What the hell is happening on this show? Jeezus Christmas! This season is so bad it's making me long for the days of time travellers altering events as they see fit and all-powerful gods with more power than they know what to do with. And we STILL don't know what the purpose of this season is. Things were much easier to follow when we knew the fate of the world was in peril or evil government agents were hunting people with powers. Why is it taking so long for this season to get to The Point. The Point is what every season of every show is based on, and The Point is normally outlined within the first two episodes, 3 episodes tops. What does that Carnival Guy want with the regular cast? Yes, I know, to be a part of the family. But why? To sing Kumbaya?
Every single character is shitting the bed this year. No one has any good storylines. I know this show is on its last legs - you'd think they'd want to start coming out with the firecrackers to set up some type of "big bang". All indications are this will be the final season, and I've heard from another person who follows this show that writers are being encouraged to make sure things are wrapped up for the most part by the end of this current volume. Meaning there can very possibly be no 2nd part to this season after this current volume is done. This is how they want to go out? Who cares about this Carnival Guy? If this is going to be it give us another "save the cheerleader, save the world" premise. Give us some big stakes.
The writers have done a horrible job at limiting the powerful characters. Peter, Hiro, Parkman and Sylar have all been neutered. The four most powerful characters in the show have been mired in horrible plot devices meant to ensure that the writers don't have to deal with worrying about how to fit in these uber-powerful characters into a storyline with normal people or people with useless abilities. People don't want to see these four characters as a shell of their former selves. They want action, they want hero vs. hero fighting. They want Future Peter vs. Future Sylar in the second to last episode of season 1. It's very obvious that Heroes should not have been a regular series - it should have been a mini-series. Something along the lines of "V". Get in, get out quickly and leave them wanting more. That first season is a loooong time ago, it certainly seems. Who knew a hot series could unravel so quickly just cause of one writer's strike. Right now the show should probably be relegated to some kind of webepisode show. It seems like they're trying to introduce a webisode element with the side story of that Carnival Tattoo Chick, but unfortunately I don't watch simply because I don't care about her.
And dammit, based off the ending of this latest episode - looks like Suresh is back in the picture. In the words of Charlton Heston: "DAAAAMN YOUUUU!".
What this show needs to do to go out with a bang - cuz it really does need to end now, as much as I used to love this show - is (and you're going to think I'm crazy here) introduce Micah again, but an evil Micah. There. I said it. Earth needs to be attacked by a crazy teenage boy with the ability to control electronics, who has assembled a force of cyborgs/robots to take over the world. Think Marlon Brando in Apocolypse Now. Sitting on a throne, worshipped as a king in his own little world by his own creations. You pair Peter, Sylar, Claire, Bennett and Suresh together to stop Micah and save the world from an impending cyborg doom. Hiro must die. There always needs to be a sacrificial lamb, and quite simply there's no drama or tension with a guy who can stop everything with the blink of an eye or worse - travel back in time and prevent everything from happening. Kill him off, set the stakes real high and let's see some fireworks as Peter and Sylar team up against a common enemy. I was gonna say the enemy should be an invading alien force but the show probably doesn't have the budget for the effects needed to pull that off. They barely have the budget to keep up with the show as-is.
Btw, please kill the deaf-girl who sees colors. Serves. No. Purpose. WHAT IS THE POINT?!? We're halfway through the season and I shouldn't be asking this question for a character who has had as much screentime as she has. Get her off the show.
November 4, 2009
September 22, 2009
Iiiiiiiit's Back. Chapter 1 - "Orientation"
Note I didn't have the time to watch the second part of last night's 2 hour premier, so any opinion of the season opener is based off of the first chapter. Since this blog was on a long hiatus I guess it's best to break things down into two parts anyway so I have more to write about.
First things first - I was underwhelmed. Where was the big bang, the "POW" from the season opener last year? The second part of last season was even more tremendous - all people with powers being hunted and everyone on the run from The Man. This season started off very slow. Normally a season opener will 1.) identify the villain and 2.) unveil their evil plan. Ok, so #1 was established - we think...All we know right now is the Carnies are probably villains. We're supposed to think that because of the dark, brooding evilish music in the background. And they killed Denko - which may or may not be a bad thing. Oh, and the main Carnie leader has evil hair and dark eye makeup, so that probably makes him a villain. But yeah, I don't think it's going too far to say the Carnies are the bad guys. Only thing is based off of the first part of the premier - we don't know what the hell they want. Sylar wanted your brains. Arthur Petrelli wanted to build a force of super humans (they never really fleshed that out though). The Gov'ment/Denko wanted to round up all people with abilities. Like I said, there was a lot of BANG! POW! to these openers. They're supposed to set the table for the rest of the season.
What do we know so far?
Ali Larter is immortal: That is, she will always be on this show. Her name may not be Nikki, it may not be Jessica, it may not even be Tracey - but she'll always be a character on this show in some way. She wasn't rather annoying to me in this opener, but alas, the season is young. I'll give her time.
Mohinder is gone: ...for now. Normally season openers will show what all the characters are up to, but Mohinder was nowhere to be found. There wasn't even the normal narrative voiceover that starts and ends the show. I think a different person does the narrating if you look at the credits - but it sounds like Mohinder so I always pretended it was him. Anyway - all gone. I'm sure the writers have him stashed away to bring out at some other opportune time (ie, when it's convenient to them after they've written themselves into a corner) but for now the show seems to be Mohinder-free.
The Hiro & Ando Comedy Group: Officially have crossed over into comic-relief. The show even *unnecessarily* has that whimsical music everytime they're on the screen. At one point when Ando was on the roof saving the cat and he fell I swear there was a Benny Hill sound effect. Almost like a Fozzie Bear "whocka whocka" or bicycle horn. What the hell is going on? And now Hiro was considering going back into the past so he wouldn't meet a fortune teller who set him on the path to wanting to be a hero? Ummm, don't you think that would mess up the storylines of the previous seasons??? Without Future Hiro to give Peter the "save the cheerleader, save the world" order then Sylar gets Claire's power in season 1 and chaos ensues. Although Sylar wound up getting Claire's power eventually, which kinda negated the tension from season 1. Granted, Hiro inadvertently has some as much harm as good with his time travelling - if he goes back in time to prevent all that who knows what winds up happening. Why did Ando not bring that up? Why did he not say "Hellooooo? If you go back in time you'll mess everything up by altering the timelines!". Also, we get it already - you don't want Hiro timetravelling all over the place so you devised this contrived scenario so that he has a built-in weakness/deterrent for using that power. Hiro's power is cool, but the character himself isn't. If this is the best you can muster then kill him off and let us remember him fondly. I sighed during the scene when Hiro/Ando were talking to the little girl. Cringe-worthy, I think some would describe it.
Carnies, small hands...smell like cabbage: From the first episode we don't know much other than the lead Carnie must really be a sweat talker as he apparently convinced that Tattoo Chick she needs to be topless when she uses her power.
Lead Carnie Guy: "Ok, I need you to take your top off so you can show me a face."
Tattoo Chick: "Is this really necessary, I can easily make the face appear on my shoulder or something."
Lead Carnie Guy: "DAMMIT JUST DO IT!"
Also not sure why he had to inject his cohort with ink to do that cool tattoo hand choking the throat trick - he's able to move dirt so he obviously has a similar telekinesis power as Sylar.
Parkman: The most powerful hero on the show (now that Sylar is out of commission for the time being) isn't interested in being a hero any longer. So let me get this straight - Angela Petrelli tells you the person you helped lock in someone else's body is now starting to manifest himself and you need to fix it before it's too late. You're reply is "it's not my problem anymore"? Granted towards the end of the show Sylar mentally threatens Parkman so I only have reason to believe he'll come around. But it's just weird someone who's now a parent wouldn't be totally gung-ho to make the world as safe a place as possible for his young. He's morphed into my defacto favorite character due to being so powerful, I hope the writers tread carefully here. I don't want another Hiro on my hands.
Peter: Completely useless once again. Just leave him like this, guys, he does more harm than good. He's more suited to be a super-paramedic than a super hero. He's perfect in his current role. Of course he's not going to go an entire season like this, but I'll enjoy this new Peter (insignificant, not crucial to the storyline) for as long as I can.
