Are You on the List?

I watched an advance disc of next Monday's "Heroes," and it's good, good, good. Good enough to go up against "24" on Fox? Alas, Jack Bauer will probably have done with Sylar in one hour.

To me, "Heroes" is much fresher and more original than "24," which is exciting and addictive but... come on, "24" is pretty formulaic at this point. If I had to choose -- and, thanks to high tech, I don't -- I'd choose "Heroes." On Monday, the show finds our poor cheerleader trying to restore her friendship with Zack, whose memory has been erased. Peter Petrelli is lost in some kind of cool-scary psychedelic dream state. A new hero, played by Christopher Eccleston, shows up as the invisible man. And H.R.G. meets with Mohinder again, at which point he speaks the show's newest tagline, "Are you on the list?"

My problem with the episode was, as usual, the character of Niki. The whole Niki/Jessica thing just seems really stupid to me. In a couple of scenes, Niki and Jessica have verbal battles with each other that make actress Ali Larter appear pretty darn idiotic. Maybe it's Larter's acting, but then I think many actors would have trouble doing a split-personality spat with themselves without looking like Jim Carrey.

P.S. I'm trying to get information on whether Sci Fi will continue to reair episodes of "Heroes" each week. I'll post later today, when I find out.