Heroes, "Dying of the Light": Sucks to be him

Spoilers for Monday night's "Heroes" coming up just as soon as I hit the novelty shop...

If nothing else, I have to give the "Heroes" writers some attaboys for having Papa Petrelli siphon away all of Peter's powers (including, I'm assuming, the ability to copy other people's). Not only does it (temporarily) solve the problem of how to deal with one character being more powerful than everyone else on the show combined (and in a better way than the usual "Let's just make Peter an imbecile" approach), but it places them in the hands of one of the better actors the show's ever featured in Robert Forster. As I wrote about last week, the "Heroes" writing is never really going to get much better than it is, but when you give material to guys like Forster, Adrian Pasdar and Jack Coleman, they have the superpower to make it seem better than it actually is.

(It's just a shame that Peter hadn't used his borrowed healing powers to live for several centuries the way Adam Monroe had, or else he also would've crumbled to dust and we would have been rid of him forever.)

As for the non-Forster portions of the episode? Eh. Not as good as last week, not as awful as some of the earlier parts of the season, and a perfectly acceptable time waster while doing other things. I even laughed a few times at things that were supposed to be funny, like Hiro repeatedly getting hit with the shovel right after looking at a painting of it happening. Things are finally beginning to happen in the present instead of the future, and even the really stupid stuff -- like the completely inconsistent nature of the power-dampening capabilities of Level 5 -- just makes me roll my eyes instead of angering me these days.

I guess what I'm saying is that I've exhausted all my "Heroes" hate. It's a profoundly stupid show, but there are just enough good things going on to keep my inner fanboy interested in watching. And if they can bring in any more "Wire" alums (or, for that matter, give Jamie Hector something to do), so much the better.

What did everybody else think?