Claire: The writers listened to me. They put her back in school. It's where she belonged for the last season and a half. Glad they've seen it my way. I still don't know why they showed a scene of her playing Guitar Hero, unless that was a poor stab at product placement. Sure the song being played was ominous - "very supersticious...writing on the wall" - but unneeded. I think her geeky friend has a power, she commented something along the lines of "I'm learning this quickly every second", which I took to be a hint of some kind of ability. Her murdered roommate was going to really be a downer on the show if they gave her more airtime, I'm glad she was quickly disposed of. But anyway Claire belongs in school, back to being a special person who just wants to be normal. Crime-fighter Claire was a bomb. Not "the" bomb - "a" bomb. A failure.
I'm going to assume last night's premiere kinda needed to be watched in its two-hour entirety. The first part was just too "bleh", perhaps they saved the fireworks for the second part.
First things first - I was underwhelmed. Where was the big bang, the "POW" from the season opener last year? The second part of last season was even more tremendous - all people with powers being hunted and everyone on the run from The Man. This season started off very slow. Normally a season opener will 1.) identify the villain and 2.) unveil their evil plan. Ok, so #1 was established - we think...All we know right now is the Carnies are probably villains. We're supposed to think that because of the dark, brooding evilish music in the background. And they killed Denko - which may or may not be a bad thing. Oh, and the main Carnie leader has evil hair and dark eye makeup, so that probably makes him a villain. But yeah, I don't think it's going too far to say the Carnies are the bad guys. Only thing is based off of the first part of the premier - we don't know what the hell they want. Sylar wanted your brains. Arthur Petrelli wanted to build a force of super humans (they never really fleshed that out though). The Gov'ment/Denko wanted to round up all people with abilities. Like I said, there was a lot of BANG! POW! to these openers. They're supposed to set the table for the rest of the season.
What do we know so far?
Ali Larter is immortal: That is, she will always be on this show. Her name may not be Nikki, it may not be Jessica, it may not even be Tracey - but she'll always be a character on this show in some way. She wasn't rather annoying to me in this opener, but alas, the season is young. I'll give her time.
Mohinder is gone: ...for now. Normally season openers will show what all the characters are up to, but Mohinder was nowhere to be found. There wasn't even the normal narrative voiceover that starts and ends the show. I think a different person does the narrating if you look at the credits - but it sounds like Mohinder so I always pretended it was him. Anyway - all gone. I'm sure the writers have him stashed away to bring out at some other opportune time (ie, when it's convenient to them after they've written themselves into a corner) but for now the show seems to be Mohinder-free.
The Hiro & Ando Comedy Group: Officially have crossed over into comic-relief. The show even *unnecessarily* has that whimsical music everytime they're on the screen. At one point when Ando was on the roof saving the cat and he fell I swear there was a Benny Hill sound effect. Almost like a Fozzie Bear "whocka whocka" or bicycle horn. What the hell is going on? And now Hiro was considering going back into the past so he wouldn't meet a fortune teller who set him on the path to wanting to be a hero? Ummm, don't you think that would mess up the storylines of the previous seasons??? Without Future Hiro to give Peter the "save the cheerleader, save the world" order then Sylar gets Claire's power in season 1 and chaos ensues. Although Sylar wound up getting Claire's power eventually, which kinda negated the tension from season 1. Granted, Hiro inadvertently has some as much harm as good with his time travelling - if he goes back in time to prevent all that who knows what winds up happening. Why did Ando not bring that up? Why did he not say "Hellooooo? If you go back in time you'll mess everything up by altering the timelines!". Also, we get it already - you don't want Hiro timetravelling all over the place so you devised this contrived scenario so that he has a built-in weakness/deterrent for using that power. Hiro's power is cool, but the character himself isn't. If this is the best you can muster then kill him off and let us remember him fondly. I sighed during the scene when Hiro/Ando were talking to the little girl. Cringe-worthy, I think some would describe it.
Carnies, small hands...smell like cabbage: From the first episode we don't know much other than the lead Carnie must really be a sweat talker as he apparently convinced that Tattoo Chick she needs to be topless when she uses her power.
Lead Carnie Guy: "Ok, I need you to take your top off so you can show me a face."
Tattoo Chick: "Is this really necessary, I can easily make the face appear on my shoulder or something."
Lead Carnie Guy: "DAMMIT JUST DO IT!"
Also not sure why he had to inject his cohort with ink to do that cool tattoo hand choking the throat trick - he's able to move dirt so he obviously has a similar telekinesis power as Sylar.
Parkman: The most powerful hero on the show (now that Sylar is out of commission for the time being) isn't interested in being a hero any longer. So let me get this straight - Angela Petrelli tells you the person you helped lock in someone else's body is now starting to manifest himself and you need to fix it before it's too late. You're reply is "it's not my problem anymore"? Granted towards the end of the show Sylar mentally threatens Parkman so I only have reason to believe he'll come around. But it's just weird someone who's now a parent wouldn't be totally gung-ho to make the world as safe a place as possible for his young. He's morphed into my defacto favorite character due to being so powerful, I hope the writers tread carefully here. I don't want another Hiro on my hands.
Peter: Completely useless once again. Just leave him like this, guys, he does more harm than good. He's more suited to be a super-paramedic than a super hero. He's perfect in his current role. Of course he's not going to go an entire season like this, but I'll enjoy this new Peter (insignificant, not crucial to the storyline) for as long as I can.
Claire: The writers listened to me. They put her back in school. It's where she belonged for the last season and a half. Glad they've seen it my way. I still don't know why they showed a scene of her playing Guitar Hero, unless that was a poor stab at product placement. Sure the song being played was ominous - "very supersticious...writing on the wall" - but unneeded. I think her geeky friend has a power, she commented something along the lines of "I'm learning this quickly every second", which I took to be a hint of some kind of ability. Her murdered roommate was going to really be a downer on the show if they gave her more airtime, I'm glad she was quickly disposed of. But anyway Claire belongs in school, back to being a special person who just wants to be normal. Crime-fighter Claire was a bomb. Not "the" bomb - "a" bomb. A failure.
I'm going to assume last night's premiere kinda needed to be watched in its two-hour entirety. The first part was just too "bleh", perhaps they saved the fireworks for the second part.
April 21, 2009
I Am Sylar (and other tidbits)
Taking a brief hiatus from the blog I'm back. I'll admit it's much easier to have opinion and criticisms on the show when the writing sucks. With the improved writing and stellar storylines, well, I'd be a fool if I just turned this into a nitpicking blog. Applause for the writers for making me shut my mouth.
That having been said, let's review and compare notes and what's gone on since I last wrote:
Sylar: Let's just get right into it. I'm liking the character, but after his latest Norman Bates impression in the most recent "I Am Sylar" episode, ummm, whatever? What's this all about? The guy goes from wanting to redeem himself/becoming a good guy, reverting back to form, teaming up with Danko (and we all knew that was going to be a temporary partnership), now he's trying to "find himself". Jeez, pick a Sylar and run with it, guys. Sylar and Nathan are two of the most inconsistent characters in this series. Remember last volume when Nathan was all over the place? Same thing goes for Sylar. Every three episodes it's a new thing. Speaking of Nathan, what the hell was he thinking going to face Sylar by himself? The same Sylar who survived an exploding building at the end of the last volume.
Peter: Um, wow, what a fall from grace. The character goes from being the main guy on the show to getting like 10 minutes - if that - of screentime per episode. Wow. Not that I'm complaining, mind you. I think he's had his time in the sun, running around and playing God. Nice to be able to take a step back and say "the second volume of season three was when Peter Petrelli went back to being just one of the characters instead of the focal point of the show". There's nothing really to write about Peter. He's been such a small factor, his most notable (and I'll admit, probably coolest) contribution in the last few episodes was showing up in the elevator to whisk his mother away while agents were poised to apprehend her. This was the volume where characters like Peter and Hiro took a step back and characters like Matt Parkman and Nathan to an extent were allowed to sit at the big boys table. The show is much better for it, Parkman is a much better written character, more consistent and he was allowed to evolve slowly. The episode where Parkman's dad said to him (paraphrasing) "You don't even know what you're capable of, what you'll be able to do with your power. You can do so much more than read minds..." as his turning point. That's the seed and from there he's blossomed into someone exciting to watch and someone who can affect the storyline.
Future Timelines: I don't know, for a while it seems like several of the events in the future timelines were not going to come true. But lately it seems there's a possibility that Sylar will assume Nathan's identity and eventually become President like he did in the future timeline in season 1. Hiro/Ando keep bickering a bit too much for the Hiro vs. Ando future event to have been totally eradicated. Also Nathan probably dies at some point since Sylar has his identity. HRG was some type of underground rebel and with him being apprehended at the end of the latest episode I think his days as a Government Agent/consultant are over. I'm just saying, we've seen *just* enough these past few episodes that we can't completely write off some of the future storylines, and trust me, I was the first to proclaim "all those future storylines are done and probably moot".
