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« on: September 23, 2008, 05:11:59 PM »
There aren't necessarily any big spoilers in this thread yet, but they're bound to surface eventually.
So anyway: Heroes. Like most right-thinking humans, I really hated season 2--it was scattered and boring and poorly-written. It neither mimicked its first season (which it tried to do) nor expanded on it (which it should have done). The plot arcs were short and unrelated, the conflicts were ill-defined, and many of the characters were downright annoying. Everyone hated it, including the creators, and I think we were all relieved when the writers' strike stepped in and cut it short.
That said, I had (and have) high hopes for season 3, or volume 3, or whatever they presume to call themselves. They know what went wrong as well as we do, and season 1 suggests that they can actually be really interesting when they set their minds to it. Having watched the back-to-back premiere episodes last night, I'm pleased to say that, for the most part, they're doing a pretty good job. They're still falling into a lot of the same stupid character traps they've always fallen into, but the story looks interesting and the set-up makes me think they actually have a good plan ahead.
1. A lot of what they've done is to reset the situation back to season 1, to kind of repeat a lot of the things they did right, but they've only reset the situations--the characters have advanced, which is already a huge leap ahead of season 2.
2. The first issue is Peter and Sylar: these guys are way too powerful, and the show needed to find a way to reign them in, and for the most part it has. Ironically, they've reigned in Peter via making two of him, but since one is trapped in another body (possibly without his powers; we're not sure yet) and one is a semi-villain from the future, this could actually work. Sylar lost most of his powers last season, which essentially puts him back where he was in season 1, but it was interesting to see him immediately gain Claire's power--the entire purpose of the whole first season was to stop him from doing that, and now he's done it in the very first episode. So that's interesting.
3. That said, Sylar is a HORRIBLE character, and I hate watching him. I don't mean that he's evil, I mean that he's a boring, maddening, one-note caricature that drives me up the wall. If Zachary Quinto didn't do such a great job playing that one note, we'd have been rid of Sylar two years ago, but now we're stuck with him. I was really excited when he got trapped in the super dungeon, because it looked like they were going to keep him locked up and let the other group of far more interesting villains take the forefront, but then at the end Mrs. "I'm more mysterious than you" Petrelli lets him go, so my hopes were dashed. If they can find a way to keep him relatively weak that will be awesome, but since he's already unkillable and can incapacitate people with his mind, we might be looking at another season of Sylar's smarmy threats and false tension. Bah.
4. Nothing much with Parkman yet, though the African guy seems kind of cool.
5. Claire is interesting, as always, though her "I don't know if I'm human" conflict is kind of silly. And Mr. Bennett continues to be one of the best characters in the entire show, though his decision to bring in Claire's crazy firestarter Mom seems a little suspect.
6. Kristen Bell is awesome: her character is awesome, her character's conflict is awesome, she's really one of the hands-down highlights of the season so far. She is a great example of why people love sf and fantasy: "I have electrical powers superpowers" is a fun character trait, but "nobody trusts me to do anything right" is a solid character foundation. Standards dramas have the latter, and bad sf shows have the former, but bring them together in one character and you've got something really cool that you can't get anywhere else.
7. Hiro continues to be the most fun character in the show, largely because of Ando. Their scenes are interesting, their characters are great, and their personalities work perfectly--especially considering that none of it's in English. The scene in the first episode where Hiro stops time and follows the speedster's frozen motion blur was not only a cool special effect but a great character moment--his interaction with the blur was simple yet exciting, and it was simply a great scene. His quick leap into the future was great, too, although it was a little dumb to trot out the same stupid time bomb they used in season 1: "Hiro visits the future and watches a city get destroyed, and now we have to stop it." That was ingenious the first time they did it, but now it felt a little desperate. Also: as much as I love Ando, blaming Hiro when the speedster cuts him was a stupid leap of logic, and a little out of character.
8. The concept of giving powers to "normal" characters is kind of cool, but kind of sad. Ando and Suresh and Mr. Bennet have always been some of my favorites, in part BECAUSE they don't have powers; it makes them braver, I think, that they dive into these dangerous situations with nothing to protect them. I really don't want to lose that.
9. That said, Suresh's battle with a crazy power he obviously doesn't understand is kind of cool. This is yet another example of the writers resetting the show to season 1 situations, because now we get to watch another character struggle with a new power. I don't know if those are boils on his back, or scales, or what; is he getting sick, or is her mutating physically? I'm intrigued either way. Also: Suresh was an idiot in virtually every conversation he had with Maya. Just sayin'.
10. Tracy Strauss is fascinating. The biggest triumph of season 1 was that it took the character I liked the least (Nikki) and gave her a wonderful character arc and a great sense of progression and made me love her by the end. Through most of these two episodes I was convinced that Nikki had gained a third personality, and that seemed like a neat conflict for her, but then when she whipped out the accidental ice power at the end I started to think she must be a clone: I remember Linderman saying something in season 1 about how she was created, or grown, or part of a special creation program, and now it would appear that Tracy is another person from the same program. Very cool.
11. Nathan has been reset to season 1 as well, having regained his political career and his ambiguous morality. This is kind of annoying, because all I really want from this show is for Nathan to turn into a strong leader. He's the group's Captain America, I promise you, he just hasn't gotten there yet. His abrupt religiousness is interesting, and his talk about becoming an angel is way cool, because it could lead him to official superheroics, but then there's that lame political thing coming back, and I'm leery that he's just going to repeat his power-hungry arc from season 1. At least this time he has effing Bruce Boxleitner to deal with, so, you know, that's totally awesome.
12. Mrs. Petrellis has magical dreams? And that's where Peter got them? Season 2 seemed to make very clear that he got those from that old black guy--Simone's dad. If he didn't, then what DID he get from that guy?
I've gone on too long, but I think those are the main points I wanted to make. Except that I hope the Taskmaster girl comes back again, and I hope that we actually finally get to see some team-ups. Now that there's a team of villains, we should definitely get to see a team of heroes. Also, where's the hot Irish girl?
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