By Lisa Fary
Before Pink Raygun, I yelled a lot.
I was just as annoyed by the things I was watching, but had no outlet and would just yell at the TV screen, rant in the car, and send my co-workers scurrying away from the staff room. If I didn’t have Pink Raygun, this would be the scene on Tuesday:
Lisa frowned at her sandwich – peanut butter and jelly on wheat again. Things hadn’t changed for her on the lunch front since elementary school. She munched on her sandwich and took a sip of Crystal Light, wondering if she would ever grow up.
Two teachers from the foreign language department sat down at the table, and after their feminine ritual of describing every calorie they’d eaten that day, they began talking about what they’d watched on television the night before, and what they ate while watching.
They glanced at Lisa while talking, which made her wonder if she was being included. She took a chance and piped in, “Oh my god! Did you see Heroes last night? They want me to believe Niki’s not extra crispy? I mean, really?”
Silence.
The foreign language girls turned away from Lisa and launched into hair removal. Lisa finished her sandwich and Crystal Light, realizing that, if she hadn’t already grown up a bit, she’d still be drinking green Kool-Aid.
Now I can avoid that uncomfortable scene. You get it, and I thank you. And, by the way, how the hell is Niki not extra crispy? I mean, really? And just for the record, Crystal Light is just Kool-Aid for grown ups.
Heroes 3 carries on as if only a couple events from Heroes 2 happened:
- Kaito Nakamura was killed
- Nathan Petrelli got shot
- The actress playing Maya got a contract
All that other stuff? That stuff with the Shanti virus, Molly’s crazy eye guy, and Niki getting blown up?
Nah. Never happened.
Maya seems to be getting on beautifully for a mass murderer (totally by accident – she didn’t have a thing for her brother at all) who made out with Sylar while her brother lay dead only a few feet away. She’s shacked up with Mohinder, who needs a new wife since Matt Parkman has run off with Peter Petrelli.
Really, she’s shacked up with Mohinder for research purposes. She still wants him cure her. Of course, this is Mohinder we’re talking about, so he totally screws it up. He can’t find a cure, but he can make an injectable serum that will give abilities to anyone.
Congratulations, Mohinder. You’ve just created Promicin.
Which he is ready to toss into a river. You know, because that’s the scientific way to dispose of a super-power enabling serum in a syringe. Toss it in the river so it can wash up on the Jersey Shore and fall into the hands of a track suit-wearing mullet head. Real science-y, Mohinder.
Oh, wait! He’s injecting himself and imbuing himself with tremendous powers of douchebaggery! Now Mohinder is like every frat boy you ever met, but superstrong and able to climb walls! And for some reason, he can’t stop his pecs from twitching.
Perhaps Mohinder accidentally reinvented crack.
Once again, we have Hiro traveling into the future to see a major city getting blown up. We have another painter who can see the future. We have another prophetic painting. But this one shows the whole world getting a hole poked through it and bursting into flames, not just Manhattan.
Seriously, Heroes people. Now every single season you’ve had a character go to the future, witness some horrible catastrophe, and race to stop it. Isn’t it enough for the super-villain team to break out of Arkham- I mean, the Company’s own private Gitmo? Do we have to see Claire make another death video? Do we have to see Niki – excuse me, Tracy – rediscover her split-personality all over again? And do her alter-egos always have to be the sleeping around types?
The premiere had it’s moments, but overall, Heroes is just playing it safe. It’s not daring anymore. It’s not surprising anymore, and not even because we’ve seen it all before. Heroes is just retreading what it’s already done in it’s own history. It’s trying to be Crystal Light when it should be Kool-Aid.
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Lisa Fary’s early exposure to classic Battlestar Galactica in 1979 is largely responsible for her lifelong interest in science fiction and her childhood ambition of being an intergalactic space cowgirl. She thinks diagramming sentences is a fun alternative to Sudoku.
![Batman Begins [Blu-ray]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51K9gRrrj%2BL._SL160_.jpg "Batman Begins [Blu-ray]")
Lisa Fary's earliest influences are Princess Leia, Rainbow Bright, Astronaut Barbie, and her 6th grade teacher, Ms. Palmer. She's angry that it's 2011 and she still doesn't have a hovercraft, but will accept a jetpack as consolation. That jetpack had better be pink with a rhinestone monogram. 
@SpaceCowboy: “Was anyone else bothered by Heroes’ use of the “in-head Six” device?”
Yes. I mean, come on. The brought back Malcolm McDowell to play
Libbythe angel/devil on Nathan’s shoulder? What next, the revelation thatVaderLinderman is his biological father? Abrams and co. are throwing more twists at us than M. Night Shyamalan, and I’m not sure they know where all of them are going yet.Promicin reference! *high five* I was thinking that the whole episode, too.
…this was a great post. I’m hoping that they are just doing all of this incredibly similar stuff as an easy way to remind us of things from the past since it’s been so long and that maybe it will get better in the next couple of episodes. Maybe.
The fact the Niki is not extra crispy is driving me absolutely insane though, and yeah. Suck.
Linderman as Nathan's father would explain Arthur being so willing to kill him in S1, and why Linderman saved him. It could also have explained why he needed a formula, different genetics. If Sylar was still a Petrelli (Arthur could have slept around with Samson's wife) it would make much more sense that his two children were power transferers like him while Nathan was not.