Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Heroes, Heroes, Heroes...


...when will you be good again?

For those of you that care - S P O I L E R S ahead.

So, I remember watching the first season of Heroes on DVD. It was great. The concept was cool, especially to comic geek like myself. The characters were interesting and their relationships will well-defined. The soap opera stuff was done well, and served to deflect some of the rampant comic book geekiness. My wife loved it as much as me. At the end of each episode, we would pop in the next disc, sometimes watching far into the night. Heady days.

Then Season 2 happened. It was disappointing, no doubt about it. But I offered up a lot of excuses. The writer's strike was my big excuse; I thought it threw everyone off, trying to cram in a worthwhile story with fewer episodes. I also often expect trouble in second seasons. That's when TV shows have to work their hardest; the concept isn't new anymore, the initial conflicts between characters are often resolved and have to be redefined, etc.

Well, this season? So far, it sucks. Sucks hard. Here are my complaints:

- Hiro and Ando are doing the exact same thing they always do. In Season 1 - they went on a quest and provided comic relief through their bumbling, but ultimately heroic and scrappy, efforts. They are doing the exact same thing now, except you think they would have gotten better at this after a couple years, so they just seem like idiots. And by the way, how did that speedster know exactly when Hiro was going to open that safe? And why can she move when Hiro stops time? Isn't time stopped regardless of how fast you're moving?

- Future Peter. Fuck, I hate Future Peter. He takes over Present Peter's body, but hides his mind inside a psychopath's body? What? Then he frees Present Peter to take him to the future, but leaves Noah tied up at the mercy of a bunch of criminals. It's not like he would have had to do anything too strenuous....they were all right in the same room as him!

- Time Travel. How many times are the writers going to go to this particular well? By my count, Peter's been involved in time travel at least three times, and Hiro does it all the time. By the way, Hiro's gone to the future and seen the world blow up at least twice.

- Sylar's a Petrelli? Really? Really!!?? This actually made me angry, since it's such a hackneyed, artificial, bullshit storytelling trick, and came from nowhere.


I like the whole Niki/Tracy thing, as that at least seems to be a genuine mystery, and is an ingenious way of killing off a character without losing the actress. But that's it. It better pull itself together soon, or I'm a-gonna walk.

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