Heroes Reborn

[jgsugden]

A revival of Heroes with almost nobody from the original cast returning.  Just HRG. 

I liked HRG.  I like that the only other known cast member (Zach Levi).  I do not like that there is no Sylar (Quinto) or any of the other characters that drove the original show.  I also do not like that I watched the entire dang original series because it was the only Super show on TV and it showed just enough in three or four episodes that I was tricked into thinking there was a chance that I'd see a watchable show every once in a while. 

I expect this to be a trainwreck.  I'm just curious if it will be a trainwreck where you enjoy seeing the collision, or a trainwreck where you just want to look away and pretend it never went down...

[HaemishM]

I'm not sure it could possibly get worse than season 2's Oil Eye Twins or Season 3's Paris in my Mind sequence. But they damn sure want to try!

HRG without Claire there is really stupid.

[jgsugden]

Ha, ha!  You remember storylines after Season 1.  You lose.  I can remember the first season in rough terms, but the only thing I retain from later seasons was the final scene of the last season at the Ferris Wheel...

[HaemishM]

I collect shitty pop culture like trading cards.

[jgsugden]

I collect shitty pop culture like trading cards.

In that case you must have billions of cards labeled 'Seasons 2 -> ? Heroes'.

[Merusk]

Peter. Oh Peter.  Where is your girlfriend, Peter?

[jgsugden]

OK, that I remember.  Talk about dumping a date and forgetting she ever existed...

[Lakov_Sanite]

I knew the show was doomed from the end of season 1.  If they had killed Sylar and moved onto an altered cast with a new story arc it may have been a great show but unfortunately characters became popular and they made the age old mistake of "find new excuses to keep them around" even when their arcs were over.

[shiznitz]

The problem with this genre is that the origin stories are the most interesting and they generally happen early. After that they become exercises in ludicrous power escalation.

[jgsugden]

When I saw an interview right after the end of Season 1 in which the showrunners were asked, "Why didn't Peter just fly off by himself?" and they looked dumbfounded and had clearly never considered the idea... That moment was the second I should have discarded the show.

I'm wondering what the show will be like after we've seen Marvel and DC properties do so well on TV.  Is it too much to hope they might learn some small lessons?

[Threash]

I knew the show was doomed from the end of season 1.  If they had killed Sylar and moved onto an altered cast with a new story arc it may have been a great show but unfortunately characters became popular and they made the age old mistake of "find new excuses to keep them around" even when their arcs were over.

I knew the show was doomed when they introduced a guy that can freeze time/teleport with world wide range/freaking time travel, oh and another one who can copy everyones powers.  Sylar was a wonderful villain, but the show was doomed because of Hiro and Peter.

[Threash]

When I saw an interview right after the end of Season 1 in which the showrunners were asked, "Why didn't Peter just fly off by himself?" and they looked dumbfounded and had clearly never considered the idea... That moment was the second I should have discarded the show.

Not just that, but the original plan of shooting Peter in the face only required one person to die, his brother flying him off was entirely pointless.

[Tannhauser]

I knew the show was doomed from the end of season 1.  If they had killed Sylar and moved onto an altered cast with a new story arc it may have been a great show but unfortunately characters became popular and they made the age old mistake of "find new excuses to keep them around" even when their arcs were over.

Agreed.  They set up a climatic Season 1 ending with a bunch of super powered folks with no combat training against Skylar.  Cool! I really thought he'd kill one or two of them before they got him, but no, it was a shitty non-epic fight.

I watched a few S2 episodes and when Skylar ate the cheerleader's brain I bolted.

[jgsugden]

Man, in retrospect, when I remember being soooooooo excited to finally see a superpowered show on TV... and trying to make excuses for it in the earliest days....

[Threash]

It didn't really need excuses in the earlier days.

[jgsugden]

Go back and watch Season 1.  The first few episodes are ok-ish - and there is one great episode in the middle - but the rest is not good at all.

[HaemishM]

Other than being a little stretched out because of having to do a 22-episode season, Season 1 was mostly positive. There were maybe 3-5 good episodes in seasons 2-4 total.

