Wow. Some people hated Monday night’s season premiere of Heroes.

Adam Buckman of the New York Post especially hated it. I noticed his review because Metacritic translated it as being a 0 out of 100. I just had to know where he brewed all his Haterade.

I’ll sip what he’s giving after the jump, but beware… there are spoilers ahead.

To start, Buckman writes, “You would think a group of people labeled ‘heroes’ would do something heroic once in a while. But in tonight’s premiere… the heroes spend most of their time warring with each other or feeling sorry for themselves.” He goes on to say the characters ought to “save some ordinary person from some common, everyday peril” instead.

In fact, the lack of Superman-style dogoodery is his biggest problem with the first episode–he doesn’t review the second–but that’s unfair. The show has never been a service-oirented action adventure, with little kids getting pulled out of rivers and such. It has always focused on the personal and intra-group trials of the heroes themselves.

So when Hiro sits in his father’s office, complaining that he’s bored, that’s not a lack of action, as Buckman claims. It’s the set-up for a potentially enormous problem: Hiro feels his powers define him, and he can’t be happy unless he’s using them. Because of that–because he is uncomfortable being ordinary–he blatantly disregards his father’s orders and takes a dangerous formula out of its safe. It’s like he’s trying to cause trouble, just so he can fix it.

Same thing with Mohinder: He hates being ordinary, so he unleashes this mutated serum on himself. It seems obvious that this will have troubling results.  Did you see the skin peeling off his (incredibly toned} back?

Conversely, Claire and Maya are trying to shed their powers. They’re desperate to feel more human, not less, so already, we’ve got an interesting conflict between those who want to excel and those who want to hide.

That’s essentially the dilemma in every superhero story, so it’s confusing that Buckman is annoyed with Heroes for bringing it to the foreground. Why not skip the kitten saving and directly engaged with the theme?

Later in his review, Buckman confuses criticism with personal offense. He says the Sylar-Claire chase scene could be from a “bad ‘Scream’ squel,” and then he lambasts that scene’s conclusion, when Sylar catches Claire and picks through her brain. He says that’s a “gross mistreatment of everyone’s favorite character.”

And… fine. That moment was graphic, and it could certainly turn people off. But what Buckman misses is that the result is exactly what makes the cat-and-mouse chase so unusual.

The scene begins like a standard horror flick, wtih the pretty girl hiding in the closet from the killer. It even lets the killer attack the pretty girl, just like in “Scream.” But then, the pretty girl doesn’t die. She’s just as powerful as her killer, so instead of submitting to him, she engages him in a tense, revealing conversation. That scene doesn’t “mistreat” Claire; it underlines how she shatters the typical mold for the perky blonde in a fantasy tale.

That’s not to say the episode was flawless. I mean, does every season have to send someone traveling to a horrible future that must be avoided? And does Mohinder have to be such a big, whiny tool? (Don’t even get me started on his shirtless seduction of Maya. Dial it down there, Dr. Tiger.)

Overall, though, the season opener teased us with interesting questions that can play out for months, and it provided interesting in-the-moment action. And it finally gave Ali Larter a cool power. I don’t know which personality that was, but since it can turn people into ice, I hope it never goes away. Screw you, Nikki and Jessica. I’m with Ice Queen now.