HEROES: Distractions

A bit tardy in my thoughts on this week's HEROES, aren't I? Well, at least they're truthful in their advertising: "Distractions" neatly summed up what was, for the most part, a filler episode. Yeah, there were some interesting developments. Peter Petrelli learning he could access other heroes' powers without them being around was the biggie, obviously. His near-meltdown, however, wasn't the danger it was played up to be, simply because he hasn't absorbed Fallout Boy's powers yet. The other "shocker" wasn't so much of one--that politician Nathan Petrelli is actually Cheerleader Claire's birth father. This would actually work a lot better if round-faced Claire, oh, maybe didn't look so utterly dissimilar from either of her birth parents. Example: Claire has a very soft, round face, whereas Nathan and the trailer park torch both have longer, leaner faces. And this is really starting to muddle the timeline as to when who's powers started to maifest--especially with the Invisible Man's contention that his showed up 15 years previous.

Pretty much everything else in the episode returned things to status quo. Hiro's confrontation with his father, an awesomely cast George Takei, was mere filler. It had nothing to do with the overall storyline, came out of the blue, and by the end of the hour was wrapped up tighter than an episode of Leave It to Beaver. A real waste of good actors and character background (and really, what is it with Hiro insisting his powers have gone and can't be used without gaining the sword? He frellin' used his powers to steal the fake sword just a few hours earlier, didn't he? That's just sloppy writing). Jekyll-and-Hyde Niki unleashed her beatdown on her prison shrink and was released from confinement by the unseen Linderman's intervention. So she's back on the street, back to the status quo we had earlier. Even the escape of Sylar was anti-climactic, with him escaping the Haitian after threatening the Paper Man's wife while waiting for Claire to come home. All of the playing pieces are pretty much back in place, the only difference being the characters have a little bit more knowledge than they did earlier on. This insistence on reversing plot developments in order to return things to status quo is one thing that bugs the crap out of me in comics, and it turns out it bugs the crap out of me in comic book TV shows as well. Here's hoping next week's episode has significantly less filler and more substance.

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