Opalescence

Less than a year ago, I could honestly say that I’d never seen Heroes.

This has been a source of much shock among my friends.  One of my fraternity brothers, after picking his jaw up off the floor, actually said, “How can you not have seen this show?! You $&#*ing write comic books!”  A coworker, instead of standing slack-jawed at my perceived heresy, once exclaimed, “You’ve never seen Heroes?!  Why not?  It’s the kind of show you’d love!”  She later left a magazine article on my desk, encouraging me to take up viewing the show just before the second season.

These kinds of episodes have taught me a couple of things.  First, I must be damn easy to predict, in terms of my viewing habits.  People spend ten minutes with me, and they’ll know that I’d love Heroes, or Supernatural (of which I’ve seen a mere one episode, and which I think is pretty good), or just about anything related to Star Wars or Star Trek.  I get that, and I’m actually pretty cool with it.  I’ve also learned that, despite the best of intentions, I have the uncanny ability to really miss out on things I know I’d love.

Take Batman Begins.  Any idiot in 2005 could have told you that I’d LOVE that movie–and believe me, I did.  It did the Batman origin almost exactly the way I would have written it, and told an amazing initiation story to boot.  I consider it, along with Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, among the kinds of Batman stories that I’d want to write.

When did I see Batman Begins?  About a year after it left the theaters, when it came out on DVD.  My girlfriend at the time learned I hadn’t seen it, and immediately grabbed it from her collection, sat me down, and made me watch it.

Needless to say, I did not make the same mistake with The Dark Knight (midnight show, baby!).

I’ve done this with a lot of shows and movies.  Smallville looked interesting, but I skipped out on watching it.  Supernatural, the same.  Heck, I’m even excited about some of the new cartoons like Spectacular Spider-Man and Wolverine and the X-Men, but I have yet to see a single episode of either one.

Which brings me back to Heroes.

Now, I want to go on record as saying that I was as excited as–hell, more excited than–anyone who saw the commercials advertising the show ahead of its premier.  Who wasn’t?  Comic book super-heroes come to the live-action screen every week, with a pulse-pounding story, mesmerizing special effects, and a prime spot on a top network?  It was like Christmas in your television!

But, come the premier, where was I?

Truth be told, I don’t remember.  I was probably at work, since I was having to work 2 jobs at the time in order to pay my bills.  Or maybe I was sleeping to have energy for the jobs I needed to work.  Or maybe I just forgot.  Honest to destiny, I just don’t recall.  All I know is, that I missed the show, and the episodes that came after.

People say you can’t watch a show like Heroes without seeing it from the beginning, and I tend to agree.  It’s like 24 in that respect, and even if it weren’t, I wouldn’t want to see it out of order.  So now, I’m stuck in a paradox: halfway through the 3rd season, Heroes calls to me, like a scantily clad siren singing sultrily into my ear.  I don’t want to see the episodes out of order–and therefore haven’t seen any of the ones on TV so far.

As of now, I’ve finally seen the first 5 or 6 episodes, in the company of my last girlfriend, who also couldn’t believe I’d never seen it.  Since we split, borrowing her DVDs is kind of out of the question.  I’m not going to buy them right now (because this economy thing is affecting me too), and I’m not big into the pirating thing.

Which, at this point, seems to suggest I’ll be waiting a while.  I’ll just have to live with the knowledge that Heroes is going on all around me, and that it’s one of those shows that a story-lovin’, comic-readin’, escapist-fanboyin’ nerd like me would love and will just have to wait for more conducive times.  Which is pretty cool when you consider that, in a year, or a few years, when I’m finally able to get around to doing this thing right, I’ll be experiencing that “Wow, this is awesome!” first-time-ness genuinely, and after the fact.  I kind of like that.

And besides, it’s not like I don’t have plenty of stuff to keep me busy in the mean time…