[Threash]

Yeah, it was shitting on everything good that happened in season 1 that ruined the show.

[jgsugden]

Have you re-watched it recently?  I rewatched it about 3 years ago (just Season 1) and I was shocked how bad it was in general... 

[K9]

I really enjoyed Season One up until the final episode, and I think anything that gave us Zachary Qunito can't be too bad.

To me though, 'Heroes' epitomised the show that was utterly destroyed by the Writer's Strike. Not that I'm blaming the writers, that strike was legit, but I do wonder how much better the story might have been if it hadn't had to be re-engineered on the fly into an abruptly short season two.

[HaemishM]

You mean MERCIFULLY short season 2 of course. 

[Cyrrex]

I always thought the production values for season 1 were just miles superior to everything that followed.  From season 2 and onwards, it was all close-up headshots, overlit studios and typical NBC soap-opera style direction.  It looked completely different, and not in a good way.

[K9]

You mean MERCIFULLY short season 2 of course. 

Well... yes. But

[Xuri]

An Corp!

I knew the show was doomed when they introduced a guy that can freeze time/teleport with world wide range/freaking time travel, oh and another one who can copy everyones powers.  Sylar was a wonderful villain, but the show was doomed because of Hiro and Peter.

Hiro was the only character in the show I really liked. So I'm pleased to hear he's returning for the new miniseries as a guest-star.

[Threash]

I liked the character, the guy was funny and charismatic. His powers were a huge problem though.

[kaid]

Yup given the massive powers hiro and peter had they had to keep being made stupid and horrible to make any challenge for them.

[jgsugden]

Powers and their implications are really hard for a studio to handle.  It is one of the reasons I've been impressed by Flash - a speedster is so powerful, yet they've rarely had complete failures in the 'why is this a challenge for Barry' category.  It is one of the things that has me wondering about the new MCU status quo - Scarlet Witch's powers are very broad and defy limitation... something that potentially makes her too powerful for the universe.  What she did in the movie defied the 'mind control and telekenisis' description that was given to describe her abilities...

[Lakov_Sanite]

It's a powerful version of the power yes and very impressive but her list of powers is actually quite small compared say, the vision.

[jgsugden]

It's a powerful version of the power yes and very impressive but her list of powers is actually quite small compared say, the vision.

[Tannhauser]

Maybe that was her own telekinetic push?  But yeah, I hope they don't go crazy with her as a Swiss Army knife heroine.

[Lakov_Sanite]

I attributed that to the mental whammy that she put on him, especially since they seemed to want to film her like samara in the ring for the first act....which I'm kind of sad they abandoned.

[MediumHigh]

The movie itself gave up on the idea of describing her powers, with Marion Hill just summing her up as weird and the rest of us having to nod and a "sure". Scarlet Witch powers are whatever they have to be for the plot. Because for all intent and purposes what she showed in the movie amounts to her basically being able to rip people in half, the ability to glide in and out of peoples blind spots unnoticed, casual mind rape, telepathy/empathy, and enough telekinesis to stop a train.

[Evildrider]

The movie itself gave up on the idea of describing her powers, with Marion Hill just summing her up as weird and the rest of us having to nod and a "sure". Scarlet Witch powers are whatever they have to be for the plot. Because for all intent and purposes what she showed in the movie amounts to her basically being able to rip people in half, the ability to glide in and out of peoples blind spots unnoticed, casual mind rape, telepathy/empathy, and enough telekinesis to stop a train.

And that was before she got super pissed off.

[Lakov_Sanite]

How do you separate ripping people in half and telekinesis? Look I know it's knitpicky but she literally only did two things, manipulating objects with her mind and screwing with peoples heads.  No of course those two powers have BROAD uses, since that basically describes professor X and Jean Grey combined but it's not exactly "Anything goes"

[Threash]

Powers and their implications are really hard for a studio to handle.  It is one of the reasons I've been impressed by Flash - a speedster is so powerful, yet they've rarely had complete failures in the 'why is this a challenge for Barry' category.  It is one of the things that has me wondering