Pointless bickering

The thing I want to talk about this week is random and unnecessary tension-generation because it ruins almost every TV programme I watch and, once I’ve explained it, I like to think it will ruin all your TV viewing too.

I’ll give you a classic example from Heroes (BBC2, Wednesday), a series to which I’m afraid I’ve become mildly addicted. I’m thinking of the episode where sinister Mr Bennet tries to stop his adopted daughter Claire from going to her prom-queen homecoming because he knows it’s her destiny to be attacked there by the evil serial killer Sylar.

Does he a) say, ‘Look, Claire. I know about your superpowers. And by the way there’s a guy who’s trying to kill you, so best not go to the homecoming.’

Or does he b) say, for no obvious reason: ‘You’re grounded,’ thus causing his wife to be upset by this gratuitous nastiness and his daughter to hate and fear him even more than she does already.