Okay so they have a GENERALIZED similarity. There have been a lot of stories "similar" to this that were panned; there were others that were picked. But as far as story content and characterization between the two, there is a great deal of difference. I mean, I got BORED with 4400; the story, the characters the story telling. I am not bored with Heroes; not the story, not the characters, not the story telling.
There's a very big difference between Heroes and The 4400. The 4400 is a nutty, slippery, pulsating turd that makes creepy breathing noises, and Heroes isn't.
Heroes is similar to The 4400 in the way that 24 is similar to Grey's Anatomy: I only watch Heroes and 24.
Grey's Anatomy and ER are not similar House. House is probably more like one of the CSIs or Law and Orders. It's a detective show, but the detectives are doctors. GA and ER are nightime soap operas that take place in a hospital.
If Phantom, Storm and Shepherd all agree that something is great, chances are they can't all be wrong. IMO, it's the best new show on TV this season, the best sci-fi show on currently, and has a couple of the best characters in all of TV currently (at least in terms of the enjoyment to watch, if not necessarily in terms of depth). Unfortunately, it also has a couple of the worst characters in TV currently. One of them just got offed. Hopefully another will get hers soon. A third, unfortunately, is with us for the long haul. So I would say either catch up through iTunes or just plunge in.
i've just spent the last 2 days watching the first 14 eps. my eyes are red, my nut sacks all sweaty and my hair looks like i've been the target of a bukkake party - yet i'm happy. unless it was a bukkake session, in which case i'm just confused. anyhoo, really enjoying it - decent characters, a definite arc and a nice idea and whilst the powers are all familiar, only niki sanders is a direct correlation of a well-known character (niki/jessica is very much banner/hulk) with the rest merely being similar to other characters. it'll be interesting to see how this goes beyond S1, wether they'll take a buffy (seasonal arcs) or lost (open ended tedium) route. hopefully the former.
I think Shadow was mainly setting up was an analogy between the two superhero shows and the two medical shows rather than emphasizing any similarities. "Heroes":"The 4400"::"GA":"House" Now, depending on how he meant it, he could be right or he could be wrong. Heroes is to 4400 in so far as Heroes came after and was much more successful than the 4400, just as GA came after "ER"/"House" and is (currently) more successful. Heroes has better fleshed out characters and more thought-out plots than the 4400 (IMO) but that doesn't track with any comparison between Grey's Anatomy and either House or ER.
I noticed that Claire-Bear is also now starring in her own cosmetic commercials. That girl is going places. Count on it. Looks AND hellacious acting ability.
If you mean "fly," Clark's already done so, albeit while he was under the influence of his Kryptonian heritage and he himself doesn't remember it. He also was carried by a flying Zod, which makes me wonder why Clark himself hasn't thought, "Gee, maybe I can also fly."
Raoul has the basic idea.... The 4400 has the same base concept as Heroes, while having great variation in type of story, quality of execution, overall plot direction, and etc. Likewise, ER is similar to GA in basic concept though the "tilt" of each is different ...invoking House as a similarity to ER is admitedly a stretch but I put it there as an example of two shows set in a hospital which set up drama around life and death medical situations while otherwise being wildly different. that is, I set up a spectrum where you may chose which end you most agree with, either the 4400 is to Heroes as ER is to GA (many similarities) OR the 4400 is to Heroes as ER is to House (vaugley similar while growing in wildly different directions) or somewhere in between. In any case, both are a MUCH closer description of reality than is comparing GA to 24 as a point of comparison.
Can't we just admit that Liz is full of shit and get on with discussing the show... Awesome episode, this one. a.
That license plate was so obivous. But cool. My eyes instantly picked it up. I guess I was subconsicously looking for the Trek jokes. I was half expecting Hiro's father to make some crack about Hiro watching too much Star Trek. And now I know why I knew who Invisible Man the actor was but couldn't place the name. He's on a TV show that I've only watched once or twice! Dr.Who. I wonder if they could get Rose onto Heros as a sexy villian..... Well going to see Mondays episode tonight. Had top sit through the last two weeks last night. I think they should consider not trying to put it up against 24. When this show first came on with the commmericals I thought it looked cool and I thought that meant it would be cancelled in week two. Thank God I was wrong. Heroes, 24, Battlestar Galactica, the Amazing Race are the only things worth watching in my book. Glen Beck interviewed the Nathan actor and asked how they are going to avoid the Lost mess which is pissing off all the fans and the guy said that they've seen the mistakes Lost has made and are working hard to make sure they don't happen. He said that they won't string out plots/questions forever. They will show the question and then answer it eventually. Awesome show.
