Heroes

Season 3 of Heroes kicked off Monday night with a two-hour episode that stood head-and-shoulders above anything from Season 2, but didn't quite manage to capture the magic of Season 1.

Heroes, the NBC show about a group of regular people who discover they have super powers, hit a home run in its first season with a large and interesting cast of characters, superb writing and special effects, and a tightly knit story that wound all of the various plot threads together. Season 2 turned out to be a huge disappointment as a mess of boring plots and dull villains killed all the momentum from the first season and was only saved when it was prematurely ended by the Hollywood writer's strike.

Turns out the writers had time to think over what they did wrong, because Season 3 breaks out of the gate with a variety of interesting plot ideas and a cadre of new villains that actually look threatening. Many of the mistakes of the second season have been swept under the carpet. Hiro is thankfully back in the present day, Mohinder is given something interesting to do when he discovers a way to give powers to regular people, and, best of all, Sylar has his mojo back.

Still, as pleasing as all these developments are, some of the best aspects are lacking. The dialog sounds like a cheap imitation of the first season, and there's no sense of cohesiveness to the various plots. But fans should be breathing a sigh of relief that Season 2 is behind them.