Hiro: Ok, I'll admit, I don't know where the show is going with him. I thought he was back, as in back back, but I don't know what his latest problem is (bleeding from the nose, power not working). My early estimate is maybe Baby Matt Parkman's power is temporary, in the sense that after he turns something "on" it won't stay "on indefinitely if he's not around. Baby Matt Parkman and the Human Lie Detector Woman are tied for two of the most "convenient" characters on the show. They were created for a very specific purpose. Like, it's so convenient that Hiro bumps into the one character that can turn his power back on. See how everything fits into the box so neatly? That kind of writing makes you roll your eyes a bit, but I guess it was a necessary evil just to get Hiro his powers back (temporarily?).
Season Finale: If there is someone reading this who does not think this season finale isn't going to be top 2 in this series, let that person state their case. I think a major character is going to die - that's how big I think it's going to be. (And I think that character is going to be Nathan who winds up dying to save someone in the ultimate act of selflessness which would be a rarity for that character). I don't know where the series goes after this episode as far as future storylines go, that's how important this upcoming week is. Everything hinges on this one episode. In the preview for next week they showed us Nathan and Peter walking, with Nathan saying "I love you, Pete," and Peter replied "I love you, too", the same words they said to each other in the last episode of season 1 as Nathan flew nuclear Peter away. Based off of that one brief exchange I think that's meant to be probably the last words they say to each other. Much like how in Episode 3 of Star Wars when they showed Obi Wan and Anakin's last words to each other before Anakin officially became a Sith - it was a poignant moment. I don't know, if I'm a writer that to me is a perfect time for a "famous last words" moment, you know, a calm before the storm afterwhich nothing will ever be the same again.
You know the upcoming episode is gonna be big cuz I had one of my rare "oh snap, next week's show is gonna be big!" moments after the preview. Bet the house on it (if it hasn't been foreclosed yet).
That having been said, let's review and compare notes and what's gone on since I last wrote:
Sylar: Let's just get right into it. I'm liking the character, but after his latest Norman Bates impression in the most recent "I Am Sylar" episode, ummm, whatever? What's this all about? The guy goes from wanting to redeem himself/becoming a good guy, reverting back to form, teaming up with Danko (and we all knew that was going to be a temporary partnership), now he's trying to "find himself". Jeez, pick a Sylar and run with it, guys. Sylar and Nathan are two of the most inconsistent characters in this series. Remember last volume when Nathan was all over the place? Same thing goes for Sylar. Every three episodes it's a new thing. Speaking of Nathan, what the hell was he thinking going to face Sylar by himself? The same Sylar who survived an exploding building at the end of the last volume.
Peter: Um, wow, what a fall from grace. The character goes from being the main guy on the show to getting like 10 minutes - if that - of screentime per episode. Wow. Not that I'm complaining, mind you. I think he's had his time in the sun, running around and playing God. Nice to be able to take a step back and say "the second volume of season three was when Peter Petrelli went back to being just one of the characters instead of the focal point of the show". There's nothing really to write about Peter. He's been such a small factor, his most notable (and I'll admit, probably coolest) contribution in the last few episodes was showing up in the elevator to whisk his mother away while agents were poised to apprehend her. This was the volume where characters like Peter and Hiro took a step back and characters like Matt Parkman and Nathan to an extent were allowed to sit at the big boys table. The show is much better for it, Parkman is a much better written character, more consistent and he was allowed to evolve slowly. The episode where Parkman's dad said to him (paraphrasing) "You don't even know what you're capable of, what you'll be able to do with your power. You can do so much more than read minds..." as his turning point. That's the seed and from there he's blossomed into someone exciting to watch and someone who can affect the storyline.
Future Timelines: I don't know, for a while it seems like several of the events in the future timelines were not going to come true. But lately it seems there's a possibility that Sylar will assume Nathan's identity and eventually become President like he did in the future timeline in season 1. Hiro/Ando keep bickering a bit too much for the Hiro vs. Ando future event to have been totally eradicated. Also Nathan probably dies at some point since Sylar has his identity. HRG was some type of underground rebel and with him being apprehended at the end of the latest episode I think his days as a Government Agent/consultant are over. I'm just saying, we've seen *just* enough these past few episodes that we can't completely write off some of the future storylines, and trust me, I was the first to proclaim "all those future storylines are done and probably moot".
Hiro: Ok, I'll admit, I don't know where the show is going with him. I thought he was back, as in back back, but I don't know what his latest problem is (bleeding from the nose, power not working). My early estimate is maybe Baby Matt Parkman's power is temporary, in the sense that after he turns something "on" it won't stay "on indefinitely if he's not around. Baby Matt Parkman and the Human Lie Detector Woman are tied for two of the most "convenient" characters on the show. They were created for a very specific purpose. Like, it's so convenient that Hiro bumps into the one character that can turn his power back on. See how everything fits into the box so neatly? That kind of writing makes you roll your eyes a bit, but I guess it was a necessary evil just to get Hiro his powers back (temporarily?).
Season Finale: If there is someone reading this who does not think this season finale isn't going to be top 2 in this series, let that person state their case. I think a major character is going to die - that's how big I think it's going to be. (And I think that character is going to be Nathan who winds up dying to save someone in the ultimate act of selflessness which would be a rarity for that character). I don't know where the series goes after this episode as far as future storylines go, that's how important this upcoming week is. Everything hinges on this one episode. In the preview for next week they showed us Nathan and Peter walking, with Nathan saying "I love you, Pete," and Peter replied "I love you, too", the same words they said to each other in the last episode of season 1 as Nathan flew nuclear Peter away. Based off of that one brief exchange I think that's meant to be probably the last words they say to each other. Much like how in Episode 3 of Star Wars when they showed Obi Wan and Anakin's last words to each other before Anakin officially became a Sith - it was a poignant moment. I don't know, if I'm a writer that to me is a perfect time for a "famous last words" moment, you know, a calm before the storm afterwhich nothing will ever be the same again.
You know the upcoming episode is gonna be big cuz I had one of my rare "oh snap, next week's show is gonna be big!" moments after the preview. Bet the house on it (if it hasn't been foreclosed yet).
March 25, 2009
WOW...I'm Good At This Stuff
All right, before I get started let me just say - congrats to the writers. This past episode was the best episode in this series since season 1. We're talking top 3 Heroes episode of all time. I rank the Heroes episodes in the following:
#1: 2nd to last episode in season 1. (Where Future Sylar and Future Peter battle in...uh, the future. The first and probably best major hero vs. major villain action in the series.)
#2: The last episode of season 1.
#3: The latest episode of the current season. (I think it's Chapter 7 of the 2nd volume of season 3, if that makes any sense HAHAHA)
And congratulations to Matt Parkman. You're officially one of the coolest characters on the show. Three seasons and a half is a long time, many characters have come and gone but you stuck in the sidelines waiting and now your time in the sun has come. There was a little spark of what was to come this current volume, and your potential was showcased a few episodes ago when Peter and yourself walked in, literally, to a fortified government compound and you held them all hostage for a while. But now it's been hammered home in this latest episode. You are officially the 2nd most powerful character in the show (behind Sylar, of course). Bravo. And since we're throwing out congrats, I'm going to give some to Ali Larter in what was her best performance in this series ever. The coolest episode involving the Tracey/Jessica/Niki character. I wouldn't write her off as being dead just yet, as I'm sure everyone caught the fact that the block of ice where her face was happened to blink. The writers LOVE Ali Larter so I thoroughly believe she's not completely done on the show.
Unlike Daphne. Hey, someone needs to be the sacrificial lamb. Can't go all this time without one or two people dying.
Nothing was left on the table. This one had it ALL. I am thoroughly and completely back on the bus with this show. Season 2 was a hiccup. Hey, not even Babe Ruth hit a homerun every at-bat. It's back. I just had to get that out of the way.
Ok, I know a broken clock is right twice a day, but I hit a grand glam out of the park:
Rebel = Micah
Now, I'm sure as this chapter has gone on Micah being the Rebel became more and more apparent (at least to me), but I called this a while ago. Like, the 2nd episode or so of this chapter. 2+2=4. That's all there was to it. Kudos to the writers for not making a complete random, newly created character the Rebel, as it's been fun to play the "who is the Rebel?" game. As soon as HRG said to Tracey "lead us to the Rebel and you can walk away" I knew Micah was it. I knew it because it seemed so obvious at that point the writers wouldn't make it so easy for Tracey to walk away. She was gonna have to have some type of moral dilemna. And as soon as Tracey got the free money from the ATM I knew it as well (of course Micah was revealed like a minute after that). Free ATM money is an old Micah trick.
