Review: Star Trek, Heros, Lost,

This is a rambling post that has been brewing for a while. But first the most recent.

Review of Star Trek movie: I loved it. Although there was some simple science things they got horribly wrong I was able to overlook them as not too detrimental to the whole story. The acting was better than I expected with the actor playing Kirk being the least believable and Karl Urban as Dr McCoy being spot on perfect.

I loved almost everything about the new Enterprise (only the nacelles looked a little too funky for my tastes) and the interiors had a sense of realism totally lacking in previous incarnations.

But...

But I do have one complaint. There was one big battle where 7 Federation ships go into a trap and get totally smoked. We as the viewers however completely miss that scene because we focus on the Enterprise which arrives later. I really looked forward to the fleet combat and am disappointed that it happened off screen as the rest of the movie lacked a lot of ship to ship combat which is what really gets me going.

At least the person to person combat was shown in its glory unlike the TV show Heros which has lately completely forskaen action for more boring plot dialogue and byzantine twists. In the season finale they had a chance to (finally!) show a big fight between Sylar and the Petrelli boys. Instead we are shown the hallway while the battle rages and come in after the fight is done. WHAT A RIP OFF!

For a show that started with such promise, it has increasingly gone down the "I don't know what we're doing" path and it feels like the writers have not a clue where they want to go. Its quickly fallen from my must-see of a couple years ago to should-I-bother for next year.

However, they have a chance to bring it back on track. A show that did that for me was Lost. Two years ago the show was going along, following the survivors and curious to see if they would get off the island safely. Then things started to get wierd with some new characters, bizarre fallbacks (actually forwards), time travel, and angst, plenty of angst.

I lost interest a lot. It really felt like the writers were going down the garden path and the story was collapsing in on itself and had become unable to move forward. I was almost ready to pull the plug. Fortunately, this season has turned it around, brought the focus back to the island, brought the people back together, and pushed the story into interesting paths again. With the confusing arc hopefully finished we can go into next season with the eye on the ball and a final resolution to the overall arc.

Let's hope Heros can pull out of the nosedive as well.