, the NBC site is divided into the "Official" and the "Evolutions" area. I think the first one deals with anything tackled in the TV series, while the latter offers the other stuff. Actually, the line dividing the two is muddy to me.
The website has graphic novels that present not only background stories for the major characters, but also for characters that show up briefly in the TV series. I believe some major characters in the novels are not even mentioned in the TV episodes. These novels are updated even way after a season has ended on TV, and gives the fan an idea of what will happen in the next season.
Other sites:
9th Wonders: The Official/"Unofficial" fan site where the people involved in the creation of the show communicate with the fans.
Primatech Paper Company: In Season 1, you could find a small, unobtrusive ad in the website for Primatech that is linked to this site. The number they show actually works, and the callers were given a password to be entered in the "jobs" page. On that page, fans filled out a form and a personality test. This is actually some form of newsletter sign up since the participants eventually get messages about hidden links in the site, as well as other new sites, as the show progresses. The character Hana Gitelman is the one supposedly contacting the people who have signed up. She appears to be hacking into the Primatech's server with the agenda to bring down "The Company".
The Heroes Season 1 walk-through at the Evolutions section details the messages released by Hana on how to access the hidden files. More details could be found in this wiki page: http://heroeswiki.com/Primatechpaper.com
In Season 2, the ads are gone and there is a just a link to the site from the Evolutions area. Primatech now has an announcement that Noah Bennet does not work for them, and they have stopped "hiring". Although the website's Season 1 walkthrough claims the files on the "subjects" have disappeared, the link to the old Assignment Tracker has been moved to this announcement page. The "About Us" link now points to the new Assignment Tracker 2.0.
You can watch what Elle saw in Primatech's CISCO Security System Cameras here: http://www.primatechpaper.com/security/
Activating Evolution site: Although now listed on the main Heroes Evolution page, the link to this site was initially distributed in a message to those who signed up at the Primatech Paper site. This is supposedly run by Mohinder Suresh, and although it also functions as his blog, it deals mainly with the "evolution" theory. Interviews with real scientists can be found here.
Yamagato Fellowship: Claiming to be the brainchild of Kaito Nakamura, this website is a compilation of stories on heroes around the world, whether they are from myth, legend or history. When it was first launched, the "message from the president" was from Kaito Nakamura. When he was killed in the series, the website reflected this by posting a new welcome message - this time from his daughter Kimiko Nakamura, the new president of Yamagato Industries, and by default the president of Yamagato Fellowhip. This site mainly talks about Hiro Nakamura's idol: Takezo Kensei.
VotePetrelli.com: No American politician runs for office without a website these days, and that includes Nathan Petrelli. Has a biography on the character. A number of the links, active during Season 1, are now dead.
The Corinthian Hotel and Casino Website: This is the casino owned by Linderman. After his death, the site now states that the place is closed and scheduled for destruction. Hana has "hacked" into the site and posted a link to a video of the building's demolition on the main page. Her chats with Micah (Sanders) are posted in the "About" page. The "Gaming" page has Chat 2 but clicking on the other links show that the online games actually work. The "Titan Club" page reveals that by winning a lot on the games the player becomes a member of the club, and have access to Linderman's Archives.
Ofcourse, after Hana and Micah have hacked into it, Chat 4 gives us access to the main page of the archives. A link to the archives can also be found in the Season 2 Walk-through.
Linderman's Archive: Micah provides the password to get in. This site has images of 31 of Isaac Mendez' paintings, as well as Takezo Kensei's sword.
Following the chat between Hana and Micah, we get instructions to view the Gitelman family tree. The post-its give instructions with this template: "Refer to
Blogs:
Beaming Beeman's blog: Blog of one of the show's producers/directors.
Hana Gitelman's blog: Hana physically died in Season 1 but her mind did not, as it still maintained this blog in Season 2 up to the time the online novels revealed she died a second time while trapped and deleted in The Company's mainframe. This site was first announced in Season 1 to those who have signed up with Primatech. Now, the link is shown on the Evolutions area of the main Heroes website. The early entries are now archived and some of the links are dead. The "About" link opens up Hana's Myspace profile.
Cogitoergosum: This is presumably a blog by Richard Drucker. A major character in the graphic novels during Season 2, he never makes it to the TV series by season's end (he dies with Hana in a graphic novel account).
Brian's page: Even Linderman's consultant has a blog. I don't think Brian, who appears in the online videos released during Season 1, has actually appeared on the TV series. This site has clues related to the "voting system".
Hiro's Blog: Clicking on this link shows you nothing these days, just an announcement of a blog feature "Coming Soon!" courtesy of Yamagato Software. On the right side are two links. The "Home" link brings you to a mirror site. The second link shows the same welcome message, only this time it includes the comments left by visitors. The story here is that Hiro started the blog before he time traveled extensively, and during one of those times, he changed events so that the blog never even existed. The data is still on NBC's servers though, and you can see them by following some links provided by fansites, or do it the hard way.
Note that the url on the second link is
http://blog.nbc.com/hiro_blog/2006/09/welcome.php
Re-enter the same url on your browser but omit "welcome.php".
You will see the first few blogs made by Hiro when the series started.
Follow the same format of year and month to see the other entries.
The following characters have Myspace sites:
Claire Bennet
Hana Gitelman
Zach
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