Heroes
Season 1 (blu-ray)
Starring Milo Ventimiglia, Jack Coleman, Sendhil Ramamurthy, Masi Oka, James Kyson Lee
Universal Home Entertainment
August 26, 2008

If you’re like me, you were really looking forward to yesterday’s premiere of the third season of Heroes. Like a lot of people, I wasn’t so impressed with the second season, so it was nice to go back and re-watch the first season, which still holds up as one of the best set of episodes of the last few years. Watching these episodes again has reminded me why I enjoyed this show so much when it first started.

Of course, if you’ve seen the show before, you know all about the story. Various people around the world discover that they have extraordinary powers. They quickly learn that not only are they not alone, but that there are evil people who want to use their powers for nefarious deeds. Predictably, they save the cheerleader, they stop the exploding man, and they set up the beginning of the second season. What struck me most about these episodes is how well they hold up. Sure, I didn’t get the big surprises anymore, but I found myself really enjoying the performances and how all the story bits fit together. Little touches like Linderman’s name being mentioned in the first episode, the evolution of Mr. Bennet from villain to hero, and the build up and eventual reveal of series villain Syler. You can tell in the first season that the creators of the show had a plan of how the story would go and it made for really compelling TV.