#219 In which our hero discusses Heroes, heroes and Hiro's.

ince I owe the world a post and I owe the lovely Miss Kate an email reply, why not kill two birds with one stone?

Miss Kate is a Heroes nerd just like me, and she emailed me yesterday with comments about the premier. Her thoughts are presented in orange, which my disjointed ramblings follow.

BTW, this reminds me a great deal of how a friend and I used to discuss the X-Files after every episode. One of us would call and the other would answer, saying simply “discuss.” Glad to see that six years later my complete nerdity hasn’t wore off one bit.

So, didja watch it last night?? I did. If you didn't, read no further.

See? This is why I like Miss Kate. So considerate.

I'm a little miffed about the very obvious Nissan Rogue product placement - but I guess that's the price you pay when they sponsor your "less commercials than usual" premier.

Being in the advertising industry, I’m torn. I mean, I wasn’t surprised at all that a Nissan was featured prominently because you’re right… Nissan was paying top dollar for that sponsorship, and they had every right to get something in return.

That said, it was a little heavy-handed when HRG gave Claire the keys to the car and she said, “The Rouge?!” It feels obnoxious to me mostly because the scene didn’t work. Mostly because nobody knows what the Rouge is. It’s a new model, and doesn’t have much in the way of buzz yet. If it had been a known quantity like, say, a Mustang or a Mini Cooper, then it would have made sense. Instead, we’re left to wonder why this girl is so excited about a new mid-level car that no-one has ever heard of and that’s not especially sexy to look at.

But, this is product placement at it’s greatest. And before anyone bashes Nissan too much, you should really spot and take a look at your favorite show next time. It’s no coincidence that every can of soda has it’s label perfectly oriented so you can see the brand name.

In the product placement biz, there’s three levels:

• Product appears in the background at some point in the show.
• A character interacts with the product; picking it up, moving it, etc.
• A character interacts with the product and mentions the brand by name.

Clearly, the premier hit big on all three. But honestly, I’m willing to deal with a little intrusive product placement for limited commercial interruption. We probably got 10 minutes more show because of Nissan’s sponsorship. And the Nissan was only really featured at that one point… be glad that the plot didn’t hinge on that car or something equally annoying.

Actually, what I found even more obnoxious was that when the show did go to commercial, Nissan only had ONE Rouge spot (with some subtle versioning) to show.

The new kid that's kind of stalking Claire from school is creeping me out. I don't like that he followed her home.

Agreed. And he has his own powers, huh? And it’s flight, too… just like Claire’s birth-father (Nathan). Hmm… maybe Nathan was fooling around with women other than just Claire’s birth-mother?

I like that her dad put his new manager in his place. I hope he broke his finger.

I guess. But how realistic is that, really? He wouldn’t just get fired? Come on… this feels like a lazy way for him to have a job as a cover story (but it’s still dealing with paper products, which I think is a nice touch).

I'm still wondering what Mama Petrelli and Hiro's Dad's powers are/were.

Me too. I’m still assuming that they do have powers… but they’ve only been shown as puppet masters/power brokers up until this point. Do they really have powers? And in the case of Hiro’s father we can assume his power isn’t/wasn’t flight.

I have no clue who killed Hiro's dad. Could have been Sylar (maybe). Could have been Nathan (maybe). Could be someone we've not met yet.

Sylar doesn’t really make sense, because his thing isn’t murder, per se, but rather the “collecting” of powers. Whatever he does (actually eat the brains or just fool around with them) seems to take a little time; so this doesn’t seem like his MO at all. Nathan? Could be, but I doubt it. I’m going with someone we haven’t seen yet.

I'm totally curious about who is stalking Molly in her nightmares.

Yeah, the new Big Bad! I’m guessing we won’t see him/her/it for a while. At least not until Sylar leaves the show to go film Star Trek XI.

I'm curious to know how Peter got cuffed inside a storage container, wearing that half-DNA symbol pendant, with apparent amnesia.

Amnesia! The ultimate panacea for what ails ya (or the plot) in the comic book world! I’m not bashing the writers, I think, again, it fits in well with the comic book feel of the series. And I am also, of course, curious as hell as to what happened.

And I have to say that I’m surprised that they didn’t try to string out the mystery of the Petrelli brothers (are they alive? Are they dead?) for a longer time. But it’s cool… I find it really interesting that even though everyone came together at the end of season one, that now everyone is spread out again. They know of each other, and a few of them are actually working together (notably Mohinder and HRG) but they didn’t come together like the new Justice League or something. I mean, Niki, D.L. and Micah didn’t even appear in the episode! That’s pretty impressive, I think.

I really want to know how that symbol plays into everything - starting as the symbol for that Kensei guy, being tattooed on Nikki's shoulder, being the pendant around Peter's neck, and also the "sign" that "you're going to die" by the hand of a member of your little mutant clique.

Yeah, I really hope the writers can pay that off. I hope it doesn’t become their version of “The Trust is Out There” with the X-Files; where we finally learned the truth at the end, and it was that aliens really are real and the government is working with them to… do what again? Something with bees? Shit, ya lost me.

Anyway, it’s really intriguing.

And, last I checked, wasn't Mohinder *already* working for The Company when he was curing Molly last season???? What's with this guy following him around Egypt to ask him to join them... again.

I’m not real clear on this bit either. Are we talking about the same Company? Maybe these are different guys? I dunno.

Finally, I have to say that I think the writer’s are taking a bit of a chance. There’s probably a lot of people who never watched season one, but heard good things about the show, who are willing to give it a go now. But that premier wasn’t that easy of an entryway to the show… if you don’t already know what happened in season one, you would probably become lost really quickly. I mean, it’s good for us… we don’t have to slog through a bunch of backstory we already know; but I just hope it’s not bad for the show (because they still need to keep ratings up).

But all in all, I fun start to the season.

PS: My big hunch for this season? Kensei, the legendary hero that Hiro worships? Hiro is going to do all those heroic deeds of legend, effectively becoming Kensei himself. Meaning that in the future he never stole Kensei’s sword… it was his own sword all along.

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