Paul and I managed to watch the pilot episode of Heroes last Monday night. I was pleasantly surprised. I didn’t know much about the show. I had only seen one commercial sometime during the summer and thought it looked awful. Paul however kept hearing commercials on the radio during his commute two weeks ago. He heard so many radio commercials that he became disgusted, yet intrigued enough to suggest we at least watch the pilot. It turned out to be a lot more interesting than I at first suspected. It reminds me a little of the 4400 mini-series on USA - without the suspicion of alien influence and the revelation that the abductees were returned by a future civilization. I thought the mini-series was pretty good. Unfortunately, someone decided to turn it into an actual television series. I personally think it was a mistake. The aspects of the show that were so appealing were removed once they turned it into a full-fledged series … leading up to last season which was awful.

Anyway, I think we’ll stick with Heroes for a few weeks to make certain the pilot wasn’t just a fluke. And maybe, if we’re lucky, the show will last at least an entire season. I hope it doesn’t go the way of Threshold, which was pulled from the air much too early. I couldn’t understand why they removed it, when it was a well-acted, very interesting and definitely paranoid version of an alien invasion show. It surpassed its competitors … Invasion, and Surface. (What is going on with all the one word titles?) Both of which have thankfully been cancelled. Actually I’m not sure Surface has been cancelled, however I’m keeping my fingers crossed. And maybe if I say it, it will become true.

I do have a single complaint about Heroes. It’s a minor one. The shots that occur in Odessa, Texas are obviously not filmed in any part of West Texas. The mountains in the background are a dead give away. I think someone found a location that looked, dry, dead and dusty enough for West Texas, they just forgot to consider the horizon line.

So it’s taken 12 years, but they’ve finally released “The Tick: The Animated Series” on DVD. It’s actually been out for about two weeks, but since I don’t peruse the new dvd releases I only just found out. Too often those *new on DVD* sections are just plain depressing. Instead of bringing us quality films they release things like the Unrated-Extended-Edition-Director’s-Cut of Time Bandits.

Anyway, it turns out that wishes really do come true. Now we’ll have to see how long before “War of the Buttons” makes it to DVD.

I’ve enjoyed the extended weekend.

Yesterday was a little odd. There was a period of about 30 - 45 minutes where I seriously wondered if the world had ended, and no one had bothered to inform us. We were oustide during that stretch of time, digging up some of the ground-cover in our backyard. The air was completely dead and very heavy, not even the slightest breeze to stir a single leaf on any of our trees. It was overcast, and a little eerie. We didn’t hear any tell-tale signs of road traffic, no dogs barking, no sounds of children playing, or of people doing yardwork. We didn’t even hear any air conditioners kicking on. It really was as if the world had stopped and we didn’t get the memo. The spell of silence was finally broken when I sneezed. Apparently one of the neighbors dogs doesn’t like sneezes. The dog started whining, and then shortly after that I could hear the distant sound of a plane flying far overhead. I couldn’t see the plane because of the cloud-cover, but still that faint hum was a very reasurring sound.

Today, however, we have been doing something very different. Paul and I spent several hours watching episodes of the 4400 that we have been taping for over a month and just not gotten around to viewing. A lot of our delay in sitting down to watch the series has been a reluctance to subject ourselves to the awfulness of this past season. We managed to catch the first few episodes when they aired, but we were so disinterested in the plot, that we found it difficult to want to watch any more. Paul says he thinks that the writers were flying by the seat of their pants this year. I’m apt to agree with him. They had some of the worst characters and villains this season(very two-dimensional), it made it very hard to care what was happening on the show. I also noticed several times that the show completely contradicted something it had previously established.

I’m not sure I’m all that interested in watching any future episodes, even though toward the end they did begin to get better.