Investigating Heroes: Essays on Truth, Justice and Quality TV
David Simmons
Language: English
Pages: 187
ISBN: 0786459360
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Premiering in September of 2006, the weekly NBC television series Heroes was an immediate commercial and critical hit, lasting four successful seasons. Heroes follows a group of interrelated characters who discover they have superhuman powers, with each successive episode exploring how these people react to and utilize their powers for good or for evil. This collection of essays explores a variety of issues surrounding Heroes, examining the series' content, marketing and reception. Also investigated is the show's fusion of "cult" and mainstream elements of television, analyzing its ability to combine so-called lowbrow elements (comic books and superheroes) with a high-quality television form prizing such factors as moral ambiguity and depth of characterization--and what this blending process suggests about the current hybrid state of genre television, and about the medium as a whole.
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recall a comics’ aesthetic. However, paratextual material get more showy in later series (for example, 3:20, where Tracy Strauss breathes ice over the episode title “Cold Snap” which then melts away) and it is arguable that this dilutes the original impact of this creative positioning by removing the resemblance to comics. The series also uses frames and shots that represent comic book panels. Strong vertical lines (such as thick, contrasting doorframes) characterize the mise en scéne throughout
Heroes, and this aesthetic normalizes the fantastic events by quite literally framing them, flagging a comics’ sensibility to the audience. For example, walls are often used to split scenes, visually recalling the comic book panel (see, for example, 1:1 as Noah Bennet plunders Chandra Suresh’s apartment); volume four (which begins midway through season three) opens with Tracy and Nathan framed by a television screen, and shortly after Matt appears bordered by a door and window frame (3:14). Later
in season three where a second eclipse causes the heroes to experience a temporary loss of powers. Not only does this add tension (for example, as Noah Bennet attempts to kill Sylar before his regenerative powers return (3:11)) but it also marks a reiteration of the everyman motif, such as when Daphne Millbrook is revealed as reliant upon crutches without her superspeed ability (3:10). Comics lore states that the superhero and alter ego will often be radically opposed (consider weedy Clark
books themselves are often central to plot development: Isaac Mendez’s comic book 9th Wonders is a regular feature of early episodes; Isaac’s individual paintings, many of which create a comic strip when arranged sequentially, are central to the storyline of the first season; and references are often made to existing successful comic books, such as X-Men and The Fantastic Four. Furthermore, the celebrated comics writer Stan Lee makes a cameo appearance as a bus driver in season one and the
so that the latter can resume his evil plans through the Pinehearst Company to “save the world” at all costs. Hiro’s actions may have reified the mythic heroism of Takezo Kensei, but they have also spawned, through the “butterfly effect,” dangerous consequences outside his control. I close my analysis by returning to the notion of vulnerability, which ultimately constitutes Hiro’s redemption. In season four, Hiro learns that his time travel is taking a toll on his body and he is dying from a brain