jump to navigation

Heroes: WTF??? November 20, 2008

Posted by ce9999 in Heroes.
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
add a comment

I’m not the only person who seems to be having difficulty with the current (3rd) season of Heroes. A couple of weeks ago, a couple of the show’s producers/writers got canned by NBC, in response, apparently, to massive complaints about the show. Well, hopefully whatever further action is taken by NBC will eventually improve things, but for the time being, the episodes we’re seeing this fall (or spring, for southern hemisphere folks) were finished while the old writing/production team was still in place.

So what the hell is going on, anyway? This is perhaps the broadest question that comes to mind when I caught up with the latest two episodes a few nights ago. I’ve decided that there is too much going on for me to gain any benefit from watching the show every week. It seems to work better when I can watch at least two episodes back-to-back, and I suspect four would be better…the problem there, of course, is that doing so would require waiting a month or more between viewings. As is, waiting two weeks is bad enough. I am not sure if it helps me more to have more material presented at once, or hurts due to the increased time since the previous installment. Perhaps what I need to do is go back and rewatch the entire season so far! I’ll probably do that once the “Villians” storyline is completed anyway—I always seem to enjoy a show more when I can watch multiple episodes at once.

In any case, the biggest bugaboo for me on the show right now is the “two Peters” question. At any given time, I find myself not really knowing which Peter I am looking at. At first, it was easy to tell the two Peters apart, but as the Peter storyline has progressed, somehow I’ve gotten confused to the point that even the facial scars don’t help me anymore. Which leads to another question which really bugs the hell out of me, namely HOW exactly did “future-Peter” get those scars? Wouldn’t the healing power he got from Claire have healed them? Obviously it would have, so that means future-Peter didn’t have that power. But that raises the further question of why future-Peter didn’t have that power, when present-Peter does. (Or did, since he now doesn’t.) Is future-Peter a direct causal descendant of the events that are currently happening? Or is he a direct causal descendant of no-longer-existing events, meaning the scar happened in a future that is no longer possible? Or what?

There’s also the question of the missing-in-action characters. Ali Larter’s previous characters are apparantly dead now, and all the New Orleans characters, I guess, are not going to be reappearing. Are they? And where is Maya? I can’t even remember what happened to her now—did bug-Mohinder wrap her up in one of those cocoon thingees? Or wait—did Papa Petrelli suck her evil power out of her? I can’t even remember. She does seem to be gone now, though. Claire’s flying boyfriend (West Rosen) from season two appears to be MIA as well, which is too bad. They took him out of the picture right when I was just starting to like him. On the other hand, would he have served any useful purpose by continuing to be on the show? All he was good for, at first, was looking sympathetically at Claire. That was annoying. In fact, he sort of reminded me of that annoying boyfriend guy from the first season of Alias (who annoyed me so much that I stopped watching the show). What saved West from going down that path, though, was when him and HRG started kicking some butt. He seems to be gone now, though. Oh well.

On the other hand, there is a positive note in that Sparky (Kristen Bell) is still around. I know, her name is really “Elle.” But I can’t understand why some character on the show hasn’t figured out that “Sparky” would be a perfect nickname for her. It would be amusing. :) I also find myself liking the transformation in Sylar this season. Having him continue to be an unabashed villain would have been a rerun of where he was in season one, and what would have been the point of that? I understand that a lot of fans have been displeased by him turning into a sort-of good guy, but frankly I think it makes his character much more interesting because, you know, he could revert back to his old self at any time. He’s still scary and dangerous, he’s just acting nice at the moment. You never know when he might decide that all this redemption stuff is just not worth it, and that he’d much rather get back to slicing people’s skulls off. :)

A character who I am more confused by, for now at least, is HRG. His shifting, back-and-forth morality would be challenging enough, but when we also see him in year-old flashbacks it makes it even more complicated. I continually have to re-ask myself the question of whether I like this guy or not, and that’s kind of irritating. I think the main problem is that, like a lot of the characters on the show, he’s not getting enough screentime to maintain character continuity, and it happens to be more confusing with him because of the complexity of his character.

