Devin Toohey | Pop culture gone bad
September 23Monday night's two-hour Heroes season premiere left me feeling like I had just had amazing — but unbelievably disgusting — sex. I loved every minute of it, but I knew each second that it was wrong, perverse and offensive to every major religion. Spoilers follow. 1. Alive is the New Dead. Now, I'm a comic fan. I know that "no body" means "no death" and that "body" means "50 percent chance of death." Monday's two episodes saw the return of Niki, who burned alive; Nathan, who was shot multiple times; Claire, who had her head cut off; and Linderman, the first season villain who had his brains ripped out. And for all we know, "Niki" could be A) a still-alive Jessica, Niki's long-lost sister, or B) an excuse for the writers not to get rid of Ali Larter because she's really pretty and needs a job and hey, I suppose she could inexplicably look like a former character! But are these non-resurrections really any more plausible? Oh, and let's forget that we have a cheerleader messiah running around whose blood can freaking bring everyone and anyone back to life. Last time I checked, that's not a superpower. Super powers don't transfer via blood. That's a really handy virus. 2. Screw the Time Stream. The first two seasons of Heroes had their fair share of time travel, but it at least was a bit more controlled, as in, the characters were kind of aware of the repercussions. This season, we have Hiro time traveling just to, erm, pass the time (and also very conveniently coming to the exact, perfect moment when EVERYTHING goes wrong), and Future Peter just going 100 percent flibberty-gibbet with everything and anything time travel. Essentially, FP showed all the care and respect to the time stream that a freshman would to a case of Natty Light. Of course, this did result in quite the hissy fit from Mama Petrelli that more or less resembled my mom yelling at eight-year-old me for not cleaning up my toys. 3. Sexy Mohinder! A frequent and very warranted complaint about Mohinder in the second season was that he was A) stupid and B) boring. Well, at least they got rid of B. Now we have Mad Scientist, Spider Mohinder: performing experiments on himself, ripping off women's clothing, jumping around shirtless and generally being all the types of badass he was not in the first two seasons! That is, until his skin started peeling off. Like I said, at least he's no longer boring. 4. More "WTF?" Moments Than You Can Shake a Blog At. From Nathan randomly finding God (and delivering a version of Bowie's "Heroes") to Parkman conveniently finding the right shaman at the right time to "Sylar … I am your fath-I mean mother," this show just was plot twist after plot twist. There was no exposition, no down time, no character development. Just a never-ending series of plot twists, each one upping the ante on implausibility. In short, the first season of Heroes was some fun, cool melodrama. This was followed by a ponderous second season. And now, we essentially have the ‘60s "Batman" show back with a vengeance and revamped for the 21st century (with a side of soap opera). Is it just the nature of the genre that something this fantastic and crazy cannot help but get increasingly more fantastic and crazy? Or was this just a way of trying to make us forget the horrible second season, only to have the show find balance again soon? I'm fine both ways. Either "Heroes" will get better again … or will soon beat "30 Rock" and "The Office" for the title of funniest show on NBC.
