Heroes

[Samprimary]

lol.

Episode was weak. They've gone from telling a story to perpetuating actor(ress) contracts. It always sucks when it happens but at least it's obvious a mile away. They realized their base wasn't big enough, or wasn't growing enough or some shit, so focus group'd their way into simpler storyline, transparent twists and change for the sake of change just to occasionally interest those otherwise chatting with their kids/spouse/friends or folding laundry or some crap. They just need to move this to around 3pm, or whatever slot doesn't compete with Oprah.

I'll catch this thread weekly and maybe watch the episode if anyone notes anything is worth tuning in for.

I think this show's writing sucks but yet at the same time I hold some hope that it could be repaired from current train wreck status before it is cancelled.

How to heal Heroes

Maureen Ryan: That's It, I'm Done

Both offer good ways to re-rail this show's current plot by comic book committee gone wrong.

[Nevermore]

I don't think Heroes is necessarily the best light entertainment, but it ranks up there.  It's certainly good enough to keep a comfortable position on the Tivo.  I'm at a loss as to what could have better writing on television than Mad Men, though.  Please to share, I'd like to give whatever it is a watch.

I love Mad Men, but for writing I prefer Boston Legal or Californication or even Pushing Daisies (mostly because of the narrator, ok, because of the narrator).

I'll give Pushing Daisies a try.  Never really considered it before since the premise didn't grab me.  I only have basic cable so Californication is out.  I'd have been watching that and True Blood if I could.  As for Boston Legal, I watched it the first couple of seasons and didn't like it much.  I'm not really a big fan of David E. Kelly.

[Signe]

I always enjoy David E. Kelley stuff in the beginning.  As his series' ages, however, I find the plots, dialog, just about everything becomes tediously silly and I end up not watching.  Boston Legal has been at this point for sometime now.  Boston Public, Ally McBeal, LA Law, etc.   Every one of them ended this way for me.  The only one that didn't get there was Picket Fences and, I assume, that's because it didn't have the chance.  I don't know if he wanders off at some point and gives over the ideas to others and doesn't bother paying close attention or over-seeing scripts, or maybe I just get tired of the style. 

[voodoolily]

I don't remember him ever doing the "touch someone, stop time" trick before.  Remember when he was trying to convince Charlie that he could really stop time, and he had to do all these little tricks to convince her?  If he could have just stopped time with her, no problem.  I seem to remember him having similar problems with Ando at some point.

The only two people I can remember him ever being able to talk to with time stopped are Daphne and Peter, both of whom have their own abilities that allow them to manipulate time.

Hiro can teleport people to different times/places by touching them, though.

[Samwise]

Yeah, he can definitely teleport other people, but he's never done the stopping time bit with someone else.  And I don't think his time-travelling abilities are sufficiently finely tuned to the point where he could bring Ando to another place and time, do a bunch of stuff, and then bring him back to the exact same instant.  I'm still going with a tranq dart in the butt.  (For dramatic reasons it's probably going to be something that doesn't kill Ando but further drives a wedge between them; a plan that Ando's not consulted on and is possibly dangerous/painful to him would qualify.)

[HaemishM]

Weaksauce episode. Parts of it are good, but the Mohinder arc is just killing me. It's so goddamn dumb. Why is he kidnapping people and wrapping them in phlegm? Is he becoming an ACTUAL Spider-Man? For all his talk of helping people through 2 seasons, he gets a shot in the arm and becomes Jack the fucking Ripper? Does not compute.

The Hiro stuff has been real uneven too. I thought Hiro had gotten his stupid out by going to the past and getting his father's instruction. But he's still just as stupid/naive as he was first season? What was endearing then is annoying now because we've seen him act better than this. Does not compute.

Vortex man was cool. Too bad he can't stay. Making Sylar a hero? I'm just not sold on it yet.

[voodoolily]

Weaksauce episode. Parts of it are good, but the Mohinder arc is just killing me. It's so goddamn dumb. Why is he kidnapping people and wrapping them in phlegm? Is he becoming an ACTUAL Spider-Man? For all his talk of helping people through 2 seasons, he gets a shot in the arm and becomes Jack the fucking Ripper? Does not compute.

I thought they were going for The Fly, but yeah, that arc gets the Official WTF Award.