Well. Hopefully some of these issues will be addressed in the second half of this season. We’re already coming up on the end of the “Villains” story, only two more episodes on that, as far as I know. How on earth they are going to resolve all this is beyond me. I am not even entirely sure what all needs to be resolved. Papa Petrelli needs to be gotten rid of, obviously, but beyond that, what else? Does Peter get his powers back? Will “the formula” be destroyed? Does Mohinder get to be a regular human being again, or is he going to be stuck in semi-insect form from now on? Is Hiro Nakamura going to remain a perpetual 10-year-old now? Perhaps most importantly, which characters are going to get killed? You know they’re going to have to get rid of some of them, because there are just too many of them for the writers to manage. So, who’s going to get offed? Whichever way they go with that question, I find myself dreading the inevitable deaths.

Zap! You’re gone! Or, be careful not to get seperated while time-travelling into the future, and other matters. September 22, 2008

Posted by ce9999 in Heroes.
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
add a comment

Let’s say you travel a year or so into the future. You take someone with you. While the two of you are there, you get separated. You come back to the present, but your friend is still stuck in the future. Then you do something which eliminates the possibility of that future you visited ever happening. What happens to your friend, who didn’t come back with you, who is stuck in that no-longer-existent future?

It’s an interesting question, one I’ve never thought of before. Typically when we think of issues with time travel, we think of paradoxes which might happen due to travelling into the past. Travelling into the future seems so much more straightforward, doesn’t it? Except when you come back, because then you are travelling into the past again.

This situation is precisely what happened with Peter Petrelli and his new Irish girlfriend Caitlin, late in season two of Heroes. While in the future, they discover a plague has wiped out almost all of the world’s population. They get separated and Peter accidentally comes back to the present, without her. Once he’s back, he realizes the plague needs to be stopped. Does he realize that, by doing so, he may never be able to see Caitlin again? The story doesn’t deal with this question, other than by making it clear that he really does want to get her back.

Anyway, a few nights ago, I ended up watching those next three episodes of Heroes which I had mentioned in my last post, plus two more, for a total of five. That brought me right through to the end of season two, so I’m all caught up now. Sylar’s got his power back, Niki is presumed dead in a fire/explosion, Nathan has been shot, Adam buried alive, HRG was dead and brought back to life (and is once again making deals with the Company to protect his family), and Peter and Hiro save the day, with a big assist from Matt Parkman.

These five episodes turned out to be significantly better than the previous six, which is why I ended up being dumb and watching all five of them in one night, leaving me with no more to watch over the weekend. :) A lot of my complaints about the earlier half of the season were addressed, too. Peter and Nathan were reunited, as were Hiro and Ando. And there’s a lot of other good stuff. For instance, Hiro got to say goodbye to his father. I wasn’t expecting that, because of the small detail of his father already being dead. But Hiro, being a time traveler, obviously wouldn’t be constrained by that. The scenes between the two of them were really wonderful.

One thing I got totally wrong was my cutesy theory about Peter’s head being blown off and regrown. I was mostly kidding about that anyway. :) Turns out the Haitian wiped his memory. I should have known that was what happened, except I must have been having trouble remembering if the Haitian was actually alive anymore. Recall there was an alternate future where the Haitian was killed, by Mohinder, if I remember right. But that future was averted, so nothing in it actually happened, meaning the Haitian would still be alive. This stuff can be hard to keep track of!

So Peter’s problem was actually induced amnesia, and it turns out that regenerators like Peter can recover from that, simply by repairing the brain damage that’s causing the memory loss. This leads to an intriguing theory. Regenerative characters, we now know, also have the ability to temporarily transfer that ability to others with a brief transfusion of their blood. So it follows that anyone could use that method to recall their memories, provided they had access to some of that blood. Right? I wonder if the writers have realized this. Perhaps a better question would be, if they have realized it, are they going to be able to make any use of it in the story?

Another thing that occurs to me is, how does Peter know if he’s recovered all of his memories? He’s not a computer, so it’s not like he can run a checksum on his brain, is it?

And I’m still wondering how he got the ability to walk through walls. I keep thinking that this is a continuity error, because I recall Peter meeting up with DL in that alternate future where the Haitian was killed. But since that didn’t end up happening, that means Peter didn’t actually meet up with DL, or else the meeting happened somewhere else. Perhaps it happened towards the end, when all sorts of characters were showing up prior to the big explosion. That’s possible.

Anyway, there’s a lot more that could be said about this season, such as how my initial antipathy towards West ended up fading quite a bit once him and HRG teamed up. I’m completely glossing over some other, equally important stuff, too, but I don’t want to drag this out any longer, since the season premier is tonight!!! :)

The Big question: What happens to Niki Sanders and Nathan Petrelli? One of them has been shot, the other presumably burned alive in a fire. I’m thinking Nathan is probably safe, but I’m not so sure about Niki, unless she managed to superpower her way out of that fire somehow.

