Same shit, different season‏

Nothing much changes. Some old Heroes. (Peter Petrelli!) It felt like almost nothing has changed from last year. Not that anything really happened in the finale anyway, but it felt like a brand new pilot. And I though it was pretty boring. My mind kept wandering. I mean, look at last year's pilot: Claire finding that she is unable to really fit in at her high school; Hiro as a fish out of water; Mohinder speechifying and making my eyes roll. Even Peter Petrelli!, who we barely saw, is still doing that wide-eyed, slack jawed look of confusion/irritation. Well, Nathan's different at least. (And I have to give it up to Adrian Pasdar for not having to rely on the makeup department for that imposing beard.) For the record: 1. I did not miss Niki. 2. It took me about two minutes into the episode before I redeclared my hatred of Mohinder. (Around the time he was "manhandling" the man with the Midas touch.) 3. Hiro must stop his exclamations of "Yatta!" I think my theme for season two will be "I hate overly precocious children." Honestly, Molly is just as annoying as Parkman's wife from last year. Is it wrong that I hope that the boogeyman gets her? Maybe the new characters will be interesting. I thought too much time was spent on Maya (Blanca) and her brother because you knew she was going to do something bad - it just took too long to get there. I thought the bug-eyed flying high schooler was kinda creepy. He was weird with his obsession on the whole robots vs. aliens thing, but flying outside Clairebear's window moved him into full-on creep territory. And by the way, West? What kind of name is West? Suddenly I don't mind Noah. Speaking of Mr. Bennett, something else that has already grown old is his new job. Not funny at all. Not interesting at all. Made Noah look like an ass. Peter Petrelli!'s appearance was no shock (as the opening credits screwed me again), but his memory loss is interesting. When Sulu was killed, my first thought that it was Peter Petrelli!. I then developed a whole theory about how he was now under the control of The Company working as their assassin. That would have been an interesting twist. On to Hiro. I was really hoping to like Hiro again this season. And it's got nothing to do with Masi Oka, cause I do still think he's good. (The highpoint of the episode was his reaction to Kensei taking off his mask.) But they have got to do something different with him. (Does anyone else think that Hiro is going to "become" Kensei or is that too obvious and hokey even for this show?) But the guy who's playing Kensei used to be on Alias (so if I refer to someone as Sark, that's who I mean) and I really like him, so I suppose that will keep me invested in that storyline. (And if Hiro could find a way to bring him back with him to the future, that'd be cool with me.) Eh, like I said before, just really dull and mostly uninteresting. I still don't know how I can still be disappointed by this show, considering that I really should have learned by now... Oh, I don't want to forget, the "This week, Heroes reminded me of..." section of my email. That's where I name all of the other pop culture similarities that I picked up on. I'm not saying they are copying, I'm just saying that it's been done before, and better. #1 The Princess Bride: So, it turns out that Kensei is kinda like the Dread Pirate Roberts. People fear and respect the name, but it has nothing to do with the man. #2 Back to the Future: All Hiro's talk about changing the future because he stood in the way of Kensei, and now Sark won't marry the princess because he didn't protect the village sounds an awful lot like Marty McFly stopping his father from falling in love with his mother. (In this analogy Biff is the enemy that destroyed the village.) #3 Watchmen: A hero killer that has to be stopped by the next generation of heroes. #4 Buffy: Peter Petrelli! appears in a scant amount of clothes, in chains, with no memory. This reminded me when Angel came back from hell in the third season of Buffy, with no memory, no clothes, and eventually, chains.