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.
February 25, 2009
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.
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