I also will credit myself with Hiro and the return of his power. My point in the "The Hiro Conundrum" entry was that he had spent a considerable amount of time being powerless and the writers would have to, sooner rather than later, do something about it. Well, Hiro's back. What I nailed was that when he got his power back there'd be limitations, like how they conveniently limited Peter's ability so that he can only have one power at a time. (And speaking of that, why is it most of all the cool scenes with someone flying has involved Peter? You'd think Nathan, the resident fly-guy, would have all the scenes but Peter has completely OWNED that ability. Just saying). So I called it correctly - Hiro got his ability back but he isn't the master of all time/space like he used to be. So he can't teleport. Fine. No more bouncing around back and forth and ruining the space/time continuum. This is how it should've been from the beginning but that's neither here nor there. Hiro and Ando are now major players again. Who knows exactly what Ando can do to Hiro now that he can supercharge Hiro's ability? I was thisclose to writing them off when they were found in Baby Matt Parkman's closet trying to pose as stuffed animals. I groaned. But they quickly came back from that silliness. Big things ahead for those two I'm thinking in terms of possibilities.
You want another prediction? Fine. Matt Parkman gets back with his wife Janice. Hiro and Ando find Parkman, reunite him with Baby Matt Parkman and then Matt Parkman goes on a mission to rescue Janice and in the process they wind up falling for each other again.
I'm going to give you another predicition. This has been nagging me for a bit so I'm going to announce it cuz I think I've seen enough clues to feel safe in making it public.
The Hunter has an ability.
There. I said it.
I liken this to a guy who acts like such a homophobe just to hide the fact that he is, in fact, a closeted homosexual. You know, the kind that is really into sports and makes public displays of how much they dig the ladies, just to put up a good enough screen to hide the truth. Why exactly is he so anti-powers? Being the uber-government military guy you'd think he'd want to capture and have tests done on these people to try to harness their abilities for super soldiers (like what Nathan originally attempted). Why does he want to basically just kill them? I'm going to give a run-down as to the little tidbits I've come across that made me this he has a power:
1. The aforementioned extreme aversion to people with powers just to serve as smoke and mirrors to avoid detection. Shit, even HRG doesn't have a fondness for people with powers but he knows they have their uses and he doesnt' have a problem using them as pawns to serve his needs. He doesn't go around trying to eliminate them no questions asked.
2. It was revealed that he was part of a failed military mission in which essentially everyone underneath him got killed and he was the only one to walk away. Same thing happened to Bruce Willis in the movie "Unbreakable", where he was the only survivor in a huge train crash and, oh yeah, he had powers in that movie, too.
3. The shock value factor. The only way you can surprise and shock viewers is if you have them looking one way and then pull the rug out from under their feet. The potential for a shocking revelation here is too great and tempting for the writers not to go that route.
4. In the previews they showed a clip of The Hunter talking with Sylar - I suppose they wind up forming an alliance of sorts - saying (paraphrasing here) "I guess the benefit to you is that you wind up being the only one with powers" to which Sylar replied (paraphrasing again) "something like that". It could be The Hunter wants people with powers to die just so he eliminates the competition in the same vein of Sylar. I'm sure the Hunter will attempt to turn on Sylar at the right moment, although that's stating the obvious.
There you have it, one immense episode. Welcome back.
#1: 2nd to last episode in season 1. (Where Future Sylar and Future Peter battle in...uh, the future. The first and probably best major hero vs. major villain action in the series.)
#2: The last episode of season 1.
#3: The latest episode of the current season. (I think it's Chapter 7 of the 2nd volume of season 3, if that makes any sense HAHAHA)
And congratulations to Matt Parkman. You're officially one of the coolest characters on the show. Three seasons and a half is a long time, many characters have come and gone but you stuck in the sidelines waiting and now your time in the sun has come. There was a little spark of what was to come this current volume, and your potential was showcased a few episodes ago when Peter and yourself walked in, literally, to a fortified government compound and you held them all hostage for a while. But now it's been hammered home in this latest episode. You are officially the 2nd most powerful character in the show (behind Sylar, of course). Bravo. And since we're throwing out congrats, I'm going to give some to Ali Larter in what was her best performance in this series ever. The coolest episode involving the Tracey/Jessica/Niki character. I wouldn't write her off as being dead just yet, as I'm sure everyone caught the fact that the block of ice where her face was happened to blink. The writers LOVE Ali Larter so I thoroughly believe she's not completely done on the show.
Unlike Daphne. Hey, someone needs to be the sacrificial lamb. Can't go all this time without one or two people dying.
Nothing was left on the table. This one had it ALL. I am thoroughly and completely back on the bus with this show. Season 2 was a hiccup. Hey, not even Babe Ruth hit a homerun every at-bat. It's back. I just had to get that out of the way.
Ok, I know a broken clock is right twice a day, but I hit a grand glam out of the park:
Rebel = Micah
Now, I'm sure as this chapter has gone on Micah being the Rebel became more and more apparent (at least to me), but I called this a while ago. Like, the 2nd episode or so of this chapter. 2+2=4. That's all there was to it. Kudos to the writers for not making a complete random, newly created character the Rebel, as it's been fun to play the "who is the Rebel?" game. As soon as HRG said to Tracey "lead us to the Rebel and you can walk away" I knew Micah was it. I knew it because it seemed so obvious at that point the writers wouldn't make it so easy for Tracey to walk away. She was gonna have to have some type of moral dilemna. And as soon as Tracey got the free money from the ATM I knew it as well (of course Micah was revealed like a minute after that). Free ATM money is an old Micah trick.
I also will credit myself with Hiro and the return of his power. My point in the "The Hiro Conundrum" entry was that he had spent a considerable amount of time being powerless and the writers would have to, sooner rather than later, do something about it. Well, Hiro's back. What I nailed was that when he got his power back there'd be limitations, like how they conveniently limited Peter's ability so that he can only have one power at a time. (And speaking of that, why is it most of all the cool scenes with someone flying has involved Peter? You'd think Nathan, the resident fly-guy, would have all the scenes but Peter has completely OWNED that ability. Just saying). So I called it correctly - Hiro got his ability back but he isn't the master of all time/space like he used to be. So he can't teleport. Fine. No more bouncing around back and forth and ruining the space/time continuum. This is how it should've been from the beginning but that's neither here nor there. Hiro and Ando are now major players again. Who knows exactly what Ando can do to Hiro now that he can supercharge Hiro's ability? I was thisclose to writing them off when they were found in Baby Matt Parkman's closet trying to pose as stuffed animals. I groaned. But they quickly came back from that silliness. Big things ahead for those two I'm thinking in terms of possibilities.
You want another prediction? Fine. Matt Parkman gets back with his wife Janice. Hiro and Ando find Parkman, reunite him with Baby Matt Parkman and then Matt Parkman goes on a mission to rescue Janice and in the process they wind up falling for each other again.
I'm going to give you another predicition. This has been nagging me for a bit so I'm going to announce it cuz I think I've seen enough clues to feel safe in making it public.
The Hunter has an ability.
There. I said it.
I liken this to a guy who acts like such a homophobe just to hide the fact that he is, in fact, a closeted homosexual. You know, the kind that is really into sports and makes public displays of how much they dig the ladies, just to put up a good enough screen to hide the truth. Why exactly is he so anti-powers? Being the uber-government military guy you'd think he'd want to capture and have tests done on these people to try to harness their abilities for super soldiers (like what Nathan originally attempted). Why does he want to basically just kill them? I'm going to give a run-down as to the little tidbits I've come across that made me this he has a power:
1. The aforementioned extreme aversion to people with powers just to serve as smoke and mirrors to avoid detection. Shit, even HRG doesn't have a fondness for people with powers but he knows they have their uses and he doesnt' have a problem using them as pawns to serve his needs. He doesn't go around trying to eliminate them no questions asked.
2. It was revealed that he was part of a failed military mission in which essentially everyone underneath him got killed and he was the only one to walk away. Same thing happened to Bruce Willis in the movie "Unbreakable", where he was the only survivor in a huge train crash and, oh yeah, he had powers in that movie, too.
3. The shock value factor. The only way you can surprise and shock viewers is if you have them looking one way and then pull the rug out from under their feet. The potential for a shocking revelation here is too great and tempting for the writers not to go that route.
