As most of you know, I had a recent – long – stay at the hospital.  Which is like being at the most expensive terrible Motel in the world. A place where the drug dealers are, for the most part nice, but they come in during the dark of night and leave the light one after forcing you to sample their wares. I mean, why would you need to sleep?  I spent a lot of time with my trusty DS during my two-week ordeal but even more important was when I suggested to my wife that we acquaint ourselves with that TV show everyone was talking about last year. The one with the superheroes.

My wife is funny. She readily said yes and after a trip to Blockbuster, she had the first few episodes in hand. In case we didn’t like them she brought some DVDs from home too.  I’m not kidding, she actually brought:

Sin City – a movie where for at least a third of the runtime Bruce Willis runs around trying to not die of a heart attack.  The character’s name is Hartigan. Heart-again.

&

Alien – yes Alien. There I am with a vertical scar running down my chest and she brings the movie where a nasty little creature pops out of John Hurt’s chest during a spaghetti dinner! This creature has actually earned the nickname “chestburster”!

I love my wife dearly, and it’s tempting to think she did this as a joke, but she really didn’t.  She just grabbed a couple flicks she knew were my favorites. In fairness, she also brought Reese Witherspoon in Election, which is a choice I can’t find a heart related pun with.

Back to Heroes. Last year I avoided Heroes because I’d heard it was safely based on modern comics, including Watchmen, and that meant it wasn’t going to be fresh and new to me. I figured there was a good chance it would either stink, or grow terribly stinky, and in this age of “TV DVD” why bother investing the weekly hour on a show that goes nowhere (I’m looking at you Lost). Besides, we had enough DVR’d last year to last.

So I ignored all the commentary at GamerDad’s forum and other sites. I didn’t talk about it with friends. And by the end of the year, I knew I was going to try to find the time to watch the DVD before Season 2 debuted.  Hospital time is PERFECT for catching up with 17+ hours of entertainment and catch up we did!  We averaged 3 episodes per day and I would even stand up and lean on a chair so as to not fall into morphene induced sleep and not miss a thing. We saw the cheerleader and thereby, the world, saved. We marveled at the guy with glasses and his screwy wife. Nathan’s coldness, Hiro’s awesome cuteness, and that creepy oedipal backstory of Sylar’s.  We even forgave the somewhat anti-climactic ending because – hey – it worked. All comic logic was satisfied and it didn’t cop out beyond people somehow not dying from lethal looking bullet wounds.

We have high hopes for Season 2 but we found it a little disappointing. Maybe its because it gave me hospital flashbacks, maybe its because it was a bit silly, or maybe its because Linda and I didn’t have all summer to sit and wait for it. We only had a week or so between our marathon and the second season debut. Regardless, we’re on board and wanting more.

The Hospital.  The perfect place to catch up on TV you missed.

Tags: Misc