Heroes

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Once upon an NBC, there was some great television. It was the best rip-off of X-Men that has ever been. It was about a group of what can only be described as mutants that were supposedly the next step in Human evolution. Loved that show, almost cried the day it got cancelled.

Anyway. You all know I only blog about something that’s pissing me off. So here it is. The entire series is now available to watch instantly on Netflix. Awesome. I’m watching it right now, as a matter of fact. One hiccup. Those sons of bitches “fixed” it. Nothing major, but totally breaks my immersion in the show.

When the show was on TV, every episode started with a monologue, usually by either Sendhil Ramamurthy or Erick Avari. That was all the recap anybody ever needed. Apparently, on the DVD edition of the show, the producers decided that wasn’t enough.

So now there’s an actual recap before the monologue, in which some dude with a deep, gravelly voice (that’s getting old, by the way) begins HIS monologue with “previously on Heroes.” But it doesn’t just end there. He does a full voice-over during the whole half-minute clip show. Aggravating: especially since they do a recap DURING THE SHOW. It’s okay if you don’t remember what you just watched five minutes ago, or an hour ago, or yesterday, because they’re going to do a flashback DURING THE SHOW. That’s one of the things that made Heroes great. You could miss an episode and not worry that you’d miss some crucial event, because anything that was important enough would get into a flashback, or (and this was my favorite method) they would replay the last scene of each storyline.

But I digest. My point is this: Heroes ain’t broke and never was. It was the awesomest show on television as long as it was running. It was deep, it was followable, and it shared none of the pitfalls common to contemporary science fiction (horrible acting, brain-dead director, artless writers, overbearing producers, crap story). I’m just perturbed that the producers felt that the show didn’t stand well enough on its own and needed to be appended in the form of a voiced-over recap at the beginning of each episode. And I’m further perturbed that they didn’t get any members of the actual cast to just throw off a quick “previously, on Heroes.”

Look. It’s been a long time since I’ve watched Heroes, and maybe I’m remembering it wrong. If I am… my point still stands. This blog entry is just a few years late.