I've finally figured out what Sylar's true superpower is: the ability to find the most gullible and naive saps anywhere. I know that as an audience member I have a more omniscient view, but still, I'm frustrated how Sylar can always get what he wants by playing innocent. Will somebody please see through this guy and put a bullet through his brain?

More so than Sylar, the most powerful character is Peter, so it makes sense that we constantly find him handicapped: fighting for control of his powers in season one, aligning with the wrong ally in season two. If Peter ever had full control of his faculties, he'd put all the other heroes out of business.

The evolution of Matt Parkman's power is interesting — and just a bit frightening. Mental manipulation could possibly make him the most powerful mutant among men, but it also has great potential for abuse, as we've already begun to see. Matt's Everyman nature, newfound abilities, and well-intentioned temptations remind me of the Brenda Clough novel How Like a God, which is the last book I can remember to be so compelling, I read it in a single day.

Some clumsy writing led to two missed opportunities. First was regarding Takezo Kensei. This character had three faces to reveal: murderer of Kaito Nakamura; Adam Munroe; and Peter's cohort. These surprises would've been more effective revealed in that order, but instead Takezo's identity as Kaito's killer is the last one we learn, at which point it is no surprise whatsoever. His connection to Hiro had been firmly established in the 17th century; it's only logical to make Hiro's family the launching point for Takezo's presence in the 21st.

The other missed opportunity pertained to Noah Bennet. His death was one of the most significant occurrences of the season — which made his resurrection all the more powerful. How did the writers let this revelation play out in their fictional world? He walks through his front door and says, "Hi, Claire Bear." Keeping his existence a secret would've created far more possibilities, such as seeing Claire come to terms with a major loss, only to discover hints that not all is at it seems as she questions, "Is my father alive?" (At least Noah, despite his questionable tactics, is clear about the Company's motives, unlike the more malleable and useless Mohinder.)

The DVD had a bonus documentary about a character named Richard Drucker (a distant relative of first season character Hana Gitelman). Yet such a person never materialized in the actual season, nor is he mentioned in even the official Heroes wiki. I think he ties into the graphic novels.

Also on the DVD are deleted scenes that show, had the season been a full one, the writers would've let the viral tube break, with the following episodes dealing with the outbreak and quarantine. That being the case, I'm glad the season ended when it did, as destroying the virus is the one break these guys got this season.

And that's my main beef with Heroes: the show is consistently depressing. Every victory is minor and usually results in major setbacks. Peter and Nathan miraculously survived the climax of the first season and 11 episodes later are finally reunited, only for one of them to be unceremoniously gunned down. Hiro imprisons himself in the past and takes as his solace a momentarily lapse of control, creating an enemy that will eventually murder Hiro's father in a quest to decimate the Earth's population. "Heroes" like Matt and Peter constantly find their powers forced to questionable ends. Can't anything ever be black and white?

All said, Heroes: Season 2 was still a fun way to spend a weekend, and most of the above thoughts occurred to me only in retrospect. I'm looking forward to seeing the third season when it's released on DVD, presumably in August 2009.

What's also unexpected is the alacrity with which Warner Bros. released a sequel — or more accurately, a spinoff. Bruce & Lloyd Out of Control, which came out on DVD the same day its theatrical sibling hit the silver screen, stars Masi Oka (of Heroes fame) and Nate Torrence as their characters from the Get Smart film. While Maxwell Smart saves the world, Bruce and Lloyd get their own adventure to recover an invisibility cloak that's been stolen from Control's tech division. Here's the trailer:

Though the film hasn't enjoyed the favorable reception of Get Smart, I consider it a creative venture nonetheless. It's ingenious that they thought to use all the film's assets and actors while they were already on the set, saving the cost and effort of recreating it later. It also rides on the coattails of its big brother, and vice versa: fans of Get Smart will recognize the brand name when they see it at the video store, while anyone who hasn't seen the theatrical film but liked this lower-budget alternative may be lured to the box office. And my reservations regarding the remake of the television show may not hold true here, since this is an original adventure with original protagonists.

By the holiday season, we may see a two-disc DVD set that contains both movies. In the meantime, the spinoff can also be purchased or rented on iTunes, where a 7-minute, 90-megabyte "making of" featurette is available for free.

The list is a good balance of the expected and the surprising. Masi Oka, Wil Wheaton, and Bill Nye we already know about — but Dolph Lundgren? Rowan Atkinson? Lisa Kudrow? You have to be kidding me. I don't know whether to be impressed by these geeks' intellectual genius, or by them defying stereotypes and playing characters completely antipodal to their nature. (By contrast, my acting self receives daily audition notices for the fifth season of Beauty and the Geek.)

