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Heroes: Orientation--Jump, Push, Fall

[Okay. I'm not going to do a formal review, but I'll post some thoughts, as a couple of people have suggested.]

A carnival? Really? At least there's Robert Knepper, who looks cooler and sexier than he has in anything else he's done lately. Maybe it's the eye shadow. The constant prophetic art thing is now cloudy tatts. That's a new and interesting interpretation.

Okay, they're doing Peter right now. Him playing Peter Parker with the police scanner and that knife fight in the vault were the highlights of the episode. His darker, sexier, broodier attitude works for him.

My second favorite thing was bodiless Sylar haunting Matt.

I like Claire's new best friend, so I'm sure she must be evil. I don't like that the Bennets are still broken up. How many times has HRG nearly been killed? And why is not-Tracey so interested in him?

Hiro dying? I'm surprised by how much I don't care. I used to love Hiro. I wasn't paying complete attention; did his trip to the past do more than put Kimiko and Ando together?

Please do post your thoughts.

Billie
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Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.

10 comments:

  1. I gave up on Heroes a while back. The Carnival angle could work, but only if they approached it in a Carnivale-esq kind of way (I’ll monitor the show to see if that happens…).

    I’d be ever so grateful if a non-formal review of the Smallville premiere popped up on this site ^.^

    -Mark

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  2. Yes, following Carnivale's good and evil themes will probably mesh well, even more so considering these are new characters. I don't think it'll exactly be the same, but even in this episode we could see there was a bit of...conflict in them. They want redemption too.

    I actually still do feel sad about Hiro. But not as much as I should have. Still, I think the 'bucket list' storyline will be something that's nice to watch, it could bring some heart back to the story. At least Hiro doesn't seem nearly so childish like he was last season.

    The episode doesn't have the bang of Season 3's opener but it's pretty balanced. My fingers are crossed. Thanks for the thoughts!

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  3. Hiro dying?

    Should I now feel guilty that I gave up part way through season 2...

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  4. More negative reviews and bad ratings, when are NBC going to do this mostly talented cast a favour and cancel this zombie?

    It’s an act of extreme mercy at this point. Prolonging the suffering any longer would border on the sadistic.

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  5. Best part of this episode was Weiss. I mean Oceanic 815 Pilot, I mean Parkman. He was brilliant and I can't wait to see what they do with his story line. I hope Syler doesn't take over his body.

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  6. Although I feel dirty for saying this, I quite enjoyed Heroes tonight. The whole Carnival thing did seem kind of crowbarred in there. But with a show this damaged, you have to expect big changes. I'm optimistic about Claire's story... and Nathan's. Hiro's story is currently languishing at ten, on a scale of one to meh.

    In reality, I'm not sure what they could do to make the show good again. I was thinking earlier about, if I were writing the show, what would I do to make it watchable... and to be honest, I couldn't come up with much -- at least nothing that didn't involve killer bees, someone swallowing a lady's flip-flop, rice pudding wrestling and a pig's trotter eating contest.

    I hope they pull something great out of the bag. It's certainly possible. I'm just not sure the format allows for anything we haven't seen before.

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  7. At this point, I think it's not about the writers throwing us things we haven't seen. They tried that with "Villains", jamming in twists here and there just for the sake of it. It was fun at first but it made the story really convoluted. They sacrificed character for action.

    My worry is that Tim Kring and his crew don't learn too well. Season 2 was slow on the pickup, so they made Season 3 action-packed but in doing so butchered the characters and plot. Volume 4 was more streamlined but still there's no heart. I recently watched Season 1 again, here and there, and what got me was how I cared for the characters, how I could relate to them.

    So this season if they're smart enough, they'll use the whole 19 or so episodes to build up a good story like in Season 1, rather than just grant us instant gratification with action, but they'll also have to make us care for the characters. Put some conflict in, put some heart in. That's what they're doing with Matt and Nathan, and Hiro too. With any luck, it'll work. It might not be something new, but if we like it then it doesn't matter. Better for Heroes to just be better at this point if not utterly fantastic. Fingers crossed.

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  8. "Heroes ratings plummet. Do you even care any more?" Article on the Sci-Fi Wire that says everything I've been saying as well as stuff I wish I'd said.

    http://scifiwire.com/2009/09/heroes-ratings-plummet-do.php

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  9. Bernardin's comment puzzled me a little. He wants to see how it all ends? Heroes doesn't really have an ending, does it? With, say, BSG or Lost, each and every season inches towards the final reveal -- yet, with Heroes, I don't really feel like they have an ending in mind. The show could have been cancelled at the end of season one, two or three, and as long as they'd sewn up the outstanding season plot elements, I wouldn't have felt cheated.

    Which, for me, is one of the problems with Heroes. There's no real sense of continuity. They just chuck their characters into various, season long, situations... bring them to a close at the end of the season, and then think of something different to do with them next year.

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  10. Plummeting ratings are a bit disappointing, but as long as it doesn't get Heroes off the air I'm not perturbed. Whatever problems it has, Heroes still manages to have a strong international following, it seems...I'm one of 'em.

    Y'know Paul, you've got a point. I think shows that are created with the end in mind and with each season working slowly towards the end more...focused, you could say. Whereas in Heroes they think up a different concept, different aspect each volume. Sooner or later they'll run out of ideas. Maybe they should have taken all those ideas (taking away powers, giving away powers, killer virus, rounding up powered ppl) into one longer overarching storyline. Like what season 1 did, only over a few seasons instead.

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