Matthew Wayne Selznick

SPOILERS AHEAD

I was really excited — really excited — about “Heroes” when I knew it was coming, last fall. For a while — maybe the first four or five episodes — I was hooked and hooked well. It was fun to see all the comic-book motifs being translated, and the cliff-hanger endings were great.

Then… gradually… the comic-book motifs became the tired, worn-out derivative clichés of the genre. And when the cliff-hangers became a little too much like the cheap tricks of the old dime-movie serials (hero falls off a cliff at the end of an episode, hero falls off a cliff but grabs hold of a tree root at the beginning of the next), they lost any suspense or thrill they might have delivered.

When did “Heroes” jump the shark for me? Well, there were a few trial passes up the water ski ramp, but the actual leap was when Linderman, Mom Petrelli, and Sulu turned out to be the puppet masters… add the old black guy, and you’ve got… let’s see… four 1st generation supers who have been manipulating the world for a generation… like the Four Voyagers, from another, far superior work of meta-comics, “Planetary.” Throw in the catastrophic destruction of New York City in order to usher in an era of peace… hasn’t anyone on the “Heroes” creative team read “Watchmen?”

I know Jeph Loeb has. Way to take the easy road, Jeph… if you even had any creative input beyond getting Stan Lee to play a bus driver and arranging the product placement of your own comics.

Some really lame shit in the season finale that irritated me:

• Peter has a “dream sequence” that puts him invisibly back in time so that his hospice patient — one of the four puppet masters, surprise surprise — can dispense some critical wisdom. “How is this happening,” Peter rightly wonders… and the writers tell us, through the Oracle (whoops, wrong old black sage, wrong over-hyped franchise) “does it matter?” Cheap. Lazy.
• Molly, the little girl, reveals next season’s villain (”When I see him… he sees me!!!! It’s Sauron!!!!”) in a sequence that still has attached to it the sticky note from the producers: “Insert set-up for next Fall here.” They could have taken a lesson from the masters of the long set-up, Len Wein and Gerry Conway, and had this worse-than-Sylar villain hinted at months ago, in little dribbles that viewers wouldn’t have even noticed except in retrospect. If they had remembered they had to set something up for next season in the first place.
• The shape-shifting chick reveals a new power — creating the fake dead kid — when it’s convenient to the plot. Up until this point, we’ve been given no clue that this was part of her arsenal, and so it stinks of deux ex machina.
• Nathan Petrelli arrives in time to fly Peter into the stratosphere, where (indestructible!) Peter can blow them both up. Except it was completely unnecessary! So was the tiresome “You know what to do, Claire!” Yeah, Claire, shoot the indestructible boy. See, if Peter really thought he couldn’t handle his go-boom power, why in the hell didn’t he fly himself into outer space, or off to the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, or whatever? He was close enough to intangible man to absorb his power… he could have dropped into the New York bedrock and done a little underground nuclear test. The pivotal, o-so-meaningful sacrifice was meaningless, because it didn’t have to happen.
• Parkman is shot four times, point blank, in the chest, and isn’t DOA.
• Intangible guy is shot once in the chest and is still alive and conscious at least an hour later.

You might be saying, “Dude, Matt, chill out — it’s just a TV show.”

I’m a little pissed, I admit it. Pissed because I started watching “Heroes” with high expectations — Jeph Loeb’s name alone gave me very high hopes, since I’ve read “The Long Halloween,” “Dark Victory,” “Gray,” “Blue,” and “Yellow” many, many times, with admiration. Even though this is the same guy who wrote “Teen Wolf,” I respect his talent.

I’m pissed because “Heroes” will be back next season, while a smart, character-driven, nearly-unpredictable series, “Jericho,” will not. Don’t even get me started on how “Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip” was replaced by “The Black Donnellys,” which had an even shorter run!

I’m pissed because I invested twenty three hours of my life — a whole day! — into something that ultimately let me down. And it didn’t need to be as bad a show as it turned out to be, if the powers than be had taken some risks, or just said “no” to formulas…

Too much to ask?

My own fault for thinking it was possible?

Maybe. But I won’t be watching next season. Too bad I can’t get back the day I lost from this one.

