Heroes is one of my favorite new shows this season (tied with Ugly Betty). Not only is this show solid in terms of its plot, but the producers manage to slip in some nice nods to other shows and pop culture icons. Two examples that I loved in the first season so far are:
Wonderfalls’ Wax Lion: The smooshed-faced wax lion that kicked off Wonderfalls appeared on Micah’s nightstand in one of the early episodes. Wonderfalls was co-created by Bryan Fuller, who now serves as a consulting producer and writer on Heroes. By the way, if you’ve never seen Wonderfalls you should get the DVDs or catch the reruns in Logo. It’s a wonderfully quirky series that follows Jaye, a Brown-educated gift shop worker, who starts receiving instructions from inanimate animal knick-knacks (such as the wax lion) to help people.
Star Trek license plate: This was great to see in this past week’s episode. The car that Hiro’s father (played by Geroge Takei) gets into at the end of the episode has the New York license plate NCC 1701, which is the Starship Enterprise’s registry number.
Blink and you miss these things. Will had to back up the DVR and point out the wax lion to me, and I had to do the same for him with the license plate. I wonder how many other little in-jokes like these are in the other episodes!
