In NBC's new drama, Heroes, one of the characters, Niki Sanders, is a single mother who made a Very Bad Decision by borrowing money from some unsavory ruffians. When said ruffians come forward to collect the money she doesn't have, and then demand that they be allowed to rape Niki to "lower her loan," Niki loses time. When she wakes, she discovers that the odd reflections that she has seen of herself in mirrors have, it seems, slaughtered said ruffians without Niki ever even knowing it.

Now this show is titled Heroes, yes? And what do Heroes never, ever do, Gentle Reader?

Correct. Heroes never, ever kill.

(Well, except they do sometimes. But that's another post.)

Let us look further at Niki Sanders and what we know of Hero Creation.

1) She is desperate to protect her family.
2) She is in financial ruin.
3) She has been sexually threatened.
4) Her superpower is uncontrollable, as in, she doesn't know how to use it. It acts on its own accord.
5) Said superpower *kills*.
6) Said superpower also has a selfish core; it does things solely for her benefit. As a replication of self, or a mirror-image of her basest desires, this is particularly interesting.
7) She allows said superpower to kill without turning herself in to the authorities (see Buffy the Vampire Slayer "Dead Things" for an example of how heroes are traditionally supposed to treat situations such as this).

Few of these things really scream Hero Creation, do they? But they should be familiar to us, Gentle Reader, because they scream Creation Of Another Kind.

My theory, therefore, is that the character of Niki Sanders is not a burgeoning hero, but rather, a burgeoning villain.

For those of you who skipped English class that week, Rushdie?s novel recounts the history of the modern state of India through the fanciful tale of 1,001 children who were born at the stroke of midnight on Independence Day?"every one of whom was, through some freak of biology, or perhaps owing to some preternatural power of the moment ? endowed with features, talents or faculties which can only be described as miraculous ? powers of transmutation, flight, prophecy and wizardry."


If you know the book and happened to catch the Heroes premiere last Monday, the Japanese man on the show who can bend time may have reminded you of the book?s character with "the gift of traveling in time." Or the series? young woman who has a dark relationship with mirrors may have brought to mind the book?s character who can step into and emerge from "any reflective surface in the land."

What?s more, the young Indian geneticist on the show, who sets out to find and nurture the budding heroes, shares the name "Suresh" with the doctor in Midnight?s Children who delivers the book?s narrator into the world.

Alas, any Rushdie references are coincidental. Heroes creator Tim Kring pled "complete ignorance" when Flash! asked him about it, lamenting that one of the "tragedies " of being a TV writer is having little time to be "a leisure reader by any stretch of the imagination."

I do have one issue, though, this the portrayal of Odessa on Heroes. If you have been to Odessa, which unfortunately I have, you will know that there are no trees and no hills. Odessa is oil country and it is desolate and barren land. In Heroes the other night, they showed trees and hills around Odessa. I can understand not filming there, but shouldn?t NBC try and be a little more realistic and believable?

Prime television rarely catches my attention. But oh, boy. NBC?s Heroes blew my breath away. I am left wanting for more. Real people with super powers, may it be flying, healing capabilities, teleportation, psychic abilities, and possible super strength. It screams X-men. It screams sci-fi. It screams drama. Am I supposed to resist?

Heroes is okay. It?s not world beating, and it?s certainly not original by any stretch of the imagination. Unless by original, you mean the idea of humans developing these specific super powers has never been on a live action television show, then yes, it is a new development on an age-old theme. To the extent that my initial assumption presumes that Heroes will, at best, have a two-season run, it only comes from my reaction after watching the pilot. Heroes appears to have fallen into the trap of those types of shows with little-to-no character development. Whether Heroes overcomes this hurdle and ultimately succeeds remains to be seen, and I will watch a few more episodes to determine whether the first show was just a fluke

I know they are trying to establish all of the charcters and everything, but none of them are very interesting.

I didn't even make it halfway through. Too bad.

The show lacks originality. The only thing it has going for it is it's production values. But, I mean flying, healing, teleporting...At least The 4400 thought of some new super powers people could have.

Heroes is shallow. Comparing the show to a comic book movie is actually quite fitting, because as a fan of actual comic books all I can say is that it lacks depth

The bottom line is this: if you want to be the next J.J. Abrams, Aaron Sorkin or Tim Kring, you better brush up on your blogging skills. Because it's not enough to write a hit show anymore. You have to interact with fans online, liveblog events and be ready with the pithy (yet not too revealing) commentary. Writing for tv sure isn't what it used to be.