Largely due to her gangly energy, wicked intelligence, unnaturally pale skin, and her muppety face, I must confess a little celebrity crush on Sarah Silverman.

That is all!

As tempted as I was to comment on the whole Aqua Teen Hunger Force “infernal device” scare, I knew if I held off long enough, someone more clever than I would come up with an effective, hilarious commentary:

Time for one of those infrequent television posts.

I’ve been following “Jericho” — the CBS series about a small town in central Kansas after a series of nuclear explosions cuts off the rest of the world — and “Heroes” — the NBC series about an interconnected group of “new mutants” threatened by a pending nuclear detonation in New York City — since the season began.

Originally, I ate up “Heroes” like the best comic-book cake in the bakery, and tolerated “Jericho” because my wife liked it.

Lately, though, I’m flipping.

Now, I’m a huge comics fan — and when I knew “Heroes” was coming, I got pretty excited. I had my TIVO Season Pass all set up before the pilot aired. I wasn’t disappointed by the first few episodes, either, and really dug the cliffhanger episodes.

Then… I started to be able to predict things. Was I discovering a special ability myself? Would I be compelled to “watch the series… save Monday night for the network?” (Since unfortunately “Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip” isn’t gonna do that.) Nah… I’ve just read too many comic books, and “Heroes” follows comic book conventions so closely, they’ve started depending on comic book cliches. The cliffhangers are less shocking; the coincidences, contrived.

“Jericho,” on the other hand, I was apathetic toward, then intrigued… and now I’m engaged. Much slower than “Heroes,” and that’s all right, because it’s focused on character conflict and growth. People are changing for better and for worse, and characters are making choices that drive the plot, not the other way around. And maybe it says more about me than it does about these television shows, but I have yet to say, “Well, I saw that coming” watching an episode of “Jericho.”

It’s social science fiction, which is a pretty rare thing on television. When the plot twists come, I’m genuinely surprised because they make sense without feeling like mere shock value. I’m interested in the characters on “Jericho.” On “Heroes,” I’m not so concerned. I know New York will be saved. I don’t much care who lives or dies on the way to the season (series?) finale, because the characters are… pardon the blasphemy… too comic-booky!

Just one guy’s opinion, of course. Commence your attack runs..!

Summer’s over… and Aaron Sorkin’s back.

I just saw “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” (for the second time in fourteen hours.)

I know it’s been on Netflix, and probably easily torrent-able, but I wanted to wait. I wanted to see it on television, when it airs. It’s delayed gratification; it’s a little like ritual.

The pilot kicked ass.

Random observations, since I’m no television critic:

– The first twenty minutes flew by like five.
– Saw Matthew Perry in a role that didn’t make me think of Chandler Bing.
– Saw Bradley Whitford in a role that almost didn’t make me think of Josh Lyman.
– When did Amanda Peet become a great actress? Or is it the role? She had a quality — like she was in first-week-love with every other character with which she made eye contact. She was luminescent. And no, I’ve never been that much of a fan.
– Pacing, timing. The show, like “The West Wing” before it, moves at a rapid clip. No wasted scenes, and several that move the story along in multiple ways simultaneously.
– Trademark Aaron Sorkin moment: Jordan hands Matty the script for the cut skit that had set the whole episode in motion, and tells him to open with it next week. Gave me that chest-filling thrill that happened so many times on the Sorkin episodes of “The West Wing.”
– Speaking of “The West Wing,” yeah, it was a little like watching repertory theater with the same troupe. Whitford. Timothy Busfield. Karis Campbell. Anna Deavere Smith (at least I think I saw her in the meeting with the studio execs..!) Evan Handler. Carlos Jacott. Probably more?
– Danger, Danger: Television shows about television shows are hit and miss with the audiences and with the networks. There’s a two-year commitment built into the storyline. Will it last that long in real life?
– Small suspension of disbelief: How many painkillers would it take to run full-speed and take stairs two at a time three days after back surgery???

Anyway, now that summer casual flings with reality shows are over, I have precisely one hour of television I’ll be watching every week. Time well spent — and that’s not something I’ll say too often when it comes to TV.