Started to lose interest two episodes ago, with so much time on the Parkman and Niki story threads, but this week’s episode restored my interest by lots. There were a few nice (or revealing) moments like the exchange between Nathan and his mother, but in general it was probably the weakest episode to date. About the last episode, yee ha! Hiro and Claire and Claude are all great!! In every single scene graced with their presence. Peter using his powers!! I have a wild guess about the last cliffhanger - Some of the more obvious coincidences stand out for me: The Devereaux building? What’s the significance, if any? Does Linderman have a power too, or is he ‘just’ a powerful gangster with lots of connections with those that do? And what about the ubiquitous tattoo Storm mentioned in his thread? The tattoo, a flat “s” with a few hash marks, prominent on the hilt of Takezo’s sword, dates back centuries, yet the powers are just starting to manifest themselves in people today, and the tattoo appears on Jessica’s shoulder but not Niki’s? What’s up with that? Among other places (like in Isaac’s paintings), the same tattoo appeared very early on in the season, drawn on one of Sylars photos on his wall map of the world with strings (that he apparently copied from Suresh Sr.’s map). Oh, and unrelated to the coincidences, which Petrelli parent had a power? Was it dad, and was his inability to control/understand the power responsible for his suicidal tendencies? Or is Mrs. Petrelli holding out? And why didn’t Nathan or Peter ever ask (or did they)? Seems a natural enough question for Claire (i.e. did I inherit these powers from my folks?). Sloppy writing? With all that good (and I agree that it’s the best scififantasy currently on TV), there’s a couple of weak spots in the writing. The government and police and FBI etc. are a bit too clichéd in how they’re depicted. Parkman can read minds, for crissakes, and the FBI chick discards his theories and his temporary partner had first-hand experience with his power and still dumped him. Yeah, I get it, he’s such an idiot that even with his proof he can’t get it right, and can’t convince anybody that matters. Pshaw. Surely stupidity can’t be *that* much of a curse, can it? Another idiot, Mohindar. Recently talked to an FBI agent who knows all about Mohindar’s relationship with Sylar’s victims, and now he’s too worried to call the cops when he discovers one? Hello? Sloppy writing? And I’m generally uninterested in the whole Sylar storyline - serial killer stories aren’t why I watch. What’s Sylar’s motivations, anyway, just to take as many powers as possible and kill off the competition? Don’t much care for the character, although maybe if there was less fuzziness on all the powers he’s already acquired and what use he’s putting them to beside murder, nah, even then I’d probably find Sylar as the antagonist the weakest part of the story. Exploding Peters, reclusive kingpins like Linderman, and men-in-black like Bennett entertain me; near-omnipotent serial killers stumbling along on a weak-assed quest to eliminate anyone with special powers, not so much so. Anyway, good show!
Hmmm... Watched the first 20 minutes of the first episode the other night and got really, totally, out of my brain bored. Am I to understand that I should just pick up what I need to know from websites, write off the first ep and give it another chance?
