Greetings again faithful readers and television enthusiasts (sounds a lot more active if I call us enthusiasts doesn’t it?). Welcome to a new addition to the TV or Not TV experience where I talk about the shows that I was able to watch the night before and give you my take on how well they played out. This will, sadly, give you great embarrassing insight in to how much television I’m actually able to watch. These tidbits could be short or they could be detailed. They will not attempt to hide information so if you haven’t watched a show I did know that you might read something you don’t want to know yet (commonly known as a spoiler) so read at your own risk.

CBS – HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER: I’m a fan of HIMYM and last nights episode delivered in every way that we love the show. Neil Patrick Harris stole every scene that he was in (as I predicted) with him confronting his feelings for Robin, Ted got the answer of yes from Stella (guest star Sarah Chalke) and then was hung up on the fact that he knows so little about his new fiance. My only complaint about episode is the use of Star Wars as Ted’s favorite movie of all time and his dependance on Stella having to love the movie too. As a 22 minute comedy the show delivered.

NBC – HEROES: OK, so Heroes finally returned last night and NBC tried to make it the event of the week with a special red carpet one hour “let’s get everyone caught up on Heroes since we’ve been off the air for so long” special leading in to the premiere (which I didn’t watch a minute of). This is probably the hardst thing for me to write because, for me, the two hours of Heroes that we were presented with just oozed of absurdity to the point that the show went from compelling to unwatchable.

The show started off exactly where it should and we find out who the shooter of Nathan Petrelli was in last seasons finale. Sylar tracks down Claire and finally gets her power (without killing her unlike all of his previous victims whom he stole powers from), after being stopped by a louvered door that my grandmother could have taken apart, and may have turned off Claire’s ability to feel pain in the process. Those two elements were the parts that were compelling for me. Everything else? Not so much.

The absurdity first starts with Mohinder possibly finding the source of abilities and discovering a way to give regular people powers. Naturally he does what any responsible man of science does and uses his new syrum on himself. This in itself isn’t absurd, but what follows does because the repurcussions of this act seem to be a flat-out ripoff of the Jeff Goldblum remake of The Fly. Mohinder finds himself, just like Brundle-Fly, with greater strength, increased agility, the ability to climb walls and he does the nasty with someone right after he discovers all this. I was completely amazed at such a blatant lifting of material and I was even more shocked when it continued as Mohinder woke up and discovered his back is apparently peeling large scales of skin… yeah… body parts… coming off… Brundle-Fly.

The comic-relief duo of Hiro and Ando get a super-sonic adversary who some how knows the very instant that Hiro disregards everything that he is told and takes one half of a piece of paper containing a formula that if into the wrong hands can destroy the world (hey, here’s a thought… burn the paper if it is so dangerous and don’t make anyone have to be the watchman for any great secret… duh). Worst of all we learn that Hiro will be killed by a electric beam throwing Ando in the future over this same piece of paper (Well, at least Ando is now alive in the future and not dead as we previously saw in previous seasons).

Nathan Petrelli, upon cheating death, now is saddled with a vision of Linderman that only he can see, which just wreaks of another lift similar to Baltar’s mental Number Six on Battlestar Galactica. He believes his cheating death is the act of God and he’s now going to spread the good word and help those that need it. He’s also been offered a senate seat by the state of New Yorks Governor (played by Bruce Boxleitner) and the offer is delivered by someone that looks like Niki, sounds like Niki but isn’t Niki. OK. Whatever. You lost me in this episode already when we found out…

Peter Petrelli proves once again to be one of the worst characters of this entire series. The sympathetic ability sponge is the one who came back from the future in order to stop his brother from telling the world about super-powered individuals by doing what anyone of us would do, talking it out with his bro… no, wait, shooting him. When he was chased by his present-day self after the shooting he some how put that present-day self “inside” the body of a prisoner on Level 5 of “the Company” (the place where all the bad people with powers get locked up) to keep him safe (by surrounding him with all the bad people) while he figures out what to do. He also starts playing with strings of yarn like the future version of Hiro that we saw in Season 1. His mom also keeps telling him to go back where he came from because his presence in his past (our present) is mucking time up in a big way. Confused? Don’t be too hard on yourself because any time you get into time you get into paradox and confusion (like how can he be here in the past if he travelled from a future that doesn’t exist because his interference changed things… head hurting yet?).

I could break this down for you further but the long and short of it is first two hours of this season didn’t do a lot for me and the show is going to have to do a lot to keep me as a viewer. The primary problem with these two episodes was that they were doomed to fail because they were written by the show’s creator, Tim Kring. So far he has written every episode in the show that I have had problems with. Tim, you’re an idea man… let other people do the writing for you, ok?

CBS – Worst Week: Well, if you saw the commercials all summer long advertising Worst Week than you pretty much have already seen the first episode. The show suffers from what I originally thought it would: the fact that all of these bad things are perpetuated/continued by the lead character is fundamentally unbelievable. I’m not saying it isn’t entertaining, I’m just saying I don’t like watching people be really uncomfortable and that is the core of what this show is about. I’ll give it another week or two to reserve final judgement.

That’s all I was able to cram in to a single night of viewing. Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles and Prison Break are both going to have to wait until I have more viewing time, which as you can see from above isn’t much.

Tune in tomorrow as I give you my take on the shows that I was able to watch tonight.

– Will WIlkins watched far too much television last night.

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