In Praise of Heroes

Every once in a while, a television show comes along that I schedule my life around. A show that, if I absolutely cannot be on my couch for, I TiVo and ask three other people to TiVo on the off-chance mine doesn't work. A show that is truly appointment TV, as in I would skip any appointment (maybe even one with the hotness that is Matthew Macfadyen -- Liz says you're married, Matthew, but seriously -- call me!) to watch.

I am currently having this mad love affair with Heroes.

You know, I spent all summer seeing NBC's promos for Heroes -- ordinary people with extraordinary abilities, blah blah blah, whiny Jess from Gilmore Girls, blah blah blah -- and while the premise was intriguing, I certainly wasn't excited about its premiere. In fact, I think the only reason I watched the pilot was because it was on right before the show I was really looking forward to this season: Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.

Well, Studio 60? Big letdown. But Heroes? Loooooooove at first sight.

Not only is it clever and smart, it actually provides answers as the mysteries surrounding the plot and characters evolve. (You listening yet, Lost?) The characters are interesting, well-developed (well, with the exception of Simone, who was -- pretty shockingly, for me -- killed in last week's episode. Tim Kring, I salute you!), and layered with so many shades of grey that you don't really know who is good and who isn't (I mean, barring Sylar, who kills the other heroes and absorbs their powers by, um, eating their brains, it seems).

Even the character who has been set up as the villain since the pilot -- Horned Rim Glasses (HRG), played by the previously-so-far-off-my-radar Jack Coleman-- has shifted back and forth on the good-evil spectrum throughout, and this week brought me to tears when he had himself shot (not fatally, yay!) and had part of his memory erased to save his superpowered daughter from the mysterious company for which he works. Someone, please give Jack Coleman an Emmy for making HRG so lovable and sympathetic even he's when shooting tracking darts at scruffy, invisible Claude or erasing his wife's memory for the fifty billionth time.

And any show that has an appropriately "good or evil?" role for Adrian Pasdar -- did anyone else watch "Profit" when it was on way back in '96? 'Cause that was one twisted yet damn fine show -- wins major props from me.

That's probably enough Heroes love for tonight, although there are certainly many more reasons to worship at the altar of Kring and Co. Not the least of which? For making Mondays rock!