A Lot About Nothing

Okay, I’m not referring to the well-known Bonnie Tyler classic. I’m talking about one of the best prime time shows ever aired: Heroes! I’m a big comic book/sci-fi fan… used to watch X-Men religiously every Saturday morning at 11am on Fox. When Tim Kring’s Heroes hit the airwaves last Fall, I didn’t know what to expect. I just hoped it would be 100% better than the dreadful Mutant X that came out back in 2001. I was wrong–it was a 1000% better! The show has got me hooked. All the characters are so interesting, and seeing newfound, super-human powers developed and used on the small screen by ordinary people is super-cool to watch.

There are obvious parallels between Heroes and X-Men (come on… how many unique über-cool powers can you come up with?), but Heroes relates to much more of the human-side of their characters as they struggle with their powers. It’s not all zip-zip, boom-boom (don’t get me wrong… I love action), but Heroes is almost like a soap opera in that way.

I can’t wait to pick up the DVD of season 1 tomorrow when it’s released. On Friday, August 31st, the Heroes World Tour hits Toronto. If you’re among the first 100 people to buy the Heroes Season 1 DVD at the Bay & Dundas location of Best Buy, you’ll get a wristband entitling you to have your DVD signed at the Heroes World Tour Fan Event at Yonge-Dundas Square on August 31 from 12pm - 2pm.

I can get the DVD set cheaper elsewhere (a legit copy of course), so there’s no way I’m going to shell out $50 at Best Buy. Am I going to head down to get an autograph? We’ll see. There’d be no question if I’d reach if Milo Ventimiglia (Peter) was going to show up (he’s a hottie ) But I probably will head down to Yonge-Dundas Square to check out the Q&A with the cast that will be hosted by Entertainment Tonight Canada’s Rick Rick Campanelli.

The cast members that will make an appearance in Toronto are Zachary Quinto (the evil Sylar), James Kyson Lee (Hiro’s sidekick, Ando), and musical child prodigy Noah Gray-Cabey (the adorable Micah). One of the newest cast members of Heroes is Dania Ramirez (Maya). She’ll also be signing autographs at the World Tour. You may have recognized her from The Sorpranos or X-Men: The Last Stand (she played Callisto).

Check out the official Heroes site for more info on the show and visit GlobalTV.com for info on the Toronto World Tour event.

Season 2 of the highly acclaimed show will air September 24th at 9pm. My PVR is ready!

And here’s a clip of the intro for the 90’s X-Men cartoon series… just for the heck of it.

All I’ve got to say is it’s about time.  According to the grapevine, 20 new episodes of Aaron McGruder’s show, The Boondocks, is slated to start airing this Fall.

This hit cartoon series, stemmed from the popular satiric comic strip of the same name, was Adult Swim’s highest-ranked series premiere, when the show debuted in Fall 2005.  This is a lot more than just a cartoon series based around Black characters… it’s show that goes much more deeper than that.  It used humour as a tool to speak on social issues and expose the irony that exists in it.  Nothing is sugar-coated in hopes of being real (including the use of the N-word on the show).  Hopefully viewers understand this a look a little further under the surface to see what smart writing exists and understand what points are being made.

If you haven’t watched an episode of The Boondocks as yet, here’s the premise:

When Robert “Granddad” Freeman becomes the legal guardian of his rambunctious grandkids, he moves the family from the south side of Chicago to the quiet and safety of “The Boondocks” — aka suburban Woodcrest — in hopes that he can ignore the kids altogether and enjoy the fourth quarter of his life in peace.  But neither Huey, a ten-year-old leftist revolutionary, nor his eight-year-old misfit brother, Riley, are thrilled aobut he new environment.  Although the boys torture each other and provoke the neighbourhood, they are sill no match for Granddad, who is eccentric even by “crazy-ass-old-black-man” standards.

Here’s a clip from some scenes from the much-anticipated season 2: