Superheroic feats -- or, in some cases, just costumes -- abounded on "How I Met Your Mother," "The Class" and "Heroes." Spoilers, in that order, coming up right about now...
One of the many things I love about "How I Met Your Mother" is the way it's only nominally a three-camera sitcom. Yes, it's shot on video and has a laughtrack, but every week the writers come up with some new storytelling twist, whether it's subtitles at a noisy club, flashbacks shown twice with different meanings or, last night, Barney going all Marlin Perkins with his analysis of how to identify and bag The Cougar. Bonus points for finding post-"Malcolm" employment for the genius that is Bryan Cranston and for picking up the baton that "Wedding Crashers" dropped after 20 minutes and making good use of Jane Seymour's, um, attributes. After "The Office," this is the best comedy on TV right now...
...which makes each episode of "The Class" suffer even more in comparison than if it aired after, say, "Old Christine." After this one, I think I'm out. I like many of the actors, and there are occasionally funny bits (last night it was the FDR costume), but the bad stuff is just so grating, and six episodes in, it's obvious that Crane and Klarik aren't getting the memo about Holly and her husband. Somebody let me know if they ever get around to punting about half the cast and I'll give it another go.
The first "Heroes" without an OMFG cliffhanger, but the circularity of Peter passing Future Hiro's message back to present Hiro was cool enough to compensate. The characters continue to come together nicely, whether it's Hiro's fanboy encounter with Nathan at the diner (and for series TV, the effects on Nathan's supersonic flight were pretty nifty) or Ando showing up at Niki's doorstep. I even don't mind her and Peter anymore, so they're doing something right. Plus, Jack Coleman (Claire's good/bad dad) just got made a regular castmember, cementing one of the more unlikely TV second acts in recent memory. (He was Gay Steven #2 on "Dynasty," then spent the last two decades doing mostly anonymous guest star work.)
A few minor problems: 1)Present-day Hiro's grasp of English took a major leap forward from last week to this one. If he's able to carry on even a clumsy conversation with Nathan, why can't he leave a semi-coherent message for Isaac?; 2)Don't really care about Officer Matt's marital problems and would like to get him integrated with some other main characters, and soon; and 3)While Niki's ex-husband and Claire's father's sidekick don't look exactly alike, there's enough of a resemblance that the fact that neither one has spoken so far is confusing. Get them both talking, or put one of them in a rainbow clown wig. I don't care. Just do something.
What did everybody else think?
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