10/25/07
This week's episode of Heroes wasn't very good. That's not to say the plot was boring or that the story turned in a dull direction. Although some complain that the episode moved slowly and neglected to hit every major storyline, I am ok with an occasional "relaxed" pace. Saving the world isn't always a full-steam-ahead job.
The problem is that the dialogue was, for the most part, very amateurish. Some of the story lines seem frivolous, and there wasn't much payoff compared to how many good climaxes were building. This episode was written by Joy Blake & Melissa Blake, their first for the series. Mr Kring, make it their last?
We start out where last week left off...with Parkman and Mohinder by Molly's side. Molly is apparently comatose after being mentally confronted when she was using her power to find the Nightmare Man, Old Parkman. As precedes most episodes, we were treated to a "previously on Heroes" recap before the action began. Evidently Joy and Melissa have never watched a serial television program, because they recapped for us again in the opening scene, using character interaction. It was clumsy. Are we that dumb? We need to hear the characters work the details of what just happened in the story timeline into contrived conversations? No thanks! I didn't look it up, but I have a hunch Melissa and/or Joy wrote for Saved By The Bell. It was a horrible, forced opening sequence.
While I'm on the subject, has anyone else noticed that Matt Parkman is a horrible actor? For proof, watch the scene where he confront his dad, and says "You don't get to be sorry, you don't get to be anything!" It sums up his whole range. Lazy dumb angry guy that has a hard time making too many words in a row sound natural. Him and Ali Landry's toothy snarly tough girl garbage can vanish a la Claude as far as I'm concerned. Milo V's new angry look is working though. He pulls the tortured, "angry but containing-it...for now" look perfectly. Seeing him get mad or gleefully tortuous always puts a smile on my face. He's like my new karate kid.
I have never seen this Kristen Bell girl in anything before. I'm very excited to have an actress of this caliber on board this season. She was perfect, subtle and natural, completely believable. She made me forget she was acting and just watch the scenes. Irish guy, RIP, was a great actor as well. We never got to see what she actually did to him, but his body looked burnt and she was sending electricity-esque streams of light out of her fingertips. My favorite Kristen Bell scene was probably the phone conversation. It wasn't an amazing scene per se, but it was a fantastic performance. One sided phone conversations are among the hardest things to write, and can be harder to act. This one was flawless, a credit to the writers here. It'd be easy to make the dialogue clunky and obvious and overly explanatory, but it was far from it. And Kristen sold it like a real professional, there was literally nothing to complain about and those scenes are hard to pull off convincingly.
If these ladies think we the audience are dumb, they must think their characters are even dumber. Unfortunately Kristen fell prey to a bit of bad dialogue. She's a tiny blonde interviewing Irish dock workers. No one so much as whistles at her. And who in their right mind hears a statement like "I work for a company that wants to help keep him safe" and doesn't ask what the hell that's supposed to mean? I expect that in an episode of Inspector Gadget, not here.
I won't detail every line of bad dialogue, but probably the worst of it was Dana Davis playing Monica Dawson, talking to her cousin about her emerging abilities. "I don't know anything anymore, nothing makes sense!" Another line I expect to hear Kelly say to Zach during a breakup scene.
Probably my favorite line was "It's easier to ask forgiveness than permission." What a telling and overall poignant statement! I wonder if someone fed them that line. :) And how endearing was Micah's giggling when Monica was double-dutch jump roping? Loved it.
I didn't think the episode moved too slowly at all. I was slackjawed and actually said "this is really scary!" out loud when Old Parkman threw Matt and Nathan into the nightmares. I will say that I am totally over Hiro's little sideplot. It may be advancing the plot in a slick way that ties in later...I think Kensei is immortal and is the hooded man. He took the picture.
So what do you think of Old Parkmans's power? Did it really start like Matt's, or was that a ploy to gain Matt's trust?
My guess is that West's flying is really something broader that we have only seen manifest itself in his flying around. Like maybe gravity control? Could he float a car?
I'm excited to see where this season goes, it is definitely not disappointing. I don't know what else Tim Kring has going on these days but I would really like to see him write more episodes. He has thrown me into a universe that I love, and I'd hate for inept production to ruin the experience. For now it's going to take a lot more than a few lines of unwieldy dialogue to make me give up on saving the world.