4. In the previews they showed a clip of The Hunter talking with Sylar - I suppose they wind up forming an alliance of sorts - saying (paraphrasing here) "I guess the benefit to you is that you wind up being the only one with powers" to which Sylar replied (paraphrasing again) "something like that". It could be The Hunter wants people with powers to die just so he eliminates the competition in the same vein of Sylar. I'm sure the Hunter will attempt to turn on Sylar at the right moment, although that's stating the obvious.
There you have it, one immense episode. Welcome back.
March 18, 2009
Microwave Boy
This is just a short little blurb, but the more I think about it the more I start to wonder:
Just why exactly was the microwave boy (aka Luke Campbell in the show) in this season as much as he was? He didn't really accomplish much other than leading Sylar on the path to find his dad. That was nothing Sylar couldn't have found out with a little torture. And why have Sylar rescue the kid from the government agents only to abandon him an episode later?
The kid was annoying. I actually have him ranked higher than Suresh and Ali Larter in my "List of characters that annoy me" scale. That's saying a lot. He just didn't do anything to move the story along. Essentially a human navigation system. At first I thought the writers were going with a sort of "Sylar gets a sidekick" arc, which wouldn't have been so bad (not like Sylar needs a sidekick or anything). Kinda like how cool a Hiro/Ando team would've been had both of those characters actually had powers at the same time. Peter/Parkman was too shortlived but probably the most formidable we've seen aside from Sylar/Elle, another tagteam that only lasted like two episodes. I guess the writers understand just how chaotic two people with powers would be.
Also, was it me or did anyone else feel underwhelmed with Sylar's encounter with his Dad? We spend all of this volume watching Sylar hunt for his father and the actual searching for him took up more airtime than their encounter. Wouldn't it have just been insane to have his Dad take Sylar's power, come back a little more powerful and then become a major thorn in Sylar's side for a while? Sylar's Dad - his true nemesis?
I guess if they did that they'd have to call the show Star Wars.
Just why exactly was the microwave boy (aka Luke Campbell in the show) in this season as much as he was? He didn't really accomplish much other than leading Sylar on the path to find his dad. That was nothing Sylar couldn't have found out with a little torture. And why have Sylar rescue the kid from the government agents only to abandon him an episode later?
The kid was annoying. I actually have him ranked higher than Suresh and Ali Larter in my "List of characters that annoy me" scale. That's saying a lot. He just didn't do anything to move the story along. Essentially a human navigation system. At first I thought the writers were going with a sort of "Sylar gets a sidekick" arc, which wouldn't have been so bad (not like Sylar needs a sidekick or anything). Kinda like how cool a Hiro/Ando team would've been had both of those characters actually had powers at the same time. Peter/Parkman was too shortlived but probably the most formidable we've seen aside from Sylar/Elle, another tagteam that only lasted like two episodes. I guess the writers understand just how chaotic two people with powers would be.
Also, was it me or did anyone else feel underwhelmed with Sylar's encounter with his Dad? We spend all of this volume watching Sylar hunt for his father and the actual searching for him took up more airtime than their encounter. Wouldn't it have just been insane to have his Dad take Sylar's power, come back a little more powerful and then become a major thorn in Sylar's side for a while? Sylar's Dad - his true nemesis?
I guess if they did that they'd have to call the show Star Wars.
March 15, 2009
The Hiro Conundrum
You are Hiro Nakamura. You are one of the top 3 or so most powerful characters on the hit show "Heroes". You are the master of all of space and time. You became too powerful on the show. What ingenious idea did the writers of your show have do to solve the problem?
They took away your powers.
Yes, the writers took the easy way out last chapter. Rather than coming up with a clever way to have such a powerful character coexist with people who can do useless things like fly or breathe underwater they simply took his power away rather than deal with the difficult task of coming up with a solution. Now, they didn't originally take away his powers at first. No, rather they tried something silly such as giving him the mind of a 10 year old first. So he was still powerful, he just didn't have the mental facility to use it. But that storyline couldn't have gone on forever - although compared to what the character is now I'd have prefered a Hiro-as-a-10-year-old character who struggled with the immense task of being so powerful than a powerless Japanese guy trying desperately hard to recapture the good times.
But that was such a long time ago. I'm too lazy to check, but I assume it's been probably 8 episodes now that Hiro hasn't been "normal" (as much as a person who can bend time and space to his will can be considered normal).
Evenutally the writers found a solution for Peter, his "one power at a time, losing the previous power" limitation will allow him to be on the show for as long as NBC airs Heroes now that the writers found a clever way to deal with his 100+ powers. In hindsight it was a rather simple solution, simply making it so that Peter can't walk around with so many abilities and limit him to one at a time and make him have to decide if it's worth it to lose his current power in order to replace it with a new power that may be a better fit for the current task. But how to you do the same thing with Hiro? Either he can travel through space/time or he can't. That is unless...
Make it so that he can travel through time, but he's invisible. So instead of going back 2 years ago and changing the future - he can still go back 2 years ago but it's more to witness events for data collecting purposes. Kinda like how Matt went into HRG's head to find out the trail of events that lead up to the government project, Hiro would be doing the same thing except being actually there. He would become strictly an observer. Then he'd go back to the present time and armed with the info from the past he'd be able to affect events in real time as the present day happens. Or when he freezes time, instead of freezing time and, for example, take the gun out of the hand of the enemy who's about to shoot him, he loses the ability to tangibly touch things and he can only escape.
Either that, or they give him a retarded power out of pity. I'd love to see Masi Oka (the name of the actor who plays Hiro) at the writer's table trying to convince them to give him his power back:
Masi Oka: "Ok, guys, don't you think Hiro being powerless has gone on long enough? Whaddya say we get him back to the old Hiro, the one that audiences loved to cheer for?"
Writers: "Yeah, about that...we just can't have Hiro running amok like the old days. We've caught a ton of flak over the years from the critics who like to point out how we've used Hiro as a crutch by having a time traveller who can erase bad storylines."
Masi Oka: "Ok, I understand. It certainly was getting repetitive having my character always bail out you guys when you wrote yourselves into a corner. I can take another power though."
Writers: "Well, we do have one power that currently doesn't have anyone claiming it. But we gotta warn ya, it's not exactly on the same page as being master of time and space."
Masi Oka: "I see...well, whatever it is it's gotta beat having no powers and being shipped off to India for no good reason. What's the power?"
Writers: "How do you feel about being able to breathe underwater...?"
They took away your powers.
Yes, the writers took the easy way out last chapter. Rather than coming up with a clever way to have such a powerful character coexist with people who can do useless things like fly or breathe underwater they simply took his power away rather than deal with the difficult task of coming up with a solution. Now, they didn't originally take away his powers at first. No, rather they tried something silly such as giving him the mind of a 10 year old first. So he was still powerful, he just didn't have the mental facility to use it. But that storyline couldn't have gone on forever - although compared to what the character is now I'd have prefered a Hiro-as-a-10-year-old character who struggled with the immense task of being so powerful than a powerless Japanese guy trying desperately hard to recapture the good times.
But that was such a long time ago. I'm too lazy to check, but I assume it's been probably 8 episodes now that Hiro hasn't been "normal" (as much as a person who can bend time and space to his will can be considered normal).
Evenutally the writers found a solution for Peter, his "one power at a time, losing the previous power" limitation will allow him to be on the show for as long as NBC airs Heroes now that the writers found a clever way to deal with his 100+ powers. In hindsight it was a rather simple solution, simply making it so that Peter can't walk around with so many abilities and limit him to one at a time and make him have to decide if it's worth it to lose his current power in order to replace it with a new power that may be a better fit for the current task. But how to you do the same thing with Hiro? Either he can travel through space/time or he can't. That is unless...
Make it so that he can travel through time, but he's invisible. So instead of going back 2 years ago and changing the future - he can still go back 2 years ago but it's more to witness events for data collecting purposes. Kinda like how Matt went into HRG's head to find out the trail of events that lead up to the government project, Hiro would be doing the same thing except being actually there. He would become strictly an observer. Then he'd go back to the present time and armed with the info from the past he'd be able to affect events in real time as the present day happens. Or when he freezes time, instead of freezing time and, for example, take the gun out of the hand of the enemy who's about to shoot him, he loses the ability to tangibly touch things and he can only escape.
Either that, or they give him a retarded power out of pity. I'd love to see Masi Oka (the name of the actor who plays Hiro) at the writer's table trying to convince them to give him his power back:
Masi Oka: "Ok, guys, don't you think Hiro being powerless has gone on long enough? Whaddya say we get him back to the old Hiro, the one that audiences loved to cheer for?"
