Heroes

So I kickstarted the enjoyment factor of this year's CNY holidays cum midterm break by watching the entire first 11 episodes of this new series called Heroes. I'm wondering if it's a new record on my part: 16 hours (inclusive of 8 hours of sleep) to watch 11 episodes. I'm just gonna cut a long story short and say that I first knew about Heroes about a month or so ago, when a little picture together with a caption and a few paragraphs' worth of words appeared on the TV page of a local newspaper. I read it and was more or less immediately hooked by the plot: normal people, call them ordinary if you must, wake up one day to realise they've got superpowers. Man, it blew me away. For those of you guys who know me, you know I'm totally into all this mutant superhuman with superpower stuff - X-Men, Mutant X, and now this. But I kinda gave up hope. I mean, what are the odds of this totally new series in America suddenly appearing on the public airwaves? Only if you've got pay TV, and I don't, so there goes Heroes out of the window or so I thought... Until one day, when I asked one of my coursemates if he had any interesting TV programs and he casually mentioned the name Heroes. To say I went ballistic would be one of the greatest understatements of the new year. I literally went nuts. So there you have it, the story of how I got my grimy hands on the first 11 episodes of Heroes. Boy, am I totally ecstatic.

One of the most moving scenes happens in the pilot episode. All you see is this mysterious guy standing on the rooftop of a high-rise building, his arms raised and his eyes closed as the background music swells to match his feelings. You can really feel it, y'know - his thoughts, his emotions. He knows he's specials, different, but nobody believes him. And he's beginning to doubt it himself, so he decides to prove to himself that he is special. And then he jumps. You've just gotta watch it for yourself how Peter Petrelli (acted fabulously by Milo Ventimiglia) fares, and whether he really is all that special after all. You're not getting any spoilers from me! Seriously though, I find the soundtrack is simply fabulous. There's this recurring theme that occurs in almost every song, and I think it's lovely. The cast is great too - seriously, I haven't seen an entire cast of actors and actresses in their element as I've seen them here. It's really rare to see the entire ensemble cast acting with such a fervour and talent - unless of course, you've watched LOTR, which to me is like the ultimate in ensemble cast acting. But we're not talking about LOTR here, we're talking about Heroes! One of a few interesting characters to watch is that of Hiro Nakamura, the Japanese who can manipulate the time-space continuum. He is such a joy to watch, his facial expressions are so adorable! Then of course there's the lovable, honest cop Matt Parkman who suddenly realises he can read minds... And who can forget the handsome artist Isaac Mendez who paints the future? And the flying politician as they call him, Nathan Petrelli... Man, all these should make for some really interesting plot developments!

"Have you ever dreamt of flying?"

Yeah, that's my question for you. If you're one of those rare people who have, and you know what it feels like to soar over the tops of buildings and trees with the breeze in your hair and that look of wonder in your eyes, you would love Heroes almost as much as I do.

And to leave you all with a quote by Mohinder Suresh from the show:
"Some individuals, it is true, are more special. This is natural selection. It begins as a single individual born or hatched like every other member of their species. Anonymous. Seemingly ordinary. Except they're not. They carry inside them the genetic code that will take their species to the next evolutionary rung. It's destiny."




Cheers.