Let It Begin
I didn’t jump on the Heroes bandwagon at first; I think it took till the third or fourth episode for me to add it to my schedule (which is odd, since I’m a sci-fi nut; the same thing happened with BSG). But once I started watching, I was hooked. The first season started strong; what I enjoyed most was how each of the Heroe’s powers were some kind of manifestation of their inner selves: Nikki was a mother torn between her son and her life as a stripper; Nathan was the son of a prominent family with great expectations for him; Peter was a nurse who was able to understand and sympathize with those that he got to know. And Sylar! I recall how everyone thought that Sylar ate the brains of his victims, absorbing their powers through what, digestion? From the first moment I saw Sylar in Season One take apart the watch, and then take apart his first victims’ brain, I knew his power was that of examination, of being able to dissect and understand something at its most fundamental level. I can’t begin to tell you the amount of gratification I had, finally, in Season 3, when in response to Claire’s question of whether or not Sylar was going to eat her brains, he replied, “That’s disgusting!”
The end of Season One, however, was where things started to fall apart. The finale was less than spectacular, and the whole wrap-up of the time-traveling stuff just didn’t fit (time-travel rant: don’t use time-travel as anything other than the central part of your story; once you mess with time, anything is possible, and unless you’re making fun of time-travel, as in Bill and Ted’s, you lose all credibility once you introduce it). But I was willing to overlook it and check out Season 2.
A Turn For The Worse
Season 2 was a disaster. It made no sense. The characters had no motivations, It was boring. It made no sense. Did I mention that the story made no sense and that it was boring? There was no focus on the character’s inner turmoil, they were just people with cool powers running around and doing stuff. I don’t know if it was the strike or just sophomore jitters, but I hated myself for watching the whole of Season 2.
One Last Chance
Which brings us to Season 3. There was a lot of noise from Tim Kring and the producers that they were sorry for Season 2, had learned from their mistakes, and were ready to move on. I bought it, and tuned in for the premiere, which proceeded to put me to sleep before the end of the first hour (I’m not joking…I actually fell asleep). It was the same old, same old, so reminiscent of everything I hated about Season 2.
I might as well say it: I don’t like the comic-book/soap opera-esque style of Heroes. I think it hurts them. The apotheosis of Heroes, for me, was Season One, Episode 17, “A Company Man.” This one episode focused on the relationship of Claire and her step father, the awesome Noah Bennett, or HRG for short. It was one hour (or 42 minutes, whatever) of continuous narrative and character development, with suspense and intrigue thrown in for good measure. There never was, and perhaps never will be, another episode like it, and I fear I will forever be chasing the dragon that is that episode.
As long as Season 3 sticks with the jumping around style, the time-traveling (yet again…the Heroes are trying to stop something that happened in the future from happening…), with the same characters (didn’t half of these people die, sometimes multiple times, in previous seasons? No stakes equals nothing interesting), I don’t think there is much hope for the series. They need to go back to character-driven stories with episodes that focus on a single narrative.
I will say, the second episode (episode 3, since the premiere was technically episodes 1 and 2) was a bit more interesting, but this week’s was another let down (you know that the explosion in Costa Verde is not really going to happen, right? You know that Peter is going to go back in time and make it so it never happens, and Sylar will still be evil, and Ando won’t kill Hiro…). I’m on the fence whether or not I’m going to watch next week.
Final Showdown
As for watching Heroes online, despite my issues with the show itself, it gets stellar marks:
Grade: A+
Heroes is available online at NBC.com and Hulu.com. I am subscribed to Heroes on Odeo via Hulu. The show is also downloadable using the NBC Direct Beta, which I have been unable to get to work on my notebook. It’s also available for purchase/download on Amazon Video On Demand, iTunes and Zune Marketplace for around $2.00 (I still can’t figure out why I’d buy something from Amazon, if I can watch for free on Hulu, and the most modern compatible mobile device is the Creative Zen, but hey, that’s me).
In addition to watching the show, NBC has done an excellent job in providing supplemental material for the obsessive fan. Not all shows have the budget to do something like this, and not all should, but this type of extension of the show’s brand is a perfect illustration of how the web enhances the content and creates a fuller experience for the audience.
Here’s hoping that Heroes can turn things around; the show has the makings of a great, classic show, it’s just lacking in execution.
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