Heroes - of the Backlash!
Perhaps it's because I watched the tape late when I was tired and cranky, but while the comic book fan wanted to like the first episode of Heros, the following things really bugged me:

1. While there were Indian and Asian characters, there were no black or hispanic protagonists and just two blacks as minor characters.

2. The Japanese guy was not just a hyperactive comic book nerd who and the main source of comic relief, but he's also played by a round actor who bore an uncomfortable resemblance to Mickey Rooney in Breakfast At Tiffany's. He's also set up to speak heavily accented or no English. Unlike the Indian characters, who spoke nearly unaccented English at all times, even in India.

3. The two main female characters are sexy blondes - one a cheerleader, one a online stripper and incompetent single mother. The males are all accomplished and/or respected professionals (even if undercover as taxi drivers). The first female we see on screen is arching her back as she strips in a school girl outfit.

I guess we're remaining faithful to the comic book mentality, but man, this is bullshit. Another show I don't need to worry about watching.

EDITED TO ADD: Here's what struck me - the network or creator has the usual fear of alienating viewers with fantasy and cartoons, thus every cartoon element must be clad in the solemnity of Serious Drama gravitas. The side effect is a mix of tone which affects the way cliches play that just gets on my nerves. There's good contrived and bad contrived y'know?

The Cheerleader has a Buffy echo except she wasn't a cheerleader anymore in the series. I'm guessing she began with that great introductory scene of the videotaped fall, with a character fitted into it later. Thing is that first scene invoked Jackass to me, and how much cooler would it have been if this was her reaction to her powers. Teens already have a sense of invulnerability and one steeped in jock / Jackass / Kim Possible culture is more likely to be as thrilled as she freaked out, and a smart kid would fear the risks of exposure due to risks but not shame.

Instead we have a character we've been told is smart, popular and full of potential whose is consumed by shame and guilt over being different. Convenient to the plot, but not quite logical - or at least I wasn't sold on it, because I was thinking, "If this character were a guy and a football player, would he be exhibiting self loathing? No, he'd be saying 'Fuck Yeah!"

It's one of those cases where trying to underplay is actually more annoying. How much better if she had been a typical cheerleader type, somewhat arrogant yet feeling the burden because her abilities could help others or make her the target of experiments. Her reaction didn't fit the cheerleader type, but someone who already feels like an outcast, but then you wouldn't get that first image. Now if her character seemed like someone who felt trapped by her cheerleader role, with her healing playing like being secretly smart or gay or whatever, but then her mom is played as enormously supportive, even encouraging her to see the world before settling down. Which leads one to ask - why the shame? And yes, I'm looking for a comic book explanation (strict, judgemental parents) because everything else is simple.

Then Mirror Stripper - who is an absurd excess of a Bad Mom stereotype. The central scene she's built around is desperate woman who unleashes her powers when threatened by thugs. Because it's network, she can't just be a low life. No she must be flawed but redeemed by having a kid. She can have a screwed up past, this time her crisis comes from doing the right thing. Not just borrowing a few hundred or thousand for tuition, which many mobsters would also break arms over, but $30,000, even though she can barely keep the lights on. So she can bribe a Generic Snooty School Which Has No Other Reason To Accept A Gifted Mixed Race Child because Public Schools Are Worthless And Have No Programs For Electronically Gifted Kids. Now if she was a complete idiot or recovering crack head, I might understand why'd she be so stupid, but no, she's a former gambling addict and, of course, a desperate woman will always place herself in danger for a kid, no matter how idiotic the plan.

Which, okay but they also make her A Virtual Prostitute for no other reason I can see but a contrived reason for there to be incriminating footage of her reaction. Of course TV logic dictates that a woman who works in the sex trade in scene one must be threated by rape by the end of the show, and she is. It's like she's both too noble and too degraded to make the character work and it's kind of offensive.

How hard would it have been for her to be a gambling addict who takes up the cards again to make her kids tuition and gets merely threatened with physical harm over her debt? No absurd amounts of money, no prostitution, no threat of rape and a far more interesting question of whether her motive was her kid or just a pretext to gamble again. It would fit the duality of her power as well. I'm sure they could have invented another reason for her to be on tape.

What made Mr. Manga stand out for me is he's the comic relief in an otherwise soap opera solemn show. I'm not sure why the other characters couldn't be played for laughs at times, but apparently Serious Network Drama means only one broadly funny character allowed (even if the others are archly drawn). Again, it's not so much he's comic relief chubby Asian cartoon nerd with a foreign accent but that he's all these things at once while our heroic scientist lives in No Subtitle Nation. It may not even be him, but the campy contrast with the rest of our grim and secretive crew which started me on the PC trip. If you're going to do a potentially racist character then you need to take a few steps so that any discomfort the audience feels is intentional rather than an oversight.

I know, I overthink these things, but since my plate is full with other shows and books, I'm going harsh on this one.

Ultimately, I have no problem with campy, arch shows with plot holes and melodrama - but there's still a certain plausibility quotient I need so that the stereotypes come off as appropriate narrative, and not just an outgrowth of the show's inability to write women or Funny Asian fetish.
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*I'm also very very tired of Contrived Pop Culture Idiot Savants - where characters drop references when needed for the dialogue, but otherwise act they've lived in a vacuum where they've never seen a single TV show or movie which might relate to their current situation, even when it's appropriate to their character. So while I'm happy Mr. Manga seems a font of this knowledge, it makes no sense for everyone else to have no clue. Or does the Hero gene only strike those who don't watch prime time television?

EDITED TO ADD: The show was created by a guy who wrote Teen Wolf Too and worked on Crossing Jordan and Knight Rider, which explains a lot. He also wrote for Misfits of Science, of which there is more than one echo in this show.