Heroes #11: The Eclipse : Part 2/Dec2008

[Vocenoctum]

Sadly, this was another bad episode in a bad season of what was once a great show. I seem to be in a minority in that I liked the vast majority of season two, but this season...

I'm in the "minority"* in that the last 3-5 episodes of season ONE were irksome enough to make me doubt the show. So, season 2's errors glared brighter for me than some perhaps.

As I see it, the show suffers from three key weaknesses: too many characters, to many fake-outs, and several characters who have become damaged (almost) irrepairably.

I think it's about writing/planning/pacing. The metaplot was planned out, and I think they had scene's planned for certain episodes. Then they sort of... lacked a plan on how to tie it all togethor. Their "filler" lacks planning. They stretch things out to make the episodes end on a cliffhanger, or they squish it all in without a lot, in order to fit it to the cliffhanger. They have no sense of pacing IMO.

And the changes, constant changes...
I'm probably the only person that cared, but throughout season 1 & 2, when they episode started with a flashback... they'd reshoot the flashback scene.
THEY CHANGED things in the reshoots. They tweaked the PAST (without an "in character" explanation) to fit their new idea on how to fit stuff.

They have no sense of continuity, they just hand-wave everything. It's all a plot device to fit an ever-changing plot. Until they realize things and start trying to define things (at least internally defining Power Limits and such), it's going to keep being a mess, IMO.

(* no way to judge if either of us actually a 'minority". Season 2 was much lower than season 1 in ratings, and 3 is even lower, but I'm pretty sure neither case is one of them being actual "low-rated" shows. Probably way overbudge for their ratings though.)

 

[fba827]

I'm generally not critical of shows -- either I watch it because I am getting some sort enjoyment out of it or I don't. And I still watch Heroes so I am getting some enjoyment out of it.

Having said that, I did notice a couple things (something earlier posters in this thread mentioned). When they conviced the show and through starting of season 1, they were expecting to keep it as a somewhat rotating cast (keeping characters through a couple episodes or through a whole volume at most) focusing more on 'regular life people' and how their lives are changed by finding out they have powers -- what is the nature of the person that evolves once they realize they have this advantage.

You'll see a lot of this played out at the start of season 1 -- matt was an average cop who couldn't get ahead and his family falling apart but he was using his powers to better connect to people and fix all that, nathan was just trying to be the politician and tried keeping things a secret if not deny it to himself altogether, and so on.

But the network and other factors caused the series focus to shift, instead of being about a rotating set of every day people, it became about these specific characters. There is a line in an interview with Tim Krig (sp?) in which he says (something like) "it's difficult to write for characters and story lines that we expected to have closed last year" and there was also another statement regarding "it's hard to do serialized story telling, we were originally hoping to do episodic stories or at least have mini arc stories" --- and, honestly, both those points show. They keep waffling back and forth in their character development (everytime they have a character develop they have something happen to go back to their initial character; how many times have we seen Sylar's character evolve into good, only to revert back to bad, or Claire finally resolve her problems with HRG only to have them revert back to teenage-daddy-angst), and some of the story lines are just so drawn out they've become weak and crippled - heck, for some of the story lines it just screams (to me) that they couldn't figure out what to do with a person so they came up with something last minute because they wanted some particular favorite-character to be there.

Having said that, I want to reemphasize my initial statement... I'm still watching the show because I do get some enjoyment out of it. Is it as "smart" of a show as I wanted it to be? No. But at least some of it is still entertaining.

 

[megamania]

Coming into the arguement late but I have to say- it doesn't look good for season 4 at this point.

The very fan base has been irritated and that never bodes well. Season one was very good. It borrowed much from various comicbook stories and the such but it was fun to see it on TV. Season two had a rough start and that was made worse by the writer's strike. I have not seen season three but I review the comments here weekly and it looks like the show has lost its way and it can't be blamed on a strike this time.

Too bad. I even liked Season Two and loved season one.

 

[dravot]

I ran out of interest too.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Late to the party again (still catching up on old episodes) and I find I'm with the majority of ENworlders in being a bit disappointed here.

Considering we left the previous episode with HRG looking through the sniper scope of his powerful telescopic rifle at the heads of Elle and Sylar... and yet this week they apparently consummated their love on the floor of the building before he decided to shoot them? Just doesn't make any sense to me, nor does the followup.

re: Sylar, he seems to be written a different way every other week.

re: Pa Patrelli, it would be nice if they decided what actual power he had, as he seems to have "any power the plot might need him to have".

re: Hiro... I'm lost for words. OK, they created a power which was too powerful (which they should have spotted on day 1, but probably liked because it gave the incentive for 'disaster is coming') but since then we seem to have either stupid Hiro who never learns anything or... Hiro who has been intentionally regressed to a 10 year old (to give additional reasons for him acting stupidly?).

I'm interested enough to keep watching, I hope things will improve.