No no no no

No no no no.
No. Nein. Non. Tsaa.

Here I am, happily watching Heroes and taking it all as it comes: garbage, excitement, pretty people and... what the duck is THAT??? WHAT HAVE THEY DONE???

They've geekified the villain.

And boy, did they geekify him. Lovely daddy Gabriel. What??????????? That was akin to Darth Vader taking off his mask and being Noddy Holder doing "It's Chriiiiiiiiissstmas!". Ugh. I will be traumatised by this moment for ever more, I will never again be able to properly appreciate badness in a bloke for fear of the geekifying potential of four years time.

I used to be an evil killer, but I got better. Please. Just, no. Just like sappy wet people don't become strong and vengeful after a trauma (they become sappier and wetter), evil doesn't do that. Even if it's a fake thing to garner favour, too geeky. Way too geeky*.

Ok, maybe the story was quite good tonight (ooh, Matt/Daphne/Molly/baby, aww) and I'm liking Peter's "hunger" (Prrrrrr) but I will NEVER forgive them** for the geek moment.

No, Sylar, no! Be bad more!

* in real life, which this isn't, I am irresistibly drawn to geeks. Villains must remain villainous to counterbalance this.
**them = the writers, who care deeply and passionately what I think, and who wouldn't despair at the fact that the whole heroes/villains thing is passing me by in the name of aesthetics.

Heroes

Well, last week's Heroes (episode 2) was diabolically bad, this week's (episode 3, amazingly) was fab. Sylar is immensely cool, I had a minor coronary at the sight of him in a suit, and another when he pretended to be FBI. Although I can't take sides between him and Noah Bennet, he's pretty cool as well. No, Sylar wins, he's ace, the best character of them all. Maybe that's because he can act, but that would suggest the rest of them couldn't. No.

Yes, fab, ace and cool. I don't care.

And there's a new paint-future-mad-eye bloke! Ace! And he's made Parkman go all mad eyed with his magic headphones! I still don't like bad Peter though and I'm not all that enamoured with new-Nikki. The scenes with Hiro and Daphne are annoying in their silliness, I'm not sure if that's bad writing or bad acting. Meredith is wackily quite good and I'd like to see her smack Claire's saintly adoptive mother.

Nathan's getting right into his religion though, he's got all the way to page 1 of the bible. I'm not sure, but I reckon I'd give the bible at least a quick scannie before signing up.

BBC did good

They did put Heroes on iplayer.
I didn't miss anything, except, oh look, Claire's kinda bad too in the future. Or is she? These mysteries, so clever, so intriguing, so UNNECESSARY.

I'm going to watch it, ok, you got me in the first series (and the cast are ever so aesthetic) you don't need to have EVERYTHING so it's not what it looks like.

Heroes

No, not mine, the programme. Fear not. Heroes, series three, episode one. huzzah!

New series started tonight, which I TOTALLY forgot about until ten minutes in, I failed to notice that it is in fact October now, I'm still in about April. I did spend at least half the remaining (not very long) episode going "huh?" so I'll put that down to the missed minutes and not my decaying brain. I suspect I merely missed the big recap though. They (the BBC) said, lyingly, that I could catch up on BBC iplayer, but as of now, nothing there. Patience is not a virtue I am familiar with.

So (fluffily) far:

Don't like bad Peter. Peter is the ultimate good guy.

I shouldn't fancy Sylar, but I do. He's the perfect bad guy. He would swoosh beautifully given the chance.

Yay to Mohinder getting an ability! Although there was a "here's the science, ignore or your brain will explode" bit to get to it.

I am bored of the "who is Claire really?" thing, it's been going on since the first episode. Tim Kring said "99% of the questions raised in the first episode will be answered by the end of the series". Oh, don't tell me what the final 1% we have to momentarily ponder before not caring any more will be? Not Claire, surely, no, that would be tedious.

Daphne seems like a good character and (along with the overawed cast), I liked the effect of her trail.

Why does Nathan always have to be a dick? He's been every type of dick there is; now he's a god bothering dick, the very best.

I'm not sure about the everyone's (maybe) a villain thing, I think that just gives them licence to do whatever they feel like with the characters. Which doesn't really work, it just makes it easier for them and harder for the viewer.

****

I do actually like Heroes, but I must stop watching Heroes Unmasked, it makes me despise them all, hence the tone of this. It's good, tonight's episode was exciting, especially the Sylar/Claire bit and I am thrilled that it's back. Even if I forgot to watch it...

Autumn watch

It's that time of year for BBC's new season, the series that will finish at Christmas time. Sod the summer, bring on the autumn dark evenings and watchable telly.

First off, and this I am looking forward to, is Merlin, starting on BBC1 on Saturday at 7.30 pm. I saw the trailer for this while waiting for The Dark Knight at the cinema and was immensely pleased it was to be on TV not a film release. The guy who plays Merlin, Colin Morgan, is mesmerising from what I've seen, he has incredible eyes. I'm not overly familiar with the whole Arthurian legend, I know some parts of some stories, but it's not a world I've ever explored in detail. I feel it may now be easy to do so, which is always an added bonus. There are to be five series of this, the first one of which is in 13 parts, so lots of watching there.



Spooks series 7 is imminent. I adore Spooks. It is necessary to suspend all disbelief, but the action is fast paced and I like the cast. One of the things that is good about this is the suspense, this is one of the few dramas that will quite happily kill off a lead character, removing the assurance that all will be well in the end - it usually isn't. Rumour is that the very gorgeous Rupert Penry Jones is to be leaving this series (presumably by getting a new identity as he appears to be immortal), but whether this is true or not, the broodingly sexy Richard Armitage is to join the cast, which is quite splendid news. Not sure of exact broadcast date, Autumn 2008 is the closest I can find. Check the Radio Times.


And finally...
It's back. Series 3. October 1st, BBC2 9pm. Some of the cast can act, some of the stories work, but overall... I love it.