I Want A Heroes DVD Already

I just finished watching Monday night's episode of Heroes thanks to my usual not-quite-legal means, and boy, did I miss this show. I really hate it when these shows take two-month hiatuses during each season. It's like they air four or five episodes and get everybody in a good groove, then air reruns for six weeks. It's one thing to take a mid-season break in December, I can handle that. But come on. How long can it take them to film 23 episodes that, if one doesn't count the commercials, are between 40 and 45 minutes long? Even ones that are heavy on special effects like Heroes and Smallville, it shouldn't be too long, should it?

The only reason I can think of is that they take these breaks every so often in order to put some spit and polish on the shows. Maybe episodes need to be re-written to better suit the schedules of certain cast members, or even re-written to better please fans of the show. Or it could even come down to changes in how the show is made, like how Heroes's shapeshifter's morphing effect changed between this week's episode and her appearances prior to the hiatus. I guess the whole occasional hiatus thing makes sense to those that actually work on these shows, but to me, a viewer, it's frustrating because I don't have a real clue as to why these shows would take a two-month break so close to the end of the season. So if somebody from NBC wants to explain it to me, be my guest.

Now that I've got that little rant out of the way, we can move along. This week's episode, ".07%," wasn't too bad at all. It certainly wasn't "Company Man," but then again, that episode was almost too awesome. Where the episode succeeds is in answering a question or two from earlier in the season, as well as moving just about every major storyline forward in some way. I mentioned a long while back that I wished they'd do something with the whole Niki/Jessica thing, and while I'm not exactly sure where they're going with the "Linderman 'borrows' Micah" angle, at least it's something. I'm really enjoying both Malcolm McDowell as Linderman and Ali Larter as Jessica, so any reason to have either of them on the screen is a good one. Now if they'd just explain what the whole deal with Niki and Jessica's split personality thing is, I'd be a happy boy. Maybe they can have it climax like the "Clark Kent vs. Evil Superman" scene from Superman 3, where Niki and Jessica split into two people and beat the everloving crap out of each other. That'd be awesome.

And how about that ending scene, with Hiro meeting his badass samurai doppelganger from the future? Oh man, I hope they get into a swordfight next week. Then the show can pull the trigger on what they've been hinting at all season and have Hiro fight a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Put a Hiro/Hiro swordfight, Hiro slaying a dinosaur, and a Niki vs. Jessica brawl in the same episode, and it would be the greatest episode of any show since television was invented.

And just how awesome is Sylar? I mean, really, the dude is hardcore. How evil do you have to be to telekinetically stab a guy in the back of the head with a giant piece of broken glass, then pin another guy to the floor by jabbing paintbrushes through his wrists and ankles before you scalp him and eat his brain? Very, very evil. I mean, how much more evil could Sylar be? Barring the shocking revelation that his parents are Freddy Krueger and Linda Blair's character from The Exorcist, I think the answer is none. None more evil.

But yeah, Heroes is pretty rockin', and this week's episode was no exception. I'm kinda bummed that there are only four more episodes until the end of the season. And after that, I don't expect season two to start until October. And I doubt this season will be released on DVD until just before then, maybe in mid-September. Hopefully it'll be out before then, but in the event of a mid-September release date, that'll give me plenty of time to save up my pennies.