Other question: Will we see Caitlin again? I’m thinking no, it’s not even possible.

Heroes, Season 2 – Broken Relationships? September 18, 2008

Posted by ce9999 in Heroes.
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
1 comment so far

I’ve been watching season two of Heroes over the past few nights, and I’m currently six episodes in. Oops—I mean six chapters. :)

I’m enjoying season two, but after last night, I find myself concluding that this season simply isn’t as good as the first one.

Why?

At first realization I couldn’t pin it down exactly, but it didn’t take long to realize the obvious: One of the primary strengths of season one was a focus on the relationships between the primary characters. In every single case (except possibly one), those relationships are not playing critical roles in season two. In some cases, they have even been ended, due to death, presumed death, or other reason.

To illustrate:

Matt and Janice Parkman

In season one, in spite of the fact that the two of them were having marital difficulties, it was made pretty plain that underneath it all they loved each other very much and preferred to continue their marriage. How did they go from there to divorce? The initial explanation was that Matt read in his wife’s mind that her pregnancy was attributable to an affair, but then it’s said that Matt should have known better than to believe that. In other words, the baby was really his, and the fatherhood issue was just a pretext for their split. Huh? How on earth did that happen? I’d speculate that the real-life reason was Lisa Lackey having a new baby of her own, meaning she couldn’t continue with a full-time acting job for the season, but damn, the shift was quite abrupt, wasn’t it?

Peter and Nathan Petrelli

How often have I seen a major television program deal with a relationship between brothers? Offhand, the only one I can think of was on Dallas, and not only was that a long time ago, but Bobby and J.R.’s relationship was hardly a stellar example of brotherly love, was it?. Nathan and Peter Petrelli felt like something new and important to me, especially since I come from a family where my brother and I are the only two children. Nathan and Peter’s relationship was a primary story point in season one, but now it’s virtually absent. Nathan mourns Peter’s presumed death, and Peter doesn’t even remember who he is. Obviously Nathan is really suffering, but it’s not a point that seems to be driving the story much. Peter himself, remembering nothing of his former life, is basically in isolation except for his new Irish cutie girlfriend. Obviously, something had to be done with him after the end of season one, because at that point he was getting to be too powerful. He would have been the “K-9” of Heroes, meaning the writers would have had to constantly come up with reasons for him not to just wave his hands and magically make it all better. Wiping his memory and forcing him to relearn the extent of his power is actually one way of doing that—they’re making him not really Peter, which means super-Peter can’t just swoop in and save the day. But it’s frustrating, because Peter was one of the best characters on the show.

(Incidentally, I have a theory about Peter’s memory loss. Recall he was blown up at the end of season one, but at that point, he had also assumed Claire Bennet’s regenerative ability, which includes the ability to regenerate severed body parts. So what if Peter’s head was blown off by the explosion, and his body grew a new head? Obviously the new head wouldn’t have any memories, would it? This would also explain his hair being different. :) One other thing about Peter—at what point did he gain DL’s “walk through walls” talent? Recall when he’s tied up and manages to dephase his wrists to escape? When did he pick up that ability? Did he actually encounter DL sometime in season one? Maybe I’m forgetting that meeting. Otherwise, that’s a continuity error. Ok, digression over.)

DL Hawkins and the Sanders family

This relationship actually includes four people: DL himself, Micah Sanders, Niki Sanders and Jessica. Yes, Niki and Jessica have a relationship, even though they are two fragments of the same person. Very early in season one, the Niki and Jessica thing was probably the most intriging aspect of the show for me. Rather than explicitly explain what was happening with them, the writers left us to puzzle it out over time. Honestly, it took me a good chunk of the season before I fully understood that not only did Niki suffer from multiple personality disorder, but that the disorder wasn’t really part of her power at all. Her power was actually pretty simple: superhuman strength. It just so happened that only the Jessica personality knew how to access it at that point, and the only times Niki was aware of Jessica was when she saw her in a reflection. The mystery was positively delicious, especially since, at the beginning, I thought something quite different was going on, something mysterious that I’m not even sure how to explain. The writers and directors deserve a huge amount of credit for making something so interesting out of Niki/Jessica, and Ali Larter totally rules for playing and differentiating the two roles so well.

