By Diana L. LaBrecque
It’s hard to say how the NBC hit “Crossing Jordan” is still in production when four of the show’s main production leaders have joined the intense creative team behind NBC’s newest epic drama, “Heroes.”
A high-energy, fast-paced sci-fi tale, “Heroes” is clearly the most expensive show on the network’s revamped fall schedule. With a diverse, highly recognizable cast of nine individuals, all living in major locations across the globe, one can only hope that the writers don’t write in the apocalypse too early or the set designers don’t run out of money. Among the gifted young cast are many familiar TV faces, including Milo Ventimiglia and Greg Grenberg, punky Jess from The CW’s (formerly WB) “Gilmore Girls” and offbeat Eric Weiss from ABC’s retired hit “Alias,” respectively. Others include Tawny Cypress from “All My Children” and “Third Watch” and Ali Larter from such feature films as Legally Blonde 2 and Final Destination.
Newbie Hayden Panettiere, who’s had on-screen exposure in A Bug’s Life and Racing Stripes, is also in the ensemble. The team is completed with even more young TV veterans like Santiago Cabrera, Masi Oka, Adrian Pasdar and Sendgil Ramamurthy. All together, this squad is more incredible than the Fantastic Four and has more complex connections than the X-Men.
From the premiere, the show is already following typical trends and themes of super-hero stories, including biblical and pop-culture references. Some online viewers are already complaining that the show is an X-Men Beginnings in disguise. But the differences between the two are few and far between. The Professor Xavier in this case is an Indian cab driver who moves to New York to uncover his dead father’s secret genetics theory, which a very mysterious Matrix-like Agent Smith is also after. While the cabby begins to look for the gifted individuals who may have these gene alterations, eight other apparently unrelated story lines begin to unfold.
There are no Cyclopes or Storms in this show, but there is an artist (and yes, druggie) who paints the future, an Asian time traveler, a flying male nurse, a cheerleader who walks through fire and a stripper (and yes, single mom) who has a skitzomaniac personality living in her mirror. Entertaining clichés and common stereotypes aside, this show is different, to say the least.
The premiere episode aired Tuesday Sept. 26 at 8 p.m., but NBC followed the new trend by streaming the full pilot online a week early to gather more of an audience and hype up the show. Creator Tim Kring is utilizing the Internet like it’s going out of style, talking on a Live Blog at NBC.com and even posting on an unofficial official fan site for the show called 9thwonders.com. Another interesting aspect of the show’s official NBC site is the graphic novel version of the show available for download. If NBC was looking for a strong “Spock-loving” cult following, they may find it before the show even has a Nielsen Rating.
GRADE: B+