On the Matters of Meta-Citizens; or, Why I just don't like Hayden Panittiere

By RM
Counting tonight's writer-strike shortened season finale, I have now watched two full seasons of Heroes. I find the show's premise charming yet unoriginal, yet the writing itself intrigues me. Mainly because of its methodology.

See, each of the ten or so writers is assigned a character, or small group of characters. Then, each week, each writer writes their own character's little scenes, then hands it to whichever of them is doing the full episode, and off to the races.

Granted, this can occasionally make for a level of plot confusion that falls somewhere between LOST and The X-Files, yet still they execute for 95% of the show.

Then there's Hayden. I don't know if I'm just growing old and bitter, but her WB reject routine of rebellion and righteous indignation just feels wrong. Not for her character, and granted I don't think I'm the demographic they're going for with that character. I'm somewhere between Zachary Quinto and Masi Oka (Both of whom I met at Ojai in 06). Still, every time I see her regenerative face in the shot, whining about something when it turns out she was dead wrong all along, I kinda want to hit her. It's that WB/CW complete sense of 'you know what is right and wrong at 17' opinion that we all felt at some point. Maybe I do identify with her. And I'm a little ashamed of it.

With the exception of her, and maybe Peter and Nathan's mother, if you want to see almost flawless 3-D character development and execution, watch a few episodes of this show. The writing for it really is something special.

RM
 

1 comment so far.

  1. mf December 5, 2007 at 1:43 AM
    // spoilers below, if anyone cares //

    My friend and I were talking about this, and we decided that the writing was inferior to, say, Lost, because they still haven't established that characters can really die. When characters can't die, I start to care less about the decisions they make.

    Peter with glass in head -> comes back
    Mr. Bennett shot in eye -> comes back
    Peter exploding -> back
    Nathan exploding with Peter -> back
    Sylar messed with at the end of season 1 -> back
    Maya shot in the loft -> back
    Adam Monroe buried -> he'll be back
    Nikki blown up -> she'll be back

    Only death of a character in >2 episodes so far that I can think of is Hiro's dad, but just because he's old and George Takei probably got bored. Oh, DL as well, but just because... well... you know. And that was after dying and coming back, too.

Something to say?