Emerson filed a federal lawsuit in St. Louis on Monday, seeking to block the NBC television network from rebroadcasting the pilot episode of the new show "Heroes," which depicts a woman damaging her hand in a garbage disposal made by the company.

The Ferguson-based maker of electric products says NBC Universal Television Studios did not have the right to use the company's In-Sink-Erator brand disposal in the show without permission.

The filing comes complete with color printouts that show a re-creation of a woman putting her hand in the disposal and pulling it out mangled and bloody. The suit says the scene suggests that the Emerson In-Sink-Erator "will cause debilitating and severe injuries, including the loss of fingers, in the event consumers were to accidentally insert their hand into one."

1. Fling on your cape, don your mask, and wiggle into your spandex.
2. Wield a video camera capturing yourself demonstrating your amazing inner hero.
3. Tap into your superhuman creative powers and wow us with a video that's out of this world. Your flick can include live action of you conquering evildoers with your trusty sidekick, performing extraordinary feats of courage and nobility, or saving innocent victims from grave doom. Or perhaps it features eyewitness testimonials, real-life heroic triumphs, or mind-boggling displays of your shape-shifting talents.

ALERT! When producing your video, please practice extreme care and safety and do not attempt any actions that may produce negative results.
4. Edit your video footage to 30 seconds or less. All content in your submission must be original or owned exclusively by you.
5. Share your video with legions of fans by uploading it faster than the speed of light on GameSpot from October 2-23, 2006.
6. Carry on making the world a better place while an all-star team positioned at the GameSpot headquarters reviews the entries. The winning video will be selected based on creativity, originality, and humor.

The winner will be announced here on October 27, 2006. The winning video will be posted on both GameSpot and NBC.com.

Tonight's episode adds to the puzzle and that's just fine by me. It's still early and, as packed with characters and plot threads as the opener was, this episode seems like the second half of a two hour premiere. We're just getting started, still meeting new characters for the first time, and only Flying Boy has yet to cross paths with any of the other heroes.

Source: TVSquad

I just finished watching the amazing new TV show Heroes on NBC. Tonight?s episode is further proof that this show has some great potential.

Tonight we are introduced to a cop who can hear what people are saying. We learn more clues about what happened to Professor Suresh. Who is Skylar? Claire might be exposed. Nikki is digging herself deeper into her own horror. Peter and Nathan may soar to new heights. Isaac has seen the future to come?but then again?so has Hiro.

Source: BigJon

But Heroes makes me proud to love TV in a whole different way. Heroes just allows me to get lost for 42 minutes and live in a world where possibilities are endless and people can do more than they ever thought themselves capable of.

This week the episode begins with one of these awful recap voiceovers that seem to have started this season (I?m looking at you Vanished). But I can kinda forgive this show cos it is all comic booky and such. For the record I am a bit of a comic geek, but a little more Optic Nerve than X-Men. We than get real VO as Mohinder asks the thematic questions of the show, what is our destiny? I really like the way that put the ep title at the begining, this show has some cool little quirks.

Source: Idiot Box

Thank goodness for Heroes...this show definitely seems to have potential. It sorta drives me nuts how slow the pace will be, but I like it at the same time. It's a show that you know is building towards something...you know...like Lost did at first...or even Desperate Housewives...of course both shows committed suicide during their 2nd season. I know it's still early, but I hope Heroes continues to improve and avoids the sophomore curse. The sliced skull/brain was gnarrrrly looking. I hope theres some more of that! :)

Source: Papa Razzi

So I start from a flawed position in the firmament and descend from there. But here goes anyway. On a whim Monday night, I did something I almost never do: I watched a new show. Given my sports diet and reading habits, I really don't have time for this, an hour-long hocus-pocus-type drama called "Heroes" on NBC.

On the other hand, I'm already hooked. The writing is out of this world, and my guess is much of the cast comes from independent films. But the story is pure "X-Men" meets "The Sixth Sense."

Source: Aspen Post

On TV, NBC?s Monday night Heroes has graciously filled the gap left by the idiotic cancellation of last season?s fun Surface. I say idiotic from the perspective of creativity and entertainment, certainly not from the money and marketing angle. We loved Surface but I?m sure it failed its network television economics course. Still we?re a bit hesitant to fall for Heroes lest they nix this one, also after a mere single season.

Source: The Constant Janitor

Ok, I'm officially loving Heroes. And Hiro is maybe the funniest new character of the season. Seriously, how cute was it when he was running down the streets in NYC yelling "Hello!"

Source: Judging You

TVGuide.com: Now shed some light for me on Niki's ability. I've seen the first three episodes and I'm still unclear about exactly...
Larter: OK, wait until [Episodes] 4, 5 and 6 for me. It really starts coming out then.

TVGuide.com: She obviously has this alternate self, but does it only exist in reflections, or is that just a device to show us...?
Larter: What I'm discovering is that there is a duality to my personality: one side that has to conform to society's rules and laws, and a shadow side that has all these repressed feelings and would love to seek revenge. When you keep those feelings locked away long enough, it becomes very dangerous when they start to come out.

TVGuide.com: Has Tim shared with you the overall game plan?
Larter: I know where we're going, yeah, and when we will ultimately be coming together. What I love about the show is they're not giving everyone exactly what they want. Some people wish that we were brought together in the first episode, but what's interesting is to see what happens naturally. Ours is a theme that has been done in tons of movies and is rooted in Greek mythology, but at the end of the day it's a fresh take, because we are all just ordinary, flawed people.

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.