I think Claude will still be able to kick Peter's ass, no matter how much mastery Peter gets of his power. Just give him a stick to hit Peter upside the head with. It'd be nice, but I think she left "Who" to become a pop star, so I don't know if she's going to run to do genre acting. "Heroes" is holding its own against "24" ratings-wise. Last night, it outperformed "24"; if you can believe it, "Two and a Half Men" and "Rules of Engagement" won the timeslot. Of course, it seems like it would have a bigger audience if they put it on another night because I imagine there's a lot of crossover from the two audiences. Personally, I can't think of a timeslot that would be a safe one for it to move to off the top of my head, between the various "CSIs," "American Idol," etc. etc. From the preview, it sounds like we're going to get a boatload of answers next week. I hope so. Well... No clue. I hope he's just a powerful gangster and does not possess special abilities himself. We'll be seeing him before the end of the season, portrayed by Malcolm McDowell. I don't know necessarily if either Petrelli parent had a power, and don't remember anything in particular to suggest one did. As far as they knew (at least prior to meeting Claude) developing powers was a recent phenomenon. One of the first things Claire did on meeting her bio-mom was to demonstrate her own power, which prompted her bio-mom to say "Some family" and to show her pyrokinesis. We did not see Claire specifically ask "Does daddy have a power too?" But presumably her desire to meet her dad was caused in part by her wanting to ask him that question herself. I can buy that the botched raid caused serious problems. No matter how much proof someone offers, people are going to be skeptical of someone who says "I can read minds." Especially when he can't do it at the moment, thanks to the Haitian. And when you throw in that HRG (Claire's dad) undoubtedly has some sort of political connections, it doesn't strike me as that farfetched that he could make trouble for Matt. Yes, the partner should have backed him up more. But how many seasons of weird stuff did Scully see on "X-Files" before accepting that weird stuff was actually happening? Six or seven? Other than the whereabouts of the kid who was hiding from Sylar, there's little that Matt has mind-read in her presence that couldn't have just been lucky guesses or outright fakery. And when he apparently went so wrong with Primatech, he seemed a little nutty. It's reasonable she might turn her back on him. There are other aspects of Matt's storyline that either bore me or make me want to shake my head, particularly the notion of his telling his bosses about his mind-reading ability and his being suspended/fired from the force. Good point. From what we've seen: Sylar left a message for Papa Suresh talking about how the hunger was awakened in him. So I think he has a physical craving for new powers (and BRAINS!). Seeing him with Dale, he was practically drooling over the prospect. He also wants to be special. So there may be the aspect of taking out other people as you mentioned. FWIW: Sylar's demonstrated powers include: -The ability to figure out how complicated mechanisms work (his "base" power) -Telekinesis (the power he first stole and seems most comfortable with) -Photographic memory/knowledge absorption (the power he stole from Charlie) -The ability to liquify metal with a touch (the power he stole from the real Zane) -The ability of superhearing (the power he stole from Dale) -The ability to freeze things (Where he got the power is unclear, but I believe one of the victims at the crime scene where Matt first hooked up with the FBI was frozen). -The ability to fake his death (again, the origin and full extent of the ability is unclear, but he used it to escape Primatech Paper. I'm speculating that the true ability is to channel the abilities of nearby insects/animals, since a cockroach, such as was shown in his cell, can live while suspending its bodily functions for a while.) -Some sort of increased physical resilience, which allowed him to survive the fall when fighting Peter. Presumably he has several other abilities, because prior to the Charlie/Dale/Zane killings, I believe we were told Sylar was responsible for a half-dozen murders, which would presumably mean more powers at that point. To each his own, but to quibble: even with all the powers available to him, Sylar's far from omnipotent. He felt he had to run from Matt and his partner when they were just armed with guns. He got beat down by a Peter who scarcely knew how to use his powers at that point. He got taken down by Eden and the Haitian and would probably still be in captivity or dead if he hadn't caught a break and run into the one doctor who hasn't seen a single horror movie. He fled when confronted with HRG and the Haitian at HRG's place. So while he's pretty darn powerful, he has neither honor nor courage.[/worf] I doubt right now that he's prepared to take on just multiple people with guns the way a run-of-the-mill hero or villain in comics routinely does.
Well, let's remember too that Peter now can do almost everything Sylar can do (except of course any powers that Sylar got after they fought) in addition to insta-heal, flying and invisibility. Peter runs into Sylar again, he'll get even more from Sylar and Sylar will be toast. I do wonder what exactly Sylar does with the brain...eats them, presumeably. It will be interesting to see what happens with Peter if he ever runs into Nikki/Jessica.
Thanks, Raoul, good post, appreciate your insights. My speculation about a Petrelli parent basically stems from the coinkydink of two brothers with powers, and the Claire (and Micah) storyline that suggests the super-gene is inheritable. I suppose coincidence is possible, but inherited from a parent struck me as much more likely. Which potentially meshed nicely with the backstory of dad's suicidal tendencies (maybe a reasonable reaction to his being freaked out by early manifestations of whatever hypothetical power he might have had). If so many of the 'heroes' connections to Linderman is not just random chance or coincidence, perhaps he tooks steps to track down the mutants after observing signs of superabilities by his lawyer (Petrelli Sr.). At least, in my book, enemy action works better than coincidence [from the old Bond quote ]. [Then, to continue the ramblings, which could dovetail with Bennet's ultimate boss being Linderman (and not the gov't).] But I guess ever since Les Mis. (with Javert repeatedly popping up in ValJean's life), I've grown accustomed to healthy doses of coincidences in fiction, so it can still work with the right treatment. My current thinking about the 'tattoo' is that maybe Hiro introduced the design to Takezo (so it ended up on a katana many centuries old). Just more wild spec, obviously.
