apocalypsos | Dear NBC, please keep this on for ten years like with ER.

Except please don't drop a helicopter on any of these people more than once.

So, yeah, I just finished watching the first part of the Heroes pilot. (I've got a bigger copy of the file downloading now -- I assume the second half is in there, too.)

I want more of this show, damn it.

Okay, the prisoner and cop characters haven't shown up yet (damn you, Grunberg! *shakes fist*), but ... BUT the people who are there are AWESOME.

Before I start in on the characters, I've just got to say that I love the mythology they've set up here. I like the writers understand that, yes, a lot of us are sitting around saying, "So it's like the X-Men, right?" So you get a Kitty Pryde reference, which ... HA! ... and lots of other little nods to geekery. (Hiro's a major part of that, and let me tell you, if you are even the least bit fannish, you're going to LOVE this guy.) Plus, I do like the fact that there are little details that we're being given but it's not like with Lost, where they pile on the details and just convolute the plot with more and more details until you get too tired to watch. (Yes, I'm still bitter. Sue me.) You can tell they plan on solving stuff, the same way they're going to give us new mysteries to solve.

Okay, so. The characters. I was going to put them in order of how much I love them, but I pretty much like them all with the exception of Niki, who I really want to see interact with her alter ego more before I make any snap judgments.

So, anyway ...

Hiro -- The Japanese cubicle drone who discovers he can bend time and space. Oh, my GOD, I love Hiro (and I love that they named him Hiro, too. *snickers*). He's adorable -- not in a hot way, but in a cute little puppy way. Like I said, if you are the least bit fannish, you will identify so much with this guy. His cubicle is cluttered with anime and cartoons, and all he wants in the world is to be special. Everybody else is so happy to be the same -- he can't even wrap his brain around that. Who wants to be like everybody else? And when he discovers his powers -- by making his train late, by making the hand on his work clock go backwards rather than forwards, by teleporting into the women's bathroom at a bar -- he's thrilled. This is a gift, not a curse. This is something he savors, and the look on his face at the end of the first part when he suddenly appears in Times Square is just pure giddiness. He spends a lot of the episode talking with his skeptical co-worker about whether or not he can do what he claims he can, and because his attitude is so like something we've all felt at one time or another, you want him to be able to do it so very badly. By the end of the episode, I was cheering in my office for him. Awesome.

Peter and Nathan -- The nurse having visions and dreams that he can fly, and his driven politician brother. I love these two, but then again I have a thing for brotherly relationships on screen. (Yeah, like you people don't know that already. ;)) Sisters make me gag, but brothers ... aw, yeah, baby. And these two are great. Nathan is just trying to win his election, but he's behind a good eight to ten points in the polls. Obviously, his recently widowed mother being picked up for shoplifting (she wants "to feel alive again") and his little brother claiming he can fly will not be helpful. I like Peter and Nathan together already for the fact that they are polar opposites -- that Nathan is self-centered and focused and that Peter is warm and giving, and that they still love each other anyway. Sure, Nathan won't say it -- Peter's the one more apt to say it out loud, and does -- but he expresses it in actions more than words. Peter shares something with Hiro, although not to that giddy extent. He really feels like he's meant for more than what he's doing now in his life, although he fits in his work as a nurse. And I think what I love about the end of the episode is that when we find out that it's Nathan, not Peter, who can fly -- and that Peter has obviously been channeling his brother through some sort of empathic link he mentions earlier -- that's when it gets even better. Of course Nathan is going to have to be careful now, but his brother is going to be there, with different superhuman abilities but the need to help him out.

Mohinder -- An Indian professor who comes to the States after his brilliant former-professor father is murdered because of his theories about superhuman abilities becoming reality. GUH. I love the character, and I love that he drops everything to come to the U.S. to find out what the hell is going on, and I love just how determined he is. But I'll admit that a lot of what I end up thinking when he is onscreen is, "Holy Christmas, you are SO FUCKING HOT." Because he is. Oh, WOW, is he ever. He's dead sexy and he's wicked smart and his voice should come with a warning label. It's like Sayid all over again. Where the hell can I get me one of them? *gimmehands in Mohinder's general direction*

