Heroes #25:An Invisible Thread/Season 3/2009

[Psionicist]

The first season of Heroes was completely awesome in my opinion. Best show ever. The second season was not so good, but enjoyable. So I was really pleased with the first few episodes of the third season. Really good.

Unfortunately, somewhere in the third season things got much worse, and the last few episodes have been especially unwatchable. I think this season finale was okay though - at least the first 30 minutes.

My hope is the next season will be better, the old writers and Sylar/Nathan can be interesting. Of course, the writers have much to live up to know, they basically sacrificed this season finale just for Sylar/Nathan. If Sylar returns the first few episodes I will be disappointed.

 

[Felon]

So who is this Chuck character?

And could someone explain to me why they didn't resurrect Nathan with Claire's blood like they did a while ago with Noah? He got shot in the freaking eye and recovered.

It might be Claire just wasn't able to get to him in time. Maybe the tissue has to still have some trace of life?

As to Peter impersonating Nathan, I think it's a matter of a long-term impersonation. Peter gets to live his life, rather than spending the rest of it disguised as Nathan. And Sylar brainwashed is likely a better Nathan than Peter just shamming.

 

[WhatGravitas]

There were a lot of scenes I liked. Claire in "action", Sylar as usual. The way they tricked Sylar was well done, too. But then... They have the protagonists come up with a really bad plan and have them believe that could work.

It is the problem that plagued Heroes since the end of the first season: Great characters with a bad plot and mediocre pacing.

Cheers, LT.

 

[rowport]

My girlfriend and I are done. Not showing the big fight? Completely contrived reason to keep Sylar around (and utterly idiotic to boot)? All of the usual stupidity? We're done. If we hear several episodes into next season that it's suddenly gotten good then maybe we'll check it out, but we're not going to keep watching something we're just not enjoying...

That was it for me, too.

A superhero show that does not show the big fight after building up to it most of the season? In the *finale*??

'Nuff watched. Meh.

Face front, true believer! 'Nuff said!

 

[rowport]

Or, they could have just sort of had him magically resurrect himself, like they did last season. You know, when he rose from the dead and had a never-explained, born-again religious conversion? For two episodes, before it was forgotten about?

Feh.

You know what I'd do to save heroes? Start season 4 off normally, with the usual oversights and conveniently-forgotten plot points, and all that. 'Round about the 4th episode, it starts getting really bad...obvious inconsistencies between scenes from earlier in the episode, people acting completely out-of-character, etc. Cut to a scene of Peter (with scar), Matt, Sylar, Ando and badass Future Hiro, in Isaac's loft, enveloped in Red Lightning, all staring with grim concentration somewhere in the middle distance. "I can't hold it together any longer!" shouts Peter, through the Parkman Mind-link.
"You HAVE TO!" Sylar shouts back.
"There's been too much damage to the Space-time continuum," snaps Hiro. "At this point even if we..."
Hiro is drowned out by a sound effects crescendo and a lot of shaky-cam as, our heroes screaming, the scene cuts to black.
Post-commercial break, it's revealed that when Hiro appeared to Peter back in time, they broke the space-time continuum with some kind of paradox, and the past 2 seasons have been the future-heroes trying to splice things back together, with increasingly frayed and jumbled results. From that point, either each of the Heroes get shunted off into their own stable reality, and has to figure out the lay of the land in the world they've found themselves trapped in, or all the gang gets shunted, Quantum Leap style, to a new world and a new plot every couple of episodes.

You explain away the bad stuff that lead up to that point, and can focus on the parts of Heroes that have worked the best...the discovery and exploration stages.

I dunno. I still like the show, but I don't feel too bad if I miss it, anymore, either.

Well, this one seems a bit over the top. I am not sure if you are totally serious, or just making the point. The general idea about clearing away the deadwood somehow is a good one, though.

There is so much leftover garbage from dropped plot lines. What happened to Peter's Irish girlfriend? Where the heck is Nathan's wheelchair-bound wife (and kids??)? What happened to all the heroes/villains who drop in and out in an episode or two? Where does the rest of Claire's family disappear all the time-- heck, even Sylar joked about forgetting Lyle in the *show*!

For that matter, I personally find that as many of the characters have "grown" they have become less likable to me. I much preferred the kind-hearted Peter to the scowling bada** version. Claire as cheerleader (who took a job in the comic shop for... 5 minutes??) is better than as whiner. Mohinder is an idiot. Matt is aimless. Hiro is... wow, I dunno, his variety of uselessness and silliness changes so often now. Honestly, I only like Sylar, HRG and Ma Petrelli as recurring characters anymore.

Frankly, I think that is the real problem. Turning a show about normal people discovering how powers change their lives became a soap opera about the Petrellis. And, like a soap opera (or Friends, Melrose Place, etc.), there are only so many ways for the same characters to interact. No wonder stuff gets confusing and forgotten.

Bummer, really. The show had serious potential but lost its way entirely.

 

[Blastin]

As much as I have been forcing myself to continue to like this show I just can't do it anymore. As has been mentioned multiple times already: Should have used Clair's blood to revive nathan and killed Syler. But they chose this shtick. I'll wait till next season is done and see if it was any good and watch it on dvd if by chance it bounces back.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

It might be Claire just wasn't able to get to him in time. Maybe the tissue has to still have some trace of life?

As to Peter impersonating Nathan, I think it's a matter of a long-term impersonation. Peter gets to live his life, rather than spending the rest of it disguised as Nathan. And Sylar brainwashed is likely a better Nathan than Peter just shamming.

He wouldn't have to pretend to be Nathan for long. They could have fabricated his "death" after he had settled things. ("Complications from his gunshot wounds. It was a surprise to all of us, he seemed perfectly fine!" ("Remember when he disappeared for a while? He had cancer. And it came back. Hard.")

---

Just thinking back to the episode:
Angela Petrelli saying "I can't lose my son like this!".. Really? But you can keep it as a Sylar fake? The murderer of your son pretending to be your son? That works for you?

 

[Brown Jenkin]

But this way Sylar can have multiple personality disorder again. Sigh

 

[Krug]

Not showing the big fight was really lame. And Nathan dying... again? and not being saved by Claire? What the heck is it with this? Can't they keep their own universe consistent? Frankly I think an even shorter season would help. Please next season, not Sylar again. It's like Batman fight the joker every issue. After a while it gets stale.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

I still think it has great potential and I want to see it do well. But the writing has sucked so severely since the close of season 1. That, I can actually forgive. Hey, they ran out of time, they ran out of money. Mistakes made, lessons learned. But since then the show has struggled so desperately. It's like each week they're swinging for the fences to finally knock something out of the park but hitting foul after foul.

The earlier part of this last season was almost worse than season 2. When I start to realize that _I_ could write better episodes or at least write a more interesting plot arc then people are being CRIMINALLY overpaid. Stupid plots and character decisions that wouldn't fly on Saturday kids shows; COMPLETE lack of consistency of not only plot but characterization [geez, EVERY FREAKIN WEEK Sylar swings from wanna-be-good to love-to-be-bad as predicatably as a clock pendulum]; REPEATED introduction of new characters bloating the cast of a given episode - some more interesting than "main" characters", only to see them killed or simply FORGOTTEN. OMG the offenses go on and on.

I think I said a number of weeks ago that by the end of the season it'd be make-or-break. But once again they've done such a feckless job they can't even make it easy to decide to abandon the show for good. Oh well. We wait til next season then I guess and see what happens.