If you peruse the IMDb database, Gaspar Noe's incredible Irreversible is likely the greatest exercise ever attempted in telling a story ... backwards.
This very odd reboot (pretending to be a "mini series") comes a close second. For a writing team that lists among its characters "the master of time and space," they keep getting it wrong. Over and over. Like a time loop.
I will not contest (the prior reviewer for this episode is correct) that we starting to see hints, emotional jolts, that resonate in a positive way, suggesting what this reboot could have been. But was not.
I believe -- and as a reviewer my beliefs are all I have to work with -- that this story looked a heck of a lot better on paper than it actually plays out in real time.
Eight episodes to get backstory on characters, many of which we never liked in the first place? C'mon. The original Heroes managed to work through all of its seasons without even once falling into the trap of creating an arc around characters that were impossible to connect with. Even Sylar, the character whose idea of a good time was to skewer people with sharp objects, was magnificently done by Zachary Quinto and very empathetic -- look at the way Anthony Hopkins played Hannibal in not one but two major films, and yet remained empathetic always.
Regardless of the ultimate payoff, the climax, in this series (and I am sure it will be solid, they owe us that) reviewers of the future will I think remember this opus for its clear lack of a chewy moral center.
Oh well could be worse. They could have written zombies in too.