Writers: "Yeah, about that...we just can't have Hiro running amok like the old days. We've caught a ton of flak over the years from the critics who like to point out how we've used Hiro as a crutch by having a time traveller who can erase bad storylines."
Masi Oka: "Ok, I understand. It certainly was getting repetitive having my character always bail out you guys when you wrote yourselves into a corner. I can take another power though."
Writers: "Well, we do have one power that currently doesn't have anyone claiming it. But we gotta warn ya, it's not exactly on the same page as being master of time and space."
Masi Oka: "I see...well, whatever it is it's gotta beat having no powers and being shipped off to India for no good reason. What's the power?"
Writers: "How do you feel about being able to breathe underwater...?"
March 8, 2009
And the Rebel is...
This is just a small entry today, but I'm telling you, the more and more I think about it the more it seems Micah is the Rebel. I touched on this before so I don't want to recycle previous thoughts but when you add it all up you come up with Micah. That is, unless the writers didn't specifically create a new character for this one purpose just like they created the Aqua Man character just to give Claire something to do. If the Rebel winds up being a new character that's gonna be a letdown of huge proportions. With that in mind I'll proceed as if the Rebel is in fact someone we already know.
We officially know Angela Petrelli is not the Rebel. That eliminates one of the three possible suspects that I mentioned previously. That was a reach on my part regardless but I was just trying to cover all my bases.
It can only be Micah. The Rebel is only shown communicating via some type of electronic device. Cell phone. PC. Fax machine. That sort of stuff. There has been no phone communication (well duh, if there were we'd have heard the voice). The Rebel has the ability to hack into elite government networks. Now I'm sure any hacker worth his balls could probably hack into a secure network, but I'm thinking a government agency's PC is probably not doable. So it has to be someone that can hack into these things without being traced, someone that can can control a machine and "tell it what to do", as Micah himself loved to always explain as he was using his power. Also, it has to be someone who isn't captured, so we all know Micah isn't captured or we would've seen him by now.
It could always be The Hunter if you're into whacky far-out theories. He could always be using the Rebel persona as a way to control and manipulate the escapees. Kinda like how HRG pretended to be helping Suresh escape only to turn him in. Whacky. Far-out. Not likely. But I guess it doesn't hurt to consider all the possibilities.
I think it's Micah, anyway. I don't know how I feel about that, though. I guess one good thing to come out of that would be they finally got something worthwhile for that character to do. It's the way it should be - someone with Micah's power should be in fact extremely powerful. They'd be untouchable and have the ability to remain off the grid by manipulating security systems. Be extremely rich as long as there was an ATM in the vicinity. He could basically set up a virtual command center and do a vast amount of damage.
And before I go, let me just gripe about something. This whole "Parkman having a weakness while using his power" thing infuriated me. I can't stand these "oh, by the way..." moments. So the writers finally get Parkman up to a cool status on the show, he's finally a force in the series after all this time as a 2nd-tier character and NOW is when the writers feel it's time to divulge some info about his weakness. My, wasn't that convenient.
Government agent: "how are we gonna stop Parkman, he's virtually unstoppable."
HRG: "oh, by the way, I forgot to mention his weakness."
Classic roll-my-eyes moment when that scene took place. C'mon guys, tighten up the screws a little more.
We officially know Angela Petrelli is not the Rebel. That eliminates one of the three possible suspects that I mentioned previously. That was a reach on my part regardless but I was just trying to cover all my bases.
It can only be Micah. The Rebel is only shown communicating via some type of electronic device. Cell phone. PC. Fax machine. That sort of stuff. There has been no phone communication (well duh, if there were we'd have heard the voice). The Rebel has the ability to hack into elite government networks. Now I'm sure any hacker worth his balls could probably hack into a secure network, but I'm thinking a government agency's PC is probably not doable. So it has to be someone that can hack into these things without being traced, someone that can can control a machine and "tell it what to do", as Micah himself loved to always explain as he was using his power. Also, it has to be someone who isn't captured, so we all know Micah isn't captured or we would've seen him by now.
It could always be The Hunter if you're into whacky far-out theories. He could always be using the Rebel persona as a way to control and manipulate the escapees. Kinda like how HRG pretended to be helping Suresh escape only to turn him in. Whacky. Far-out. Not likely. But I guess it doesn't hurt to consider all the possibilities.
I think it's Micah, anyway. I don't know how I feel about that, though. I guess one good thing to come out of that would be they finally got something worthwhile for that character to do. It's the way it should be - someone with Micah's power should be in fact extremely powerful. They'd be untouchable and have the ability to remain off the grid by manipulating security systems. Be extremely rich as long as there was an ATM in the vicinity. He could basically set up a virtual command center and do a vast amount of damage.
And before I go, let me just gripe about something. This whole "Parkman having a weakness while using his power" thing infuriated me. I can't stand these "oh, by the way..." moments. So the writers finally get Parkman up to a cool status on the show, he's finally a force in the series after all this time as a 2nd-tier character and NOW is when the writers feel it's time to divulge some info about his weakness. My, wasn't that convenient.
Government agent: "how are we gonna stop Parkman, he's virtually unstoppable."
HRG: "oh, by the way, I forgot to mention his weakness."
Classic roll-my-eyes moment when that scene took place. C'mon guys, tighten up the screws a little more.
February 25, 2009
Cold Wars
The season is going great, another good episode. Lots of HRG which is always a good thing, and the menacing Hunter guy seems to steal every scene he's in. I say the episode was "good" and not "great" because on the whole not much happened. Here's what I'm seeing:
1. Was it necessary to spend a whole episode backtracking as to how HRG got involved with the government project? Ok, I know it was necessary to reveal that a basically bored HRG wanted action (more than he wanted to protect Claire) and he wanted to head his own group. As he got pushed to the sidelines and saw the actual intent of the government project he decided it wasn't his bag anymore and switched allegiance. Not necessary to take a whole episode for that. And was it just me, but in the end when HRG was walking with the Hunter and he swore 100% loyalty was it not obvious that HRG had already flipped to the other side? When he walked back to Angela Petrelli and revealed he's back on her side were we supposed to be "ohhh snap, I don't believe it!"? There was no drama or tension there, the episode had shown HRG gradually moving away from the goals of the project, by the end there was virtually no surprise. Even when he offered to walk Matt outside the motel after Matt had been captured it was very obvious he did so expecting Peter to swoop in (literally) and take Matt. That was the revealing turn of events, slightly grinning at the sky as Matt was whisked away, that it was obvious HRG had flipped - not his conversation with Angela Petrelli. I don't know, that was somewhat weird - I hope the writers gave us more credit than that.
2. Suresh sure does annoy other people, not just me. I loved the part when Suresh objected to interrogating HRG that Matt screamed at him "if you don't like it...leave!". Quite frankly up until that point Suresh was dead weight anyway. There's no room for having a moral compass when you're being hunted. What exactly was his alternate plan anyway? How could not wanting to get more info be a bad thing? Obviously we found out he didn't want it to be known that he was aware of the government project - but as soon as they all were rounded up in episode 1 wouldn't that have confirmed what HRG told him in the taxi? At that point why wouldn't he tell the others "hey, HRG mentioned this would happen, I didn't believe him but here's what I know"? Some faulty writing there. The writers made it seem like Suresh was clueless as much as the rest, but being abducted should've been the telltale sign that whatever info he obtained was in fact correct and he should share it with other huntees.
3. Why didn't we get more "Rebel"? I'm having a great time trying to determine who that is. I don't know if the writers would introduce a new character (like when they introduced Matt's dad as the person who was haunting Molly's dreams) or if it'll be someone we already know. I like to think there's no drama/surprise when you just create a character out of the blue, that the only proper way to do a "ah ha! so [insert familiar character here] was the Rebel!" moment is in fact with a familiar character. With that in mind, I want to go over some facts we know to arrive to who the possible suspects are: the person communicates electronically; the person knows the characters (Claire, Hiro/Ando); it has to be someone not already getting much (or any) screen time this season. That leads me to believe it's either Micah (ugh) or Angela Petrelli. Micah could've possible communicated via text (to Claire) and fax (to Ando/Hiro). Angela is the only one (not preoccupied with running from The Man) who could determine that Hiro/Ando would be in India before they actually got there, as the fax was there before they arrived. Heck, even the Haitian is still out there somewhere and he's had some history on some level with Claire and Hiro/Ando.
