Superheroes? Without capes? Goodness me.

Hurgh. Am tired, cranky and generally unfit for polite company, and nbc hit show Heroes is mostly to blame. (The rest of it lies squarely on my constantly blue-screening lab computer and my own miserablism.) Damn thing kept me up extremely late, leaving me with a little bit over four hours of sleep last night.

The show's conceit isn't really that original, even though it likes to think it is; comics have been doing superheroes without capes for quite a long time now. However, it is *very* well executed. So: evolution in overdrive, people gain strange abilities and have to cope with them, and so on and so X-Men. Except without spandex and racism metaphors and more X-Files. Given the premise, it's quite naturally an ensemble show, which has its strengths and weaknesses. There's no main character that it all hinges on, even though some are clearly more important than others, which promises a bit of unpredictability; anyone could violently exit the stage at any point. On the other hand, when you get to one of the plot threads or characters that doesn't work work as well as the others, you just want to reach for the fast forward button. Everyone will fall in love with the bumbling, nerdy and earnest Hiro, and when you get past the concept of Evil Stripper Mom, her part will start to bore you.

Also: know that Heroes *loves* the classic cliffhanger. You will reach for the next episode the moment the latest one finishes. (Unless of course you don't care for the show at all, but as a Doktor, I cannot be held responsible for your lapses in taste.)