Heroes season 1 was pretty much amazing. Season 2 was slightly weaker, but I didn't look down upon it as harshly as others have. Season 3 has by far been the most bumpy road I've seen so far in this show.None of the episodes so far have been absolutely stellar, with only little bits of each episode shining through and keeps me coming back. Scenes such as when Peter goes into the future and watches as Knox kills Sylar's son and Sylar goes nuclear and blows up most of California. That was such an intense scene. I loved watching it. Other scenes, such as most with Peter before his father strips him of his power, are just horrible.
There are most certainly a few characters holding the show back, as well as several plot holes and just... bad writing quite frankly. Claire needs to die, badly. She's always the damsel in distress, but she's important as shit for some reason. Save the cheerleader, save the girl and such. Hiro being a ten year old is pointless and exists only to make the actor act like an asshole ten year old annoyance. Matt Parkman, who is still one of my favorite characters is one of the dumbest bastards I've ever heard of. Anyone who sees someone in leg braces and asks flat out "What are those things?" is a fucking moron.
I think that's my biggest problem. Dialogue is horrible for the most part in Heroes. Intelligence is also typically left behind in favor of idiotic decisions or the inability to work together successfully. In season 1 Noah and Claire don't talk to each other, when if even one of them slipped up the other would have known how to handle the situation perfectly, however they, and the viewer, are led to believe that they can't, under any circumstances, let the other know what they do. This created tension and a yearning for them to work together. Now, in season 3, people don't talk or make plans together, and they sure as hell aren't listening to reason. Out of no where Nathan leaves Peter and the Haitian down in Haiti while he goes to help his father do the one thing Peter saw and warned everyone against? Why the hell is Nathan basically betraying his brother. Peter even talks to him right before he leaves, but he's too idiotic to even be able to stop Nathan from making his dumb, and obviously wrong opinion.
Sylar has kind of outlived his welcome as well. He keeps switching back and forth between evil crazed killer guy, and Mr. Nice. It's interesting watching him as his mental state is pulled back and forth and the divide in his brain known simply as insanity grows wider and deeper. However, I have absolutely no faith that the shows creators will properly use this as a story element.
Which leads me to the biggest disappointment by far, even more so than the inability to have two characters converse in a coherent and natural manner. Tim Kring doesn't know when to stop dropping the ball. I don't know if its his choice, or some other sinister force responsible for creating possible story elements that are either ignored, or used in an incredibly inefficient way. Its so depressing seeing all of these possible stories pop up and know deep down that the creator and the writers will just ignore them. Unless of course they're doing it intentionally so they can pick them all up later and connect it all together.
Which in itself is a whole other problem. Everyone is fucking connected in this world. Seriously, everyone is related to this guy who had sex with this girl who's brother is this guys son who gave powers to this guy who worked with this person while they were in Africa studying the source of the power that gave this other guy his power specifically and he turned out to be the first girl who got fucked's daddy. I know that having all of the characters be this close makes sense on a genetic level, that everyone with power could be traced to other powered up individuals, but it is just way too much. Knowing that Claire is actually the illegitimate daughter of Nathan and Meredith is interesting, but once again, they manage to drop the ball. Instead of actually utilizing this fact, they simply use it to connect more characters to her and make her an even less likable person.
One last point that's sort of related to the previous two comments, is that ideas keep just getting tagged on, or so it seems. The writers keep writing and coming up with reasons for things to happen, and instead of explaining why, or even really hinting at why things happen like that they just use it, and move on to the next abstract idea that they will soon forget and paint over with a new coat of useless plot progressing devices.
Sadly this show has devolved into a train wreck. I will definately buy the first season 1 still, but I'm not so sure about the other two seasons. I'll keep watching this show, as besides the 45ish minute time sink it presents, its no real skin off of my bones. If not for the hopeful saving of this show, then at least for those few and far between glimmering moments when the acting, dialogue and story are actually engaging, interesting and make sense logically.
-Adam
2 comments:
I'm interested in your opinion of the latest episode of Heroes. I felt the same way that you did about the first half of Season 3: Sylar's personality flip-flops were unbearable and much of the writing felt disconnected from the characters themselves.
However, in this new episode I felt as though the writers took some time to really reconnect with the individual characters and write them back into the personalities that they started the series with, and I really enjoyed that. We'll see if it lasts, but we won't know until next week.
Your thoughts?
I wasn't really watching for how characters were brought back to how they should be to fit their original personalities, though looking back most everyone was actually pretty accurate, so I give it props for being able to do that.
However, I think the newest episode was one of the hands-down worst episodes of the show I'd ever seen with a lot of things happening randomly and a lot of unnecessary suspension of disbelief being involved. I'll probably write more about this episode, but I want to watch again first.
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