Heroes

Now watching: Heroes, a new excellent TV series that is getting a steady following among geeks. I like it because it's about comicbook heroes with mutant powers, but told with a more realist touch.

If you look at it closely, Heroes follows a popular form in comicbook storytelling -- young heroes struggling to master their newfound powers. It also merely rehashes superpowers that any sci-fi or comicbook fans would be very familiar with.

Still, the writer (Tim Kring) skillfully grips our attention. And he does this while juggling multiple characters living their own conflicted lives.

My favorite character is geeky Hiro Nakamura (which is most probably a salute to Hiro Protagonist, the main character in Neal Stephenson's Snowcrash. Hiro Nakamura is played by Masi Oka, a real-life computer programmer from ILM. In real life, Masi has provided brain power to making liquid effects more realistic (like in Terminator 2 and The Perfect Storm).

In Heroes, Hiro is a geeky Japanise office worker who discovers he can bend time and space. His explorations on what he could do and his exploits as an amateur hero make the series more interesting. Hiro provides the comic relief in the series -- but based on the occasional glimpses of what Hiro could really do, there is no doubt that he is one of the more powerful on the still-unformed team.

Like I said, much of Heroes is just rehash. But it is perhaps a tribute to the writer's skill that the show continues to keep me waiting for the next episode. I heard from the grapevine that Solar will be bringing the series next year. Yey!

Highly recommended!