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Heroes Part Deux

Heroes, the second season, has recently begun airing in Britain on the BBC, and, while it doesn't seem like Kring and Co. have quite reached "jumping the shark" waters yet, the steep decline in quality, since last season's bravura ending, is almost shocking. I am not sure what is worse - Hiro, in feudal Japan, playing some sort of Sancho Panza/ Rostand-character (second fiddle) to a drunk, dissembling Englishman (the sets feel like 70s TV to me) in a dull and uninviting B-plot - or Peter waking up in "Cork, Ireland" in a shipping container. The Cork scenes make Angela's Ashes seem shiny and new: the Irish thieves / pub owners (no stereotypes here) are dressed like they're out of Ryan's Daughter, and say things like "for the love of Mike" - or is that "Pete"?

The Irish set has goods in shop windows priced in Sterling - whereas the Celtic tiger has been using the Euro for some time now. Meanwhile, Peter's brother, who, last time I checked, was a Senator, or Congressman, is now in some dive, Unabomber-bearded, and dressed in the sort of nightshirt drunks in mining towns circa 1880 wore in 70s revisionist Westerns with sunflare. Oh, and the fast-healing cheerleader's Humbertian Dad is "makin' copies" all day, when not breaking the finger of his ignorant, swaggering adolescent boss. Heroes was famously slowed in its progressive decline by the recent writer's strike. It'll be intriguing to see if Kring was able to halt the rot.
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