[Nevermore]

The whole Mohinder transformation thing is turning out to be a dud (why doesn't Maya feel all that crap on his back when she hugs him, anyway?) but the one thing I like that's linked to him is he really fucks with all that precognition it seems like half the cast has.  Everyone with all these visions of the future, dreams of the future, painting the future and outright traveling to the future, they all think that the magic two-part formula is what causes the dystopia.  And there's Mohinder coming up with a formula all on his own.  It just amuses me that they could all be wrong about the cause just because they can see the effect.

[Sauced]

The Mohinder arc got off on the wrong foot, simply due to having him shoot up... on a random pier?  I thought he was supposed to be smart.  Lazy writers ignoring character in favor of "plot", a quick road to mediocrity and beyond.

[Evildrider]

I think the whole point with Mohinder is that he was tired of being abused by people like Sylar and thought this was his key to making him an equal.  Of course the consequences were epic fail.

[HaemishM]

I get that. Only Mohinder has never struck me as a COMPLETE dumbass, which is what he'd have to be to just inject himself with SuperSauce.

[Samwise]

It just amuses me that they could all be wrong about the cause just because they can see the effect.

Much like in the first season with the nuclear explosion.  First it was a bomb, then it was Ted, then it was Sylar, then it was Peter.    

As such, I'll be a little disappointed if the Mohinder formula doesn't itself turn out to be a misdirection.

[Lakov_Sanite]

 

so...adam...sucks to be you?

[Bunk]

One of the complaints I've heard about the show recently "I hate it that characters die, but you know they aren't really dead."

Yea, don't think that applies in Adam's case here.

My biggest current complaint about this show? Near the end of the hour, the commercial breaks are longer than the bits of show between them.

[Nevermore]

That's what Tivo is for!

So at first I thought maybe Petrelli Sr. just sort of consumed Adam's lifeforce or something, but him stealing Peter's powers at the end it looks like he stole Adam's powers too.  Must run in the family.  At least the plot is still moving along fairly well.  Better than Season 2, that's for sure.  The only big problem I've had with this season so far is the characterizations of Peter, Sylar and Suresh.  At least now hopefully we won't have to deal with EVIL PETER anymore.  As annoying as Emo Peter could be, Evil Rebel Without a Clue Peter was worse.  Still liking African Precog and Flashette the most out of the characters this season.

[Slyfeind]

The moment Suresh shot himself up full of chemicals on the dock, I thought it made perfect sense. This show has always been about putting the characters in situations such that they can either become a hero or a villain. Suresh strikes me as the kind of person who talks big about saving the world, but if given power, really doesn't know how to handle it.

[Nerf]

I'm fucking pissed they brought Adam back just to kill him off in the next episode, he was one of my favorite characters.

Also, fucking time paradoxes.  If Peter doesn't have any powers, then he could have never traveled back in time to tell him fucked things get, which means he never traveled forward and took Sylar's power, which...oh fuck it.

More Hiro comedy time travel please, less  time travel.

[Ookii]

If Sylar and Peter are going to keep fighting I want one Epic battle between both of them before they start to get along.

Oh and two 'The Wire' characters on Heroes FTW.

[Samwise]

Also, fucking time paradoxes.  If Peter doesn't have any powers, then he could have never traveled back in time to tell him fucked things get, which means he never traveled forward and took Sylar's power, which...oh fuck it.

Do you really think Peter's not going to get his powers back somehow before the season is over (and WELL before he would ever go back as Future Peter)?

...really?

[Mazakiel]

Overall, I liked this episode.  The "Ando's not dead" was okay, and expected, but the stuff that happened after that was classic.  "What could one minute hurt?"  Also, I like Papa Petrelli's version of the gain powers ability. 

[Nerf]

Also, fucking time paradoxes.  If Peter doesn't have any powers, then he could have never traveled back in time to tell him fucked things get, which means he never traveled forward and took Sylar's power, which...oh fuck it.

Do you really think Peter's not going to get his powers back somehow before the season is over (and WELL before he would ever go back as Future Peter)?

...really?

I don't think they thought any of the time travel shit through.  I'm sure at one point someone tried to storyboard it with pictures and string connecting them, but eventually strangled himself with the string in some futile attempt to make the story coherent.

I mean hell, future Peter was killed by Claire, with past Peter standing RIGHT FUCKING THERE, so you think that when past peter goes back to the present, when he becomes future Peter he'd be all like "o hai, this is where I get shot in the face! *duck*"  Of course, if he ducked, then unless he told past peter that he needed to remember to duck at that exact moment he would die but then he......