A big part of what made Niki/Jessica interesting was the completely different ways that the two women related to DL, and even to Micah. However, DL is dead now and Micah has been shipped off to live with relatives in New Orleans. Setting aside for a moment my enthusiasm for the New Orleans idea and the new characters it brings into the show, not having Niki and Micah together is definitely a loss, as is the comparative lack of interplay between Niki and Jessica. In fact, when Niki showed up as Mohinder’s new foil at The Company, I admit I wasn’t entirely sure if it was her or Jessica. Ali Larter was playing her like Jessica—that much was obvious—and yet I got a lot of Niki vibe from her too. Have Niki and Jessica been successfully integrated through psychiatric treatment? Who knows. Whatever has happened, the new season has left Niki with very little to do. The situation with her and Mohinder could prove to be interesting, but so far there hasn’t been much.

Hiro and Ando

This one is bad. Hiro is stuck in 17th century Japan, and Ando is left where? Reading scrolls and trying to look surprised? Season two isn’t working out very well so far for Ando, and without him, Hiro is diminished as a character. Not having the two of them together is sort of like giving each of the Smothers Brothers their own, seperate shows. Or Penn and Teller. Name your comedy duo of choice, really. Sure, Hiro and Ando are nice enough characters, but they work so much better as a team, when they can play off each other. Their ongoing repartee was a highlight of season one, and now it’s just gone. Hiro’s not the happy-go-lucky guy he was first season, either, which is also a significant loss. Don’t get me wrong—I’m all in favor of character development, and if Hiro has to evolve from happy-go-lucky guy to someone resembling the future-Hiro we saw in season one, that’s fine, but that needs to be done in a better way. It would be more fun if Ando was there, not reading along from 300 years in the future.

Simone Deveaux, Isaac Mendez, Peter Petrelli

Two of them are dead, and Peter I already talked about. This triangle, which played such an important part of season one, is just plain gone. I miss Simone and Isaac. A lot. Simone was wonderfully fabulous. I admit I am biased, because out of all the female characters on the show, she’s the one who set off the most “potential girlfriend!” alarms in my silly male brain. As for Isaac, once he got off the drugs, he was a seriously cool guy. It would have been great to see something sweet-yet-tortured develop between the two of them, as they struggled to reconcile their love for each other with the fact that they probably weren’t all that good a match. I also loved Isaac’s paintings, and loved seeing more of them come into play with each episode. In season two, the writers have been digging up heretofore unknown Isaac Mendez paintings as continued plot devices. How much longer are they going to be able to continue doing that? Already it has a feeling of contrivance to it, so I hope they stop soon. Besides—Peter and Sylar can both do that too now, and Sylar has a really interesting style. :) (But first, he has to regain his power! Oh well.)

Claire Bennet and Zach

Thomas Dekker (Zach) unfortunately left the show in the middle of season one, and besides that, having the Bennet family forced into hiding made the continuance of that very important relationship impossible. So instead we get another guy, West Rosen, and he annoys me. Who knows why. Is it because he flies? Probably not. Flying is a pretty cool power. Maybe it’s because, unlike Zach, he hits on Claire constantly. Or perhaps it’s because what I was really hoping for was an exploration of what might happen if Claire and Peter Petrelli had a chance to get to know each other. When they first met in season one, we didn’t yet know that they were uncle and niece, so there was the possibility of some forbidden love between the two of them, which I’m sure would have played really well on this show. I could easily see Claire developing a huge crush on Peter, and given his empathic nature, there’d almost certainly be some strong feelings on his part too. Even after Peter was revealed to be a relative of hers, what passed between the two of them during their brief meeting in “Homecoming” was something substantial, for both of them, so it would have been great to see some type of enduring relationship form between them. It could yet happen, I suppose. But for the time being, Claire is stuck out in California, at a new school, with annoying fly-guy. She even has to deal with a new head cheerleader bitch. Which reminds me, why are we being subjected to another head cheerleader bitch in season two? Wasn’t the one in the first season enough? Do the writers of the show have something against cheerleaders? I realize Cheerleader Bitch is just a plot device, a way to draw Claire and West together (which is annoying because I have no interest in seeing that happen) but why did they have to smack us over the head with the “stuck up cheerleader” stereotype again?

Anyway, I miss the Claire/Zach thing. That was cool, even after Zach’s memory was wiped.