Or it could just be a totally new character which would suck.
4. So Claire's new friend is basically Aqua Man. Yuck, horrible and useless power to have. He's so inept and useless I can't muster enough motivation to write more on this. What a waste of a power (outside of Ando's useless power). Couldn't they have made Ando's power that he can supercharge *anything*? Like if he hopped on a motorcycle he'd make it ridiculously fast. Or if he touched a normal person they'd become super strong. That'd be cool.
Still waiting for the return of the comic book store geeks, hopefully they make another appearance.
1. Was it necessary to spend a whole episode backtracking as to how HRG got involved with the government project? Ok, I know it was necessary to reveal that a basically bored HRG wanted action (more than he wanted to protect Claire) and he wanted to head his own group. As he got pushed to the sidelines and saw the actual intent of the government project he decided it wasn't his bag anymore and switched allegiance. Not necessary to take a whole episode for that. And was it just me, but in the end when HRG was walking with the Hunter and he swore 100% loyalty was it not obvious that HRG had already flipped to the other side? When he walked back to Angela Petrelli and revealed he's back on her side were we supposed to be "ohhh snap, I don't believe it!"? There was no drama or tension there, the episode had shown HRG gradually moving away from the goals of the project, by the end there was virtually no surprise. Even when he offered to walk Matt outside the motel after Matt had been captured it was very obvious he did so expecting Peter to swoop in (literally) and take Matt. That was the revealing turn of events, slightly grinning at the sky as Matt was whisked away, that it was obvious HRG had flipped - not his conversation with Angela Petrelli. I don't know, that was somewhat weird - I hope the writers gave us more credit than that.
2. Suresh sure does annoy other people, not just me. I loved the part when Suresh objected to interrogating HRG that Matt screamed at him "if you don't like it...leave!". Quite frankly up until that point Suresh was dead weight anyway. There's no room for having a moral compass when you're being hunted. What exactly was his alternate plan anyway? How could not wanting to get more info be a bad thing? Obviously we found out he didn't want it to be known that he was aware of the government project - but as soon as they all were rounded up in episode 1 wouldn't that have confirmed what HRG told him in the taxi? At that point why wouldn't he tell the others "hey, HRG mentioned this would happen, I didn't believe him but here's what I know"? Some faulty writing there. The writers made it seem like Suresh was clueless as much as the rest, but being abducted should've been the telltale sign that whatever info he obtained was in fact correct and he should share it with other huntees.
3. Why didn't we get more "Rebel"? I'm having a great time trying to determine who that is. I don't know if the writers would introduce a new character (like when they introduced Matt's dad as the person who was haunting Molly's dreams) or if it'll be someone we already know. I like to think there's no drama/surprise when you just create a character out of the blue, that the only proper way to do a "ah ha! so [insert familiar character here] was the Rebel!" moment is in fact with a familiar character. With that in mind, I want to go over some facts we know to arrive to who the possible suspects are: the person communicates electronically; the person knows the characters (Claire, Hiro/Ando); it has to be someone not already getting much (or any) screen time this season. That leads me to believe it's either Micah (ugh) or Angela Petrelli. Micah could've possible communicated via text (to Claire) and fax (to Ando/Hiro). Angela is the only one (not preoccupied with running from The Man) who could determine that Hiro/Ando would be in India before they actually got there, as the fax was there before they arrived. Heck, even the Haitian is still out there somewhere and he's had some history on some level with Claire and Hiro/Ando.
Or it could just be a totally new character which would suck.
4. So Claire's new friend is basically Aqua Man. Yuck, horrible and useless power to have. He's so inept and useless I can't muster enough motivation to write more on this. What a waste of a power (outside of Ando's useless power). Couldn't they have made Ando's power that he can supercharge *anything*? Like if he hopped on a motorcycle he'd make it ridiculously fast. Or if he touched a normal person they'd become super strong. That'd be cool.
Still waiting for the return of the comic book store geeks, hopefully they make another appearance.
February 23, 2009
Season 3: Volume 2....Mega Changes
Sorry for the hiatus ladies and villains, I was giving the 2nd volume of this season some time to flesh out so I could formulate some opinions. Didn't want to have a knee-jerk reaction based off of one episode. Now that we have 3 episodes so far under our belt let's review/recap what we know so far. It's been, so say the least and not to sound like a fanboy - an awesome season so far. I can't think of many lulls in the storyline, can't think of many wasted arcs or whathaveyou. Everything is all pointing in the same direction. Great writing. Well, let me hold off on the "great" part, this show isn't exactly The Sopranos or anything. Greatly improved is probably more accurate.
Ch-ch-changes: Indeed, David Bowie said it best many years ago. Gone are the "save the cheerleader, save the world" plots. It's nice to see what the show can do when the fate of the world isn't hanging in the balance. I applaud this. It feels fresh. If feels more real (well, as real as you can expect about a show that involves people with super powers). This is exactly what I would expect to happen if the guv'ment ever found out about people with powers. They'd be hunted down, detained and most likely tested on. People would be forced into hiding. There's a very Star Wars Episode IV/Guantanamo Bay aspect to this season (evil empire hunting down people with powers, detaining people who are both real threats and others who are innocent). What this show needed all along was a shakeup on the writing staff. I mentioned no lulls in the storyline - there's been times in the past where you'd scratch your head wondering "how does this character/plot fit in with the overall story?". I'm looking at you Ali Larter, Alejandro, Mya, Micah and Micah's cousin.
Less annoying characters: Minimal Suresh? Check. Brief scenes with Tracey? Check. Tougher Peter? Check. Shit, even Claire is back to acting more like a high school teen than some powerless vigilante hero. We needed this from her all along! She has yet to cause me to massage my temples in order to sooth the frequent headaches her shinanigans would bring. Getting back to Peter - his exchange with Nathan right before Nathan doublecrossed him was a big step for this character. He seemed tougher. When Nathan asked him if flying was Peter's only power, Peter's response was "who are you supposed to be...the cops?" with a perfect "that ain't your muthatrucking business, fool" sneer. Only flaw, which may just be a character flaw, is he's still too trusting, falling for the ole "I'm your family member, give me a hug" embrace of death, but more troubling than that is he shows his hand too much still. Has yet to master the art of "I'll go along with you so that I don't raise any red flags, but deep inside I'm keeping my eye on you just to find out what the caper is". Don't invite Peter to a poker game, that's all I'm saying.
Nathan has been refreshingly consistent. He flip flopped a considerable amount last year. What seems to be odd is the lip he takes from that menacing bald government guy. I'm assuming
the menacing bald government guy is beneath Nathan in terms of authority - Nathan should have him dealt with. Whoever casted that guy deserves an award, btw - how menacing and evil does he look? He could make smalltalk at the office water fountain seem like uncomfortable doom. Looks like he gets pleasure from using scissors to cut the ears off of tiny bunnies. Look into the deep abyss of darkness where his eyes should be, you'll know what I'm talking about. And all in all the writers have kept Suresh out of the way, and Tracey doesn't seem to be getting much meaningful screen time now that she's in shackles. I can't ask for more to be honest.
Tidbits on other characters: It's still kinda lame that the writers can't think of any other way to contain a very powerful person than to render them powerless. Kring, the creator of the show, actually came out and acknowledged a conscious effort to go easy on time travellers running amok in the storyline and altering events whenever they knock over a potted plant. Still, it's been a very long time since Hiro has had powers - don't you think he's suffered enough? Shit, that's longer than Peter went without powers and Peter was a bumbling idiot up until now. Now, it's obvious Hiro's underlying message is we can all be heroes with or without powers. That's great and all, but we kinda got that message previously when Peter was powerless. Sometimes it's almost as if you feel the writers should just kill off anyone they don't think they can handle rather than resort to the old "you have to take a power time-out, now go sit in the corner until we decide a convenient time to give you your power back" routine. I do like their solution for Peter - one power at a time, loses the previous power he had, needs to physically touch the person to get their power. A far cry from the day's when Peter could be in a room with like 5 heroes have instantly get their powers. Yeah, that wasn't gonna be tough to write around. What the hell were the writers thinking?
Sylar is back (unnecessarily and inexplicitly), and remains the lone badass on the show, the way it should be. He seems to be the only one capable of having the responsibility that having many powers come with. He seems disciplined, unlike Peter who would run amok expecting to save the day. I really like this journey to find his father, who else is expecting one demented kook? I'm also expecting his Dad to have some type power as well. I think this is perhaps the 2nd time the show has had Sylar killed off in a cling hanger, only to have him return. Writers: 3rd time is NOT the charm. Let's put that to rest now. It seems the writers assumed that we would assume Sylar didn't die in the explosion in the last episode of the previous volume - they didn't even bother acknowledging him walking away from the wreckage. At least they gave us some credit for not being that gullible that they felt it'd be a waste to explain him surviving. He just appeared in the 1st episode of this volume like nothing happened.