The problem is that the dialogue was, for the most part, very amateurish. Some of the story lines seem frivolous, and there wasn't much payoff compared to how many good climaxes were building. This episode was written by Joy Blake & Melissa Blake, their first for the series. Mr Kring, make it their last?
We start out where last week left off...with Parkman and Mohinder by Molly's side. Molly is apparently comatose after being mentally confronted when she was using her power to find the Nightmare Man, Old Parkman. As precedes most episodes, we were treated to a "previously on Heroes" recap before the action began. Evidently Joy and Melissa have never watched a serial television program, because they recapped for us again in the opening scene, using character interaction. It was clumsy. Are we that dumb? We need to hear the characters work the details of what just happened in the story timeline into contrived conversations? No thanks! I didn't look it up, but I have a hunch Melissa and/or Joy wrote for Saved By The Bell. It was a horrible, forced opening sequence.
While I'm on the subject, has anyone else noticed that Matt Parkman is a horrible actor? For proof, watch the scene where he confront his dad, and says "You don't get to be sorry, you don't get to be anything!" It sums up his whole range. Lazy dumb angry guy that has a hard time making too many words in a row sound natural. Him and Ali Landry's toothy snarly tough girl garbage can vanish a la Claude as far as I'm concerned. Milo V's new angry look is working though. He pulls the tortured, "angry but containing-it...for now" look perfectly. Seeing him get mad or gleefully tortuous always puts a smile on my face. He's like my new karate kid.
I have never seen this Kristen Bell girl in anything before. I'm very excited to have an actress of this caliber on board this season. She was perfect, subtle and natural, completely believable. She made me forget she was acting and just watch the scenes. Irish guy, RIP, was a great actor as well. We never got to see what she actually did to him, but his body looked burnt and she was sending electricity-esque streams of light out of her fingertips. My favorite Kristen Bell scene was probably the phone conversation. It wasn't an amazing scene per se, but it was a fantastic performance. One sided phone conversations are among the hardest things to write, and can be harder to act. This one was flawless, a credit to the writers here. It'd be easy to make the dialogue clunky and obvious and overly explanatory, but it was far from it. And Kristen sold it like a real professional, there was literally nothing to complain about and those scenes are hard to pull off convincingly.
If these ladies think we the audience are dumb, they must think their characters are even dumber. Unfortunately Kristen fell prey to a bit of bad dialogue. She's a tiny blonde interviewing Irish dock workers. No one so much as whistles at her. And who in their right mind hears a statement like "I work for a company that wants to help keep him safe" and doesn't ask what the hell that's supposed to mean? I expect that in an episode of Inspector Gadget, not here.
I won't detail every line of bad dialogue, but probably the worst of it was Dana Davis playing Monica Dawson, talking to her cousin about her emerging abilities. "I don't know anything anymore, nothing makes sense!" Another line I expect to hear Kelly say to Zach during a breakup scene.
Probably my favorite line was "It's easier to ask forgiveness than permission." What a telling and overall poignant statement! I wonder if someone fed them that line. :) And how endearing was Micah's giggling when Monica was double-dutch jump roping? Loved it.
I didn't think the episode moved too slowly at all. I was slackjawed and actually said "this is really scary!" out loud when Old Parkman threw Matt and Nathan into the nightmares. I will say that I am totally over Hiro's little sideplot. It may be advancing the plot in a slick way that ties in later...I think Kensei is immortal and is the hooded man. He took the picture.
So what do you think of Old Parkmans's power? Did it really start like Matt's, or was that a ploy to gain Matt's trust?
My guess is that West's flying is really something broader that we have only seen manifest itself in his flying around. Like maybe gravity control? Could he float a car?
I'm excited to see where this season goes, it is definitely not disappointing. I don't know what else Tim Kring has going on these days but I would really like to see him write more episodes. He has thrown me into a universe that I love, and I'd hate for inept production to ruin the experience. For now it's going to take a lot more than a few lines of unwieldy dialogue to make me give up on saving the world.
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