Claire -- The high school cheerleader who discovers she's got a healing factor. I adore Claire. As soon as the big reveal comes at the end of the episode, that her traveling father is the same man who's been shadowing Mohinder the whole episode, AND when she turns to her mother and says she thinks she's old enough to know who her real parents are (*squeaks*), her whole story changes just that little bit, as does everybody else's. It also creeps me out a little more, because you kind of understand up to that point why she has her less popular friend videotape her "testing" her healing factor (and if she has any brains, she will keep him around) ... like a video diary. But it gets really weird after her creepy Mohinder-hunting father comes home. (*squeaks again, hides Mohinder in the relative safety of my bedroom*) I mean, was she made in a lab and kept by her family because of her healing factor? Was she discovered in the foster care system because of it and adopted? Was she stolen from her real family? Did she crash down from the planet Krypton on a tiny ship? WE DON'T KNOW. And we sure as hell don't know what that means for every one of the other characters, too. Are they adopted as well? I don't think so, with Peter having such a strong psychic connection to his brother (although it might just be because they've been raised together, but I doubt it). I do like her a lot, though. She's not vapid (although I don't think wearing her cheerleading outfit to jump off a raised platform and run into a fire to save someone was the best idea on the planet) or willing to just ignore what's happening to her. She's not about to sit around and let someone die when she can help. Oh, and when she shoves her hand into the garbage disposal to retrieve her ring, I get the impression she reached for it without thinking and then winced like she was thinking, "Oh, shit, normal girls don't do that!", and not because it hurt. (Not if her ribs poking out of her skin earlier in the episode didn't hurt. And that right there is pretty fucking creepy.

Isaac -- The junkie artist whose paintings reflect future events. Isaac drives me nuts, but that's kind of the point of Isaac. He's already out there because of the whole artist thing, and now every time he's on heroin he paints the future? Yeah, that would drive me a little wacky, too. I think Isaac really came together for me in the last part of the episode, where he's chained himself to his wall (I think) to go cold turkey, only to hack his hand off with a chainsaw to get more heroin and paint again. (Note to self, kids -- if you really want to handcuff yourself somewhere to quit drugs, hide the carpentry equipment first, 'kay?) And what he paints is terrifying. No, not the picture of Peter jumping off a building to prove he can fly (although yeah, that's kind of wild, too), which Peter sees when Isaac's girlfriend drags Peter to Isaac's apartment to help him go clean, only for the two of them to find him with his hand cut off. EW. What's really wild is what's been painted on the floor -- a black-and-white picture of New York City in the middle of a nuclear holocaust. First off, YAY! I may get an apocalypse on network TV! *flails* Secondly, oooooooo. That really brings it home, because God knows when the hell this is going to happen, and I sure doubt Isaac does.

Niki -- A Las Vegas cam whore/single mom whose reflection has a mind of her own. Here's my thing with Niki -- it's not that I don't like her. It's that I'm not sure what her reflection is doing. Does it have a will of its own outside of her sphere of influence, or is it her subconscious at work? Will it speak? Will we find out she can command it, or will it turn out to not take orders? Her son runs off to the bus station (presumably to find his father for help after the mob comes to collect on money Niki has borrowed from them) at the end of the episode. What I'm hoping is that this is where we see Niki and her "alter ego" working together. I kept wondering if it will turn out that she can control it, but has to work at it (or, more frighteningly, if it can control her right back). It certainly makes you think about it at the end of the episode, where Niki comes to after a pair of thugs have cornered her in Cam Whore Studios (the room Niki's got set up like a fancy sexy bedroom for all her cam whoring needs, and I'm sorry if I'm having way too much fun saying "cam whore" over and over again) and knocked her out. She comes to with the place a disaster area, the two thugs very, VERY dead, and her reflection shushing her from behind the glass. I want to see them interact first before I make any final decisions on whether or not she bugs me.

Now, here's what I've been thinking about. What do all of these people share, if they aren't adopted like Claire was?

Crack theory? They've all been in the hospital, and while they were there, they were given something or altered in some way -- whatever.

Well, with Hiro, I don't have support to back up the theory. But:

-- Nathan is mentioned as having been in an accident.
-- Peter is a nurse.
-- Isaac is a junkie, and has probably overdosed before.
-- Niki gave birth to a son.

I mean, okay, yeah, I'm probably wrong. It's probably just a random mutant thing, where they were just born that way. But if I can't play with crack theories now, when can I play with them? ;)

Final judgment? MORE. What do you say? Sorry. MORE NOW.

I want to write fic already. *sigh* There's a twelve-step program for this, right?

In other news, go watch Starcrossed. It won best short film at the PlanetOut Awards. Let's put it this way -- if you're a hardcore Sam/Dean shipper, you have GOT to watch this. And bring tissues!