Stuff I liked as a child/teen 2: Heroes

 

I got into Heroes after I bought the steelbook edition of the second half of season one at a yard sale. Despite me missing the whole premise and character introduction I was immediately hooked. Slowly but surely I bought the rest of the show (in steelbook editions, naturally, and second hand). And while the show had a troubled production and wildly varied in quality, it has a place in my heart until today.

Heroes ran from 2006 to 2010. Although I did not watch it when it first came out. I guess I was about 14 when I first saw it and when I first fell in love with their varied characters with their varied stories and powers.

The premise of Heroes is that some people discover they have latent superpowers and navigate what that means for them. They also have to stop a murderous superpowered serial killer, keep New York from exploding, save a cheerleader, evade a shady government agency and prevent a couple of disastrous futures. Among other things.

My favorite character by far was kind and gentle nurse Peter Petrelli (Milo Ventimiglia), who adopts the powers of every superpowered being he comes across but cannot control them in the least. He is so continuously good and selfless, which is something I love. My other favorite is Hiro Nakamura (Masi Oka), a comics nerd from Japan, whose time and space travel powers are among the strongest in the show but who just wants to be a hero. Another thing I loved was when the Indian scientist Mohinder Suresh (Sendhil Ramamurthy) and the ex-cop Matt Parkman (Greg Grunberg) just lived together in an apartment in New York and parented a child, whose parents were murdered. Extremely random but very cute. Heroes also put Zachary Quinto on the map. He played a superpowered serial killer, was a dark mirror and foil to Peter and so popular with fans that he eventually got a redemption arc.

Stuff I liked as a child/teen 1: Primeval

I’m not sure I like the title of this new series of posts. But I do like the concept. Being ashamed about your harmless interests is not what I want to do with my life, instead I want to embrace my past for what it was and I’d encourage you to do the same. So, here goes stuff I liked as a child/teen.
 

First off, a British show that technically ran from 2007-2011 (so from the time I was 13 to the time I was 17), by the time it ended, however, I wasn’t watching it anymore. Too much had changed. Seasons 1-3 is where it’s at. For this show ‘like’ is probably too tame a word. For a while Primeval was it for me.

But what is Primeval? Imagine time broke apart and out of the wormholes dinosaurs escaped and had to be brought back to their time - ideally without eating a bunch of people. Every week our crew of accidental heroes needs to find the dinosaur in question and coral it back through the wormhole, while making sure not to get eaten themselves. That’s basically it. Simple wacky premise with a pretty solid execution. And okay, the creature cgi might not hold up anymore but what cgi from that time does.

What did I like about it? I really enjoyed the different creatures (apart from classics like t-rex and raptors, they even had spores and viruses at some point and creatures from the future) and the slow uncovering of the mystery behind the wormholes, but most importantly I enjoyed the cast of characters consisting of government agents, a paleontology professor, a zoologist, and my favorite, a paleontology student who also happens to be brilliant with computers and technology in general.

I zeroed in on him and Connor became not only my favorite character of the show but one of my favorite characters in general at that time. Two years ago I had the wonderful opportunity to meet his actor Andrew Lee Potts at a convention and all my teenage affections came to the forefront again and I suddenly felt 10 years younger. I managed to get my autograph and it made me very happy.