And thank you for getting HRG back into the mix. It was a crime that he was as underutilized as he was last volume. I thoroughly look forward to the upcoming episode to see where his character is going to be going for the rest of the season.
Ok, I'll stop here, this is a blog - not a novel. If I think of more stuff to point out I'll do so in a separate entry.
Ch-ch-changes: Indeed, David Bowie said it best many years ago. Gone are the "save the cheerleader, save the world" plots. It's nice to see what the show can do when the fate of the world isn't hanging in the balance. I applaud this. It feels fresh. If feels more real (well, as real as you can expect about a show that involves people with super powers). This is exactly what I would expect to happen if the guv'ment ever found out about people with powers. They'd be hunted down, detained and most likely tested on. People would be forced into hiding. There's a very Star Wars Episode IV/Guantanamo Bay aspect to this season (evil empire hunting down people with powers, detaining people who are both real threats and others who are innocent). What this show needed all along was a shakeup on the writing staff. I mentioned no lulls in the storyline - there's been times in the past where you'd scratch your head wondering "how does this character/plot fit in with the overall story?". I'm looking at you Ali Larter, Alejandro, Mya, Micah and Micah's cousin.
Less annoying characters: Minimal Suresh? Check. Brief scenes with Tracey? Check. Tougher Peter? Check. Shit, even Claire is back to acting more like a high school teen than some powerless vigilante hero. We needed this from her all along! She has yet to cause me to massage my temples in order to sooth the frequent headaches her shinanigans would bring. Getting back to Peter - his exchange with Nathan right before Nathan doublecrossed him was a big step for this character. He seemed tougher. When Nathan asked him if flying was Peter's only power, Peter's response was "who are you supposed to be...the cops?" with a perfect "that ain't your muthatrucking business, fool" sneer. Only flaw, which may just be a character flaw, is he's still too trusting, falling for the ole "I'm your family member, give me a hug" embrace of death, but more troubling than that is he shows his hand too much still. Has yet to master the art of "I'll go along with you so that I don't raise any red flags, but deep inside I'm keeping my eye on you just to find out what the caper is". Don't invite Peter to a poker game, that's all I'm saying.
Nathan has been refreshingly consistent. He flip flopped a considerable amount last year. What seems to be odd is the lip he takes from that menacing bald government guy. I'm assuming
the menacing bald government guy is beneath Nathan in terms of authority - Nathan should have him dealt with. Whoever casted that guy deserves an award, btw - how menacing and evil does he look? He could make smalltalk at the office water fountain seem like uncomfortable doom. Looks like he gets pleasure from using scissors to cut the ears off of tiny bunnies. Look into the deep abyss of darkness where his eyes should be, you'll know what I'm talking about. And all in all the writers have kept Suresh out of the way, and Tracey doesn't seem to be getting much meaningful screen time now that she's in shackles. I can't ask for more to be honest.Tidbits on other characters: It's still kinda lame that the writers can't think of any other way to contain a very powerful person than to render them powerless. Kring, the creator of the show, actually came out and acknowledged a conscious effort to go easy on time travellers running amok in the storyline and altering events whenever they knock over a potted plant. Still, it's been a very long time since Hiro has had powers - don't you think he's suffered enough? Shit, that's longer than Peter went without powers and Peter was a bumbling idiot up until now. Now, it's obvious Hiro's underlying message is we can all be heroes with or without powers. That's great and all, but we kinda got that message previously when Peter was powerless. Sometimes it's almost as if you feel the writers should just kill off anyone they don't think they can handle rather than resort to the old "you have to take a power time-out, now go sit in the corner until we decide a convenient time to give you your power back" routine. I do like their solution for Peter - one power at a time, loses the previous power he had, needs to physically touch the person to get their power. A far cry from the day's when Peter could be in a room with like 5 heroes have instantly get their powers. Yeah, that wasn't gonna be tough to write around. What the hell were the writers thinking?
Sylar is back (unnecessarily and inexplicitly), and remains the lone badass on the show, the way it should be. He seems to be the only one capable of having the responsibility that having many powers come with. He seems disciplined, unlike Peter who would run amok expecting to save the day. I really like this journey to find his father, who else is expecting one demented kook? I'm also expecting his Dad to have some type power as well. I think this is perhaps the 2nd time the show has had Sylar killed off in a cling hanger, only to have him return. Writers: 3rd time is NOT the charm. Let's put that to rest now. It seems the writers assumed that we would assume Sylar didn't die in the explosion in the last episode of the previous volume - they didn't even bother acknowledging him walking away from the wreckage. At least they gave us some credit for not being that gullible that they felt it'd be a waste to explain him surviving. He just appeared in the 1st episode of this volume like nothing happened.
And thank you for getting HRG back into the mix. It was a crime that he was as underutilized as he was last volume. I thoroughly look forward to the upcoming episode to see where his character is going to be going for the rest of the season.
Ok, I'll stop here, this is a blog - not a novel. If I think of more stuff to point out I'll do so in a separate entry.
January 7, 2009
So lonely
Man, without a weekly installment of this show there really isn't much to talk about, huh?
At this point I would give anything for a whole hour of Milo V. doing his Future Peter scowl, just to have something to comment on.
I wonder - and this is a random thought - if this show were to go off the air which character would be the most compelling to have a spinoff on. I think the writers know Suresh and Tracey only annoy viewers so a full hour based on either of those 2 would flop faster than Rosie O' Donnell's variety show. There's only so much one could take with Claire, I've already mentioned its basically the same thing with her every week, you know, her bark being worse than her bite. The series has pretty much concentrated on Peter and lately moreso Sylar so in a way I don't see a spinoff in their future (spinoffs are normally based on secondary characters). Plus I can foresee those two having movie aspirations and not wanting to be limited to the smallscreen. Heck, Zach Quinto is set to co-star as Spock in the new Star Trek movie (and likely sequels). He's best positioned himself to use Heroes as a launching pad to something bigger.
My guess (I have 2 votes) for who would be a good (and likely) spinoff:
Ando. Secondary character (although now he has a power who knows if he'll spring to the forefront, not likely, but at least he's not sidekick material anymore). Would be nice to see a story arc where he branches out on his own without being in the shadow of Hiro. I like the actor that plays him, also.
You know what'd really work? A spinoff featuring Breckin Meyer and Seth Green. Those 2 characters really worked - who doesn't think a show based on two smarmy comic book store nerds would be awesome? They had brief screentime, but they had great chemistry and really pulled it off. And it's not like Seth Green has any prospects outside of Family Guy voiceovers and Breckin Meyer would say yes as soon as the casting director dialed his line.
Make it happen, Hollywood.
At this point I would give anything for a whole hour of Milo V. doing his Future Peter scowl, just to have something to comment on.
I wonder - and this is a random thought - if this show were to go off the air which character would be the most compelling to have a spinoff on. I think the writers know Suresh and Tracey only annoy viewers so a full hour based on either of those 2 would flop faster than Rosie O' Donnell's variety show. There's only so much one could take with Claire, I've already mentioned its basically the same thing with her every week, you know, her bark being worse than her bite. The series has pretty much concentrated on Peter and lately moreso Sylar so in a way I don't see a spinoff in their future (spinoffs are normally based on secondary characters). Plus I can foresee those two having movie aspirations and not wanting to be limited to the smallscreen. Heck, Zach Quinto is set to co-star as Spock in the new Star Trek movie (and likely sequels). He's best positioned himself to use Heroes as a launching pad to something bigger.
My guess (I have 2 votes) for who would be a good (and likely) spinoff:
Ando. Secondary character (although now he has a power who knows if he'll spring to the forefront, not likely, but at least he's not sidekick material anymore). Would be nice to see a story arc where he branches out on his own without being in the shadow of Hiro. I like the actor that plays him, also.
You know what'd really work? A spinoff featuring Breckin Meyer and Seth Green. Those 2 characters really worked - who doesn't think a show based on two smarmy comic book store nerds would be awesome? They had brief screentime, but they had great chemistry and really pulled it off. And it's not like Seth Green has any prospects outside of Family Guy voiceovers and Breckin Meyer would say yes as soon as the casting director dialed his line.
Make it happen, Hollywood.
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