Excellent job, Ms. Gunn, for this fun and insightful piece (my contributions to which — Drake Hogestyn and Natalie Portman — reveal perhaps more about ME than I'd like…).  In a culture where "heroes" are often such for all the wrong reasons, it's nice to have admirable reasons to respect these stars.

It's true that perhaps this series about ordinary people who discover they can do extraordinary things may be unoriginal; in comic book format, we've see similar powers in the X-Men, and on television, it's been done by The 4400. I'm not familiar enough with those efforts to say how Heroes stacks up, but I definitely enjoyed this particular take. I appreciated that it was set in a modern, everyday world, free of aliens and mysticism, while still incorporating the staples of science fiction, such as genetics, time travel, and samurai.

Having engorged myself on a half-year of story in less than a week, it's almost dizzying all the details and character development I've witnessed. (I usually hate it when bad guys turn good, as it leaves me with undirected angst — but they handled this one well.) Though I didn't find the depth and breadth hard to follow, I did think it unlikely that all these disparate threads would weave together. I'm willing to chalk it up to the "destiny" they were always talking about — even if all the secrets and misunderstandings between the characters sometimes made it seem like a soap opera.

There were so many characters that I felt their specialness was diminished by the frequency with which they met people like them; what are the odds that everyone in the Petrelli and Sanders families would empowered? (Must be genetic.) Yet I'll contradict myself by saying Mohinder was the least interesting character. Except as "guardian of the list", I don't feel he played a very important role in bringing the characters together or providing them with vital information. Though an interesting person, he was, in more ways than one, underpowered.

The tapestry of which he was a part was a rich one, and anyone looking to further explore its mythos need not look far. Many of the show's key people and places have their own Web sites, most notably Hiro's father documenting the legend of Tazeko Kensei. NBC has also produced nearly five dozen short comic books detailing the background and side events of the show, available for download as free PDFs. (Or pick them up as a single $30 hardcover this November 7th) I'll be consuming these shortly, as it probably won't be until this time next August that I'll get to watch season 2. That gives me a full year to contemplate the many questions with which the final episode left me:

• Sylar's final battle with two foes was anticlimatic on both fronts. All of Peter's powers are ignored in favor of plain old fisticuffs? After all the training Hiro received from Sulu, and all the swords Sylar snapped, ultimately Sylar simply stands there and is run through? How could he allow that; is it because Peter had weakened him?
• Why did Peter explode? He was able to control Ted's powers before; why not this time? The only reason I can think of is that he also absorbed all of Sylar's powers, and that many abilities all at once was too much for him to handle. If that's the case, it wasn't demonstrated. Also, was it just Ted's power he couldn't control, or all of them? If the former, I imagine he could've flown himself, without needing Nathan.
• Future Hiro worked to prevent Sylar from exploding — but it was Peter who was the bomb man. How then could Future Hiro's actions have had an effect?
• We also observe from Mohinder's recollections that this future stems from a past in which Future Hiro has already gone back to deliver a message to Peter. Something else must've happened to derail Future Hiro's timeline. What was it?
• More important, Future Hiro thought that Sylar survived impalement because of his power of regeneration, and that saving the cheerleader would keep that power from Sylar's hands. But then we see Claire alive and well in that post-apocalyptic world. In what way was she not saved in Future Hiro's timeline? And how could saving her in this one have had any impact? Except maybe how she demonstrated to Nathan the value of family, prompting him to save New York…
• From what we've seen of Hiro both six months in the past and four hundred years (and Future Hiro five years), it seems that, even if the future isn't written in stone, history is. And all of Isaac's other paintings came to pass. What happened to make the explosion he'd seen be untrue?

Finally, the cliffhanger in which Hiro found himself was predictable, IMHO. Perhaps it comes from my having read too many comic books, but when the legend of Tazeko Kensei was first detailed mid-season, I thought it sounded too similar to Hiro's quest to be a coincidence. Ah, well — I hope they play it out quickly and get him back to Ando. Those two roll well together.

See also:

• From Zero to Heroes
• What Makes Heroes Tick?
• Watch Heroes online

I watch a lot of first episodes (Deadwood, Angel, Joan of Arcadia), just to get the feel for a series before dismissing it. Not the case here — nothing has ever hooked me like Heroes. I had actually seen the pilot on NBC.com back in January, so what I watched last night were the unaired pilot and deleted scenes; a fast-forward review of the actual pilot; and the second episode. It's fascinating to see all the different threads, both actual and deleted, all at this point unresolved. The characters and powers, and the reactions of former to latter, are intricate and diverse, and I can't wait to see what happens next. I almost wish I'd waited until tonight, so that I could stay up late and watch more! Fortunately, I can still do that. No spoilers, please!

See also:

• Heroes for One Season
• What Makes Heroes Tick?
• Heroes pilot episode online