Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Blurb for HEROES.

I don't watch very much television. I watch SURVIVOR and THE AMAZING RACE and occasionally I am able to catch a game of JEOPARDY!. That's about it. There isn't any other shows that I watch on a regular basis. Except for one: HEROES. If you haven't seen this show, I highly recommend that you tune in the coming weeks as the first season is approaching a close (the finale will be sometime in May). I had a hunch before the new season began that HEROES was going to be The show to watch this season and I haven't been disappointed.

Take last night's episode for example. It was some of the best drama I've seen on television in a very, very long time. I'll go as far as to say that it moved me. For those who don't know, the show is about ordinary people who have discovered they have extraordinary powers. They are trying to understand what is happening to them and figure out how to use their abilities. In the meantime there are at least three different groups that are after them. One of the groups has completely good and benevolent intentions. The motivations of the other groups are unknown.

It all sounds kind of far fetched and kind of geeky, but it works extremely well. Take last night's episode, "Company Man", for example. The performance by the cast in "Company Man" is Emmy-worthy material. Actors spend their whole lives wanting to act in scenes full of powerful drama like the one last night. That happens on HEROES a lot. The show has it's roots in sci-fi, but it is grounded in reality. "Company Man" was a very important episode that illustrated many of the connections between the characters on the show. However, even if you aren't a fan of the show, you could take a lot away from the episode. In a very eloquent and meaningful way the episode dealt with issues of faith, family, and honor. It illustrated the complexity in choosing between one's duty and between doing the right thing and the consequences that happen when one is forced to choose between the two. And, as many of the other episodes this season has shown, it displayed how interconnected we really are in the world; as John Donne wrote so much better before, "No man is an island." Television doesn't get much better than that.

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