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

[Arnwyn]

I thought the final episode was okay. Stupid, but less stupid than other episodes. Keeping Sylar around in this ham-fisted manner sucks, all the missing threads (mentioned multiple times by multiple people in this thread), etc still hurt the show, but it was okay because - as another poster mentioned - stuff happened and it moved along.

Though not showing the big superhero fight in the season finale could almost be considered insulting...

Oh, I think folks are a little too hard on this show....and a little too easy on Chuck.

If they just played up the elements of comedy, would all of the "dumb" stuff suddently be forgiven as farce?

If the show took itself a whole lot less seriously, then yeah - I suspect it would get a few more passes a little more often.

But Heroes tries not just to be serious, but deadly serious, almost all the time. Trying to be that serious with crap writing will get a show slammed. (Rightfully so, I might add.)

 

[Banshee16]

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.

They could have at least just killed off Sylar after he has done is part at fixing the company.

That they didn't show the fully fledged SFX battle.. I didn't care about that. That the characters had the brilliant plan that erasing Sylars memory and having him believe he is Nathan (did Sylar learn to fly?).

Ah, well, I suppose next seasons threads will be emptier, eh? I think I will still be watching. I still want to see what the characters will do next. But I am not seeing that they will actually come up with sensible, consistent plots.

For Sylar, it seems rather dangerous to keep him around, even with him "convinced" he's Nathan. Maybe they can't kill him, but they were evidently able to tranquilize him.

While he's out, put him into a dump truck or something, throw him in, and fill it with cement. Freeze it...then drive it off a pier or something.

What was unclear was whether Peter was only able to absorb one power (ie. shapechanging), or if he absorbed Sylar's ability to absorb powers....

We saw him shapechange, then when they grabbed hands, it looked like Peter drained Sylar's power, because Sylar was forced back into his old shape. So, did Peter get the ability to steal powers, and consequently all of the powers Sylar had, during the fight? Or, did Peter just steal the shapechanging ability during the fight, then when they shook hands, he duplicated Sylar's ability to steal powers (taken from Peter's father?).

Of course, Sylar still seems to have the ability to shapechange, and read memories from objects, as he's in Nathan's shape for the beginning of next season.

Very unclear.

Banshee

 

[Tilenas]

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*!

Yeah, what the hell? Completely forgot about them. They probably all died in Iraq like Joe Swanson's kid on Family Guy.

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.

I hear they planned to renew the cast for every season but got greedy/chickened out because of S1's runaway success.

When I start to realize that _I_ could write better episodes or at least write a more interesting plot arc then people being CRIMINALLY overpaid. Stupid plots and character decisions that wouldn't fly on Saturday kids shows

That.

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]

That's just what makes him *tic*, he is, after all, a watchmaker! :-D

On the missing final showdown: They probably blew their budget on those two guys from Robot Chicken who played the comic book store employees.

Bottom line: Season 1 is enjoyable as a standalone mini series. Everything after that is only there because they couldn't pull the plug on this cash cow.

 

[satori01]

This episode has some pretty severe continuity errors:

1) Claire's blood Not being used.

2) Dr. Surresh being a PHD and not a medical doctor.....something Surresh stated explicitly in a season past....yet Hiro/Ando sure treated him like a medical doctor.

3) I am pretty sure that in the first episode of season 1 you see a picture of Nathan in the army. Yet for this season finale....Sylar said "you claim you graduated first of your class at Annapolis"....hmm wrong service Acadamy, unless a Marine.

4) Sylar does not fly. Now we saw him, possibly levitate in with his TK power...but as to powers we have seen him take...flight is not one. Kinda hard to impersonate a flying man, that revealed his power to the chief of staff and Secret Service, when you can not fly.
Sure you can say he stole it empathetically during the fight, or from someone else...but that is incredibly poor writting.

5) The US Government already has an organization called "The Company". I'm sure the CIA is fine sharing with a bunch of mutated freaks

The sad part is you see the writting staff struggling to fix the show, but it just does not feel organic. People feel there is too much Sylar....trap the unkillable man inside the personality of another character. Nathan Petrelli the character has gone stale, lets add a bit of Sylar and suspense on when he will blow.

Intellectually, these are not bad plot developments in theory, but the execution is off.

Moreover, they just brought back the Overpowered Peter () Problem, if he absorbed all of Sylars powers. Hiro being allergic to his own DNA is an incredibly unsatisfying answer/situation.

Can Ali Larter not die and stay dead?

Honestly I think they should reboot the show, and go with the original plan, every season is a new set of Heroes. If the writing staff ignores continuity then you feel cheated and the writers do not know their own show. If the show repeats too many old story lines, or uses the same tricks, then you feel like the show is going nowhere and has no clue.

Reboot completely, or the writing staff had better map out a 2 season arc and not half ass it.

For those that want Heroes cancelled, it is an NBC/Universal produced show, which means that it will be unlikely to get the axe first as it is in effect an in house production....however if they can not even show the big fight...what type of budget restrictions is the show under if for the season finale throwing people already and some levitation is the order of the day.

 

[LightPhoenix]

4) Sylar does not fly. Now we saw him, possibly levitate in with his TK power...but as to powers we have seen him take...flight is not one. Kinda hard to impersonate a flying man, that revealed his power to the chief of staff and Secret Service, when you can not fly.
Sure you can say he stole it empathetically during the fight, or from someone else...but that is incredibly poor writting.

I agree with most of your points, but I can't agree with this. How is Sylar using a power we know he has poor writing? The only thing that was poorly written was the fact that they didn't show the fight at all.

For example, suppose Peter and Nathan were actually getting the upper hand on Sylar. Sylar takes Nathan's power to escape, Nathan chases him but Peter can't because he can't fly anymore. It makes sense written out, but since they didn't bother to write it at all, that's the actual poor writing.

Can Ali Larter not die and stay dead?

Please no, I think she's one of the better actors on the show, especially since they tend not to overuse her.