[Venkman]

That's an example of why I'm wondering about the multiple timeline thing. If this was a valid sci-fi show that's where it'd net out. Some sort of huge lesson about not being able to affect the future because all you're really doing is affect one possible future. Once you get into multiverse infinite time stream stuff, it all actually makes sense.

But this is a mainstream show, so it'll all probably be Suresh's Dad's dream or some such.

While I swore off the show last week, I caved and watched last nights'. I actually enjoyed it a lot. Pacing is spot on. They'd have drawn out everything last season, particular Tracy and Nathan being locked up by Suresh. Instead it all worked well. And literal laugh-out-loud at the Hiro/Painter stuff. Very glad that's back.

Plot stuff:

- Peter losing his powers: I wonder how much of his power to absorb other's powers is a power unto itself. If it's innate, he'll just get them right back. If not, he's gonna need to visit the good doctor. Perhaps instead of Suresh, Pa Patrelli dangles Peter's powers in front of him to get Peter to do his bidding.

- Claire/Puppetmaster stuff: this was the one part I thought moved a bit too slow. I feel like the Claire stuff in the last three episodes was all too slow (though for the first episode "Claire, that's disgusting" was totally worth it).

- Sylar: Him trying to be a good guy is actually believable now. It happened too fast in the beginning but water under the bridge. That fight should have been more epic though.

- Peter: not reading his father's mind: dumb. Stupid dumb kid with too many powers he doesn't know dickall about.

[MrHat]

I got secretly hopeful that since they killed my favorite actor, they'd 'surprise' us and kill peter the fuck off too.

[Slyfeind]

- Peter: not reading his father's mind: dumb. Stupid dumb kid with too many powers he doesn't know dickall about.

Evil will always triumph over good, because good is dumb.

[Jeff Kelly]

I defended the show quite a bit over the last few weeks but last episode lost it for me.

The Hiro story was absolutely hilarious they should do more like that. Killing Adam was stupid, they should rather kill stupid Emo Peter. Also does everybody with powers have to be related to everybody else? Those Petrellis sure breed like rabbits.

Peter's Father stealing his powers is all kinds of WTF. The whole power thing is seriously fucked up. If it's genetic then you shouldn't be able to steal/remove them. If it's magic you shouldn't be able to give someone powers by changing his genes. Also they should just seriously have thought about what powers actually work and what don't.

Hiro's time travelling works because although he can travel to the future and the past it doesn't do him much good. Every time he travels to the past he figures out that he is not actually able to change anything because his travelling to the past already was part of the timeline. Adam already existed in his timeline he HAD to travel to the past to make the present right. Travelling to the future just helps him see WHAT happens but never HOW it came to be.

Well New York blows up, but is it Sylar, Peter or something else that does it?

Also Hiro has a believable code of honor which means you can sell some of his decisions as using his power responsibly.

Peter's power (and Sylar's for that matter) are just too powerful and both persons therefore always have to act stupid or selfish in order for the writer's to not write themselves into a corner.

They seriously need an experienced table top roleplaying group to playtest their abilities. In my group we would use the powers so creatively that Season 3 would already be over by now.

If they did that then they wouldn't have to let people act like complete and utter morons just so that a rogue power doesn't kill their precious plot.

Also the cast is getting out of hand. They don't know what to do with half of them but somehow have the urge to feature them in every episode. A big cast isn't necessarily bad they just have to present them better.  Focus on one or two plots at once and switch them between episodes. So one episode could feature Hiro and Ando as plot one and Claire, HRG and family as plot two and the next episode you have the Petrellis and Parkman/Daphne. Everything else is just filler at the moment.

I feel the writers don't even know what to do with Nikki/Tracey/Jessica, Nathan and Mohinder or any of the supporting cast.

[Venkman]

Yea, they sure dropped that Nathan-as-Disciple-budding-rightwing-Senator thing right quick didn't they.  However, I wonder if that's more to do with contemporary politics than anything else. How long ago were these episodes recorded?

I agree the cast is getting unweildy. In addition to bringing in tabletop gamers they should consult with a soap opera writer. You've got whole plotlines that skip entire weeks. That can work. Heroes is the traditional drama/soap that retains viewers so well, but they need to get better at being that so they can shed folks who are looking for something more substantive.

[Triforcer]

Peter's innate power was dumb to begin with.  The show would've been a lot better if they were all at X-Men power levels and they cut out any non-Hiro-centered time travel.  But they made one guy Superman, and now they don't know what to do with him.

