We could be heroes

Watching Heroes at the moment is some of the most demented fun I've ever had sitting in front of the TV.

I loved the first series; the way it threw a whole bunch of disparate characters at you and gradually knitted them together, and the sense that they were ordinary people dealing with extraordinary circumstances was very well done.

The second series wasn't as bad as everyone made out, but it was kind of aimless. A sort of "we're doing this 'cos we have to" thing. Thankfully, the writers' strike causing them to have to jam about ten episodes' worth of plot into three episodes caused it to perk up at the end.

Now with series 3, the writers have gone mad with power. It's the only explanation. I can visualise them sitting round a table, pitching the most ridiculous, shamelessly over-the-top ideas they can think of, then throwing them all in at once.

It's brilliant.

They just showed episode 5 (of 22, I presume) last night on BBC 2. So far we've had the end of the world, a nuclear explosion taking out Costa Verde, secret brothers, secret triplets, one of the lead guys turning into Evil Spider-Man, characters hallucinating Malcolm McDowell, good guys turning bad, bad guys turning good, good guys turning bad then good then bad then good again, a bar brawl, several people getting killed very horribly, lingering close-ups of Hayden Panettiere's exposed brain in a scene that I chose to believe was paying deliberate homage to the second-series finale of the superb Farscape, a joke with a tortoise cheerfully ripping off The Simpsons, blatant misuse of time-travel causing several main characters to be killed multiple times, and a Buster Keaton film. And absolutely no sign of Peter's annoying girlfriend with the atrocious Irish accent.

Heroes was a better show overall back in series 1, but it's a heck of a lot more fun these days.