“Save the cheerleader, save the world” was the mantra for nerds all around since 2006, as they finally had a say in television. An adult drama focusing on people with extraordinary powers, Heroes was a brilliant piece of television in a barren landscape full of procedurals and Reality TV. Season 1 was damn near perfect and still holds true today. Then the Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike happened, and Season 2 took a massive plunge, having its share of issues like the little engine that could except that someone kept shoving it back down the tracks. 5-years after the series finale aired, Heroes Reborn has arisen.
But is it a true-to-form return?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vs78vS7MFo
We kick off the two-parter with Noah Bennet (Jack Coleman) who’s now our main protagonist; you can never have too much HRG, arriving to the Evo (Evolved human, to us homo-sapiens) Peace summit. We see scenes with Evo’s showing off their powers in wonderment and genuinely getting along before the skies darken and everything goes boom.
From the start Reborn establishes a darker tone than before. We jump time to catch up with Luke and Joanne Collins (Zachary Levi and Judy Shekoni) as they murder a group of Evos in a church. While The Collins appear the bad guys early on, albeit very grief-stricken, Luke questions his own morals following the loss of their son during the summit bombing.
We meet delightful new addition, Tommy (Robbie Kay), who’s just your everyday teenager with everyday teenager problems like trying to get the girl, fitting in and trying to control his powers. Quentin Frady (Henry Zebrowski) is a conspiracy theorist that believes the attack was much more than it seems and he brings HRG out of suburban exile and back into the game. It’ll be interesting to see the dynamic between this duo and potential comic relief. Miko aka Katana Girl (Kiki Sukezane) is a Hiro carbon copy whose power is very much difficult to understand; she invades Evernow, a video game, using the Kensei sword to look for her father. Unfortunately, the game sequences fall a bit flat and come off as one of Reborn‘s duller moments.
There are some fight scenes involving El Vengador and another Evo fighting crime in Los Angeles, but after watching Daredevil‘s remarkable combat scenes, the sequences quickly left something to be desired. The effects also seem a bit dated; you’d think NBC would have sunk a nice chunk of change into this revitalization. Another quibble is that there are too many characters involved — and far too much going on — and we haven’t even gotten to the OG Heroes yet. Hopefully Kring took a page out of Game of Thrones in not having to focus on everyone at the same time, since the 2-hour premiere left me feeling a little exhausted.
With superhero shows cropping up left and right, that exhaustion was made beneficial with Heroes coming back to a radically different landscape this time out. Is there room for the slightly older Uncle Rico of the superhero genre?
My mind has mended after the 5-year break and I’m ready to give these capes another chance.
“Reverend” Lauro Rojas
Heroes Reborn airs on NBC every Thursday at 8/7c.
What can be said about the premiere episode of Crackle’s new stop motion animation show SuperMansion? How about: for fans of Robot Chicken…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00lzyvvI_F4
There. We can probably leave it at that; the editors of this site don’t give us any real direction with television reviews as to how long they have to be.
No, but in all seriousness, SuperMansion is a tremendous accomplishment of cinematic mastery; an epic for the ages that is bolstered the immense gravitas of Bryan Cranston‘s performance. Truly, we have not seen a performance of this magnitude since his halcyon days on the legendary hard-hitting family drama Malcolm in the Middle. Seth Green seems to have maintained his trajectory from his much-lauded brilliant and subtle roles from American classic trilogy of films; still renowned for their intelligence, sophistication, and nuanced performances: the Austin Powers…
I can’t keep this up. I felt it necessary for the mindset of reviewing such ludicrous nonsense that I get really high before trying to write it, and the show is still too silly for me. Suffice to say it’s stupid. It’s so stupid I felt slightly dumber for watching it.
It’s as stupid as Robot Chicken, which is understandable because it’s the same production basically, only with new, original characters. Cranston voices Titanium Rex, an aging superhero leading the rag-tag latest iteration of some Justice League/ Avengers analogue with ridiculous characters and offensive jokes galore. The typical crass, post-modern, and post-racial humor is on display here; with Green, Keegan Michael Key, and Gillian Bell (Workaholics) also lending their voicing talents to the frivolity. Yes, it’s dumb, and crass, and oh-so-formulaic and familiar; but it also warranted a few lols and eye rolls.
Cranston is in both his over-the-top and grumpy-old-man modes all at once, so fans of Malcolm or Breaking Bad may enjoy it just because. Otherwise, there seems little to recommend this to anyone outside of Robot Chicken‘s regular fan base – and who doesn’t watch the Robot Chicken DC specials? If Robot Chicken is your thing, then this will also be your thing. If Breaking Bad is your thing, then you’ll notice that this is quite different and it may not be your thing. Hell, I may watch it anyway.
IG @LUKEPOISONER
You can watch the first episode of SuperMansion here, on Crackle.