[Venkman]

Actually sounds very similar to the actual Superman problem   

Like all of the other superheroes, Peter needs a foil or achille's heel. I still like the idea of his powers being forgettable. Unlike Sylar who groks a power and retains forever, Peter should have been able to borrow anyone's ability but for it to fade over some time. The first season worked well for him because he was figuring stuff out for most of it like everyone else was. But now he's a god in a see of one trick ponies. They've been screwing it up by first making him unable to handle things (the future stuff from last season, the Sylar thing from this, then trying to make it interesting with Pa taking it all), but ultimately they'll likely just hamfist aforementioned achille's heal and it'll be dumb. Unless it's my idea, then it's not dumb 

Also, can anyone tell me if Pa Patrelli was ever in the show before? I tried looking but got lazy. It's just I was sorta surprised by the setup for his emergence this season, from basically nowhere. And if he was in the beginning, what took him so long to get to anyone who could take him off the bed? It would be cool if it turned out he was behind Sylar trying to get Claire's power in season 1 so that he could then absorb Sylar. But I really don't give the writers that much credit.

[Mazakiel]

He was supposed to have been dead, from suicide.  Mama Petrelli/The Company probably tried to kill him somehow.  In the first season, when Linderman was trying to convince Nathan to help him in his plot, he talked of the group of heroes he had been part of, and how they'd saved the world, but that the group fell apart when some lost their way and became greedy or some such.  That could have been somewhat truthful.  Linderman also said Papa Petrelli was 'weak'. 

[HaemishM]

Monday night's episode was a significant upgrade from the previous week's. I'm still not sold on the Mohinder arc, but at least they are going somewhere with it. The Hiro/Precog interaction was fantastic. More of that, please. This was the first episode where I genuinely believed Sylar's attempt at a transformation, and wanted more of that as well. Yes, we definitely need a longer Peter/Sylar fight. Hell, we need more big fuckers flying against each other type of fight than we get. Shame that Adam had to bite it. It looks to me as if Peter and Sylar got the same power from Papa, only with different emotional facets. Sylar's works off of aggression, off of seeing something and understanding how it works. Peter's used an emotional trigger without any need but proximity, and Papa feeds off contact. I'm thinking that Papa's power are only temporary, but removing Adam's ability to heal himself meant he aged to what his body should have been. Either that or Peter will have to start collecting powers again.

[MrHat]

Either that or Peter will have to start collecting powers again.

The obvious logic hole is that that room is filled with all the powers and all he has to do is get emotional.

[Nevermore]

The biggest problem I have with the redemption of Sylar isn't so much the idea that he can be redeemed, it's that he's shown absolutely no remorse over what he's done in the past.  Not that I want emo-Sylar.  But if we're to believe that he really wants to become a better person, he needs to at least recognize the evil he's done in the past.  

Part of the problem could be that it doesn't seem like Zach Quinto has much of an acting range.  He makes a good sociopath because he's got the whole 'I don't give a fuck about you' attitude down pat.  Unfortunately, whenever he tries to convince someone he's trying to be good and/or trying to control himself, he still gives off that 'I don't really give a fuck about you' vibe.  It just doesn't seem sincere to me.

[Lakov_Sanite]

To give the writers some credit(ha!) I like to think of Sylar as an alcoholic who knows he's done bad things, who wants to change but who is still blaming the bottle for all his troubles. It was the booze talking, the hunger doing those things, not him. If that's the case he's really not reformed at all, he hasn't hit any sort of rock bottom and a relapse comes easily. I would like to think the writers have put this much thought into it but I'm still hanging onto my hopes for this show.

[Samwise]

To give the writers some credit(ha!) I like to think of Sylar as an alcoholic who knows he's done bad things, who wants to change but who is still blaming the bottle for all his troubles. It was the booze talking, the hunger doing those things, not him. If that's the case he's really not reformed at all, he hasn't hit any sort of rock bottom and a relapse comes easily. I would like to think the writers have put this much thought into it but I'm still hanging onto my hopes for this show.

That's pretty much how I read it as well.  All his talk about "the hunger" is just his way of dissociating himself from all the bad shit he's done.

[Jain Zar]

This week was pretty good.  Parkman came off as a bit of a doofus with Daphne, but he is such a  its all part of why I like the dude.

Most of the cast still does stupid things though.  They really do need to have things run as an RPG campaign.  Peter and Sylar's PCs woulda taken over the world by now, or at least taken each other out of action permanently.