Save The Cheerleader. Save The World.

The best show on Monday nights is NBC's Heroes.

I could end the post there and have a Coke and a smile, but if you've never seen it (either because you're pumped on RAW or watching bland things like Monday Night Football or the CBS "comedies"), you really owe it to yourself to at least catch the replays on Sci-Fi Friday nights at 7 PM inbetween one of last year's best sci-fi shows Night Stalker and new episodes of the awesome as hell Doctor Who followed by a show I'm really getting into, the new Battlestar Galactica. Seriously, Sci-Fi hasn't had a powerful lineup like this since . . . ever (as much as I'm a Farscape fan, it didn't have any good shows backing it up [sorry Stargate fans, but that show seemed too "Trekky" for me]).

Anyway, the skinny on Heroes is that these random individuals from all points of the globe. A struggling comic book artist paints the future weeks in advance. A younger brother of a politician who has dreams that he can fly. A cheerleader who can heal herself of any injury. A woman who sees a version of herself within mirrors. An office worker in Japan who discovers that he has the ability to manipulate time. Two people on opposite sides find themselves connected to all of these strangers in some kind of way.

As a comic writer/artist, I gotta say that is sounds like a perfect show. It's a weekly comic book story told with living, breathing flesh and blood people. No ink and digital paint. No text bubbles (well, there are subtitles whenever Hiro and his best friend converse since they do speak in Japanese). No costumes. It's pretty much a real world version of superheroics. People who are learning about who they are and what they can do.

If you or I learned that we had a power we couldn't understand nor comprehend, how would we react? If you think you could do something, regardless of how weird it may be to others, would you ignore the impulse to do so? If you learned one morning that you could not get hurt or have body damage, what would be the first thing you do? If you had the power to go forward and go back in time go to any point on the planet, would you be willing to do so? If you could see the future, despite what harm it may do to you, would you be willing to show others? Would you use these powers to help others, help yourself, or hurt those that wronged you? These are some of the questions asked on Heroes, and because they show what these regular folks would do in such a situation, this series has become a story about human nature wrapped in comic book cover.

I gotta tell you, this is one of the best shows on television, broadcast or cable (or in this case, both). I hope NBC keeps this series on the air longer than a year (thank goodness the series has a full season run on the network) because there is so much potential present in this series.

Watch it Mondays at 9 PM EST/PST on NBC or catch the replay Fridays at 7 PM EST/PST on Sci-Fi.