Claire and HRG (aka Noah Bennet)

It could be argued that their relationship is the one relationship among all the first season primaries which still survives and is continuing from where it left off. It’s hard to specifically disagree with that position, but I still find myself thinking there’s something missing between these two. The circumstances of the story have reunited them, after the painful parting at the end of “Company Man”, but it’s also throwing them back into the state of lying and distrust that existed for much of the middle of season one. It seems like that should be a good thing, but somehow, it’s not really working for me. I haven’t figured out why yet. It’s not that I want Claire and HRG to be all happy and lovey-dovey all the time, it’s more that things just don’t feel right between them. I don’t mean that in the sense that the writers are cooking something up, either. I mean it in the sense that the writers have messed something up about the relationship. Perhaps the next episodes will clear this up. I hope so.

—

The problem with all of these changes is that characters are largely defined by their relationships with other characters, and that is especially true on a show like Heroes, where relationships play such an important role in the storytelling. Take away the relationships, and what do you have left? Parkman’s is who, without his wife? A telepathic guy with a roommate, and both of them try to take care of an orphaned girl? And by the way, he’s now on the NYPD? Well, that’s interesting enough I suppose, but it doesn’t have the depth or the pull that his marital relationship did. Who is Nathan Petrelli in season two? So far, he doesn’t seem to be much of anyone: He’s a lonely guy, a drunk, a nobody who’s not allowed to talk to his own kids, and who hallucinates visions of some horribly burned person who appears to be either his brother or himself (I can’t actually tell for sure who that’s supposed to be). Again, there’s just not as much to grab onto as there was first season, when the question of Nathan’s motivation was one of the big issues of the show.

There is also another difficulty with this season: With the exception of Peter (and initially Monica), all the characters in season two have a good understanding of their abilities and have made a lot of progress in integrating those abilities into their lives. Getting to that point was virtually the essence of the show for much of season one. The lack of it leaves a pretty big hole in season two. So far, I don’t see that hole being filled.

Still, I do think Heroes is a great show, and I’m certainly planning on camping out in front of the TV again tonight to watch the three episodes on the next DVD. I’ll be there for the season three premier next week, too. It’s possible I may have something to say about it, even. :)

Heroes – various thoughts from late in season one September 11, 2008

Posted by ce9999 in Heroes.
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
add a comment

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been enjoying watching the first sesaon of Heros, which I’ve been renting. I’ve been averaging four episodes a night, on nights when I have a fresh DVD available. I love this show. :)

Right now I’ve got five episodes left in season one. In the previous episode—sorry, I mean the previous chapter, Claire Bennet leaves home, and it is revealed that her father Noah, who is surely one of the most ambiguous characters I’ve ever seen on television, may actually be the biggest hero on the show. At least, from her perspective he is. In other respects, is he working for or against his company’s interests? I admit I’m still a little fuzzy on that one, especially when he goes to New York to deal with Isaac, and he’s right back to his old, ruthless ways. I suspect what he’s doing is working in his company’s interests when it suits him to do so. What an intriging character. I love it. Jack Coleman is quite an actor.

I wanted to talk a little bit about Sylar mostly. The maker of timepieces, who goes on to become the murderer, the psycho, the boogeyman creeping out of the closet to suck out your brains. He’s such an ironic character. With his ability, he could be a healer, a fixer, he could solve the problems of so many people, and be the biggest hero of them all. For those looking in vain for a “cure” to their abilities, I have no doubt that Sylar could figure out how to cure them. He could cure them all, even Nuclear Ted. All he’d have to do is look into their brains, see how their abilities work, and figure out a way to turn them off. Problem is, he couldn’t do that for himself. I wonder if he realizes that at some level, and that’s what drove him mad.

Since I have five episodes left in this season, it won’t surprise me if there are further revelations about him or other characters. I wonder if I’m right about this? Anyway, as I left the last episode, Sylar was about to gouge Peter Petrelli’s brains out. What an awful cliffhanger. I knew I should have called it a night at the end of “Company Man”, but I just couldn’t help myself. There was one more episode on the DVD, and I just had to go and watch it, didn’t I? I’m a junkie for this show. :)

One other thing. In “Company Man”, it was revealed that Hiro’s father (George Takei!) is the power behind “the company.” Add that together with this helix icon that’s been appearing in various places, including on the hilt of an ancient sword that is supposed to bring superpowers to its bearer…and things really seem to be taking shape now. I think tomorrow is going to be a long day, as I wait to watch those last five episodes. (And then I heard there’s a gigantic cliffhanger at the very end. That just hurts. But oh well.)