Paul Levinson's Infinite Regress

reviewing 3 Body Problem; Black Doves; Bosch; Citadel; Criminal Minds; Dark Matter; Dexter: Original Sin; Dune: Prophecy; For All Mankind; Foundation; Hijack; House of the Dragon; Luther; Outlander; Presumed Innocent; Reacher; Severance; Silo; Slow Horses; Star Trek: Strange New Worlds; Surface; The: Ark, Day of the Jackal, Diplomat, Last of Us, Way Home; You +books, films, music, podcasts, politics

George Santayana had irrational faith in reason - I have irrational faith in TV.

Friday, January 22, 2016

Heroes Reborn Finale: I'm Ready Already for Another Immersion

Heroes Reborn ended is first season this week on NBC. It's likely to be its final season - at least on NBC, which has not renewed for a second second. But I'd bet it's not the last we'll see of Tim Kring's unique and still appealing creation.

As I've said throughout this season, it's been uneven, but that includes times and ways in which I liked this season even better than a lot of the original, hallowed Heroes. The pace was often fast to the point of being frenetic - which is a plus in my book - and the integration of virtual and real with the Katana Girl story was excellent.

So was the integration of surviving characters from the original series. That includes, most prominently, HRG Mr. Bennett, Claire's father and grandfather of her twin children. He left in a noble way, in a sequence that plumbed the possibilities of time travel in a satisfying way.

Time travel, as many of you may know, is one of my passions - as a viewer, reader, and author of science fiction. I find it irritating and unacceptable when it's not done right - meaning, usually, that lip service is paid to the paradoxes that time travel engenders, rather than seriously working the sometimes almost unimaginable complexities into the story.

The original Heroes did a pretty good job at this. Heroes Reborn did it even better. At the end, Nathan is about as adept as you can be in pulling the strings of timelines in motion, and navigating them to achieve the desired result. This includes the daring move of working with a slightly earlier or later version of yourself - depending upon whose point of view you take - rather than worrying or claiming that running into yourself will blow-up all reality.

The special effects were great, which gets us back again to the virtual reality part of this story. When Katana tells Ren, intra-virtual-world, that she has a feeling they'll meet again, I was glad to hear this. The ending in our world, with pointer to Nathan and Malina's father, calls out for a continuing story.

Heroes Unbound may not be everyone's cup of tea. But's it's certainly mine, and I'll be ready in any time for another another sip and another immersion.