One thing to start: these mid-season breaks are as annoying as a rash on the butt. Nobody needs them, everybody hates them, and judging from what happened to "Lost", they cannot contribute too much to story development. The only thing that may happen is that audiences look for different hobbies and never come back. Similar in "Heroes": the show came off to a spectacular start, with interesting characters doing their best to keep up the tension, with two dramatic highlights (1. the death of the cheerleader, 2. the nuking of New York) being established early on. So everything set up to allow continuous and pleasant watching, suffering and even a bit of laughing, as the likes of Hiro, Claire and Claude (at least) do have their ironic (well, in Claude’s case: their sardonic) side. I really liked the way these people have their respectively very distinct ways of coping with their abilities – from being freaked out by them (most of them, early on) to using it for good business (the lady who can hear rain approachin three days in advance), to playing with its adolescent implications (Claire), to just having a wretchedly good time pickpocketing and running from the enemy (Claude). None of them is really a stupidly blunt Superman-style hero, every single one has to figure out a way to live on despite of the abilities. Being a true follower X-Files during the Agent Mulder years, the background story about the "company" running this whole secret programme to … without spoiling too much … collect the ability-improved guys (and preferrably breeding them, I guess) allows for a very nice villain setup in the story, namely Claire’s father who is established as a person of ambiguous motives and character, and who can serve to provide any necessary twist. Which he does.
Many complained about the season’s finale, which was called "anti-climatic" and "a downlet". I don’t share this opinion. On the contrary: I think most people are not used to having a propoer narrative ending to a show anymore. I am very grateful for a season finale that actually brings the story to a proper ending. I do not hate "Lost"-like finales because of the tension I cannot stand – I hate them for being bad story-telling, and for showing that the authors didn’t have a clue where they were going to begin with. So: Heroes, Season 2 will have a new story, and that is a very good thing. Looking forward to September 24th… Even without cliffhangers, that is soo long. But in the meantimes, there’s truckloads of stuff to be discovered on the website: http://www.nbc.com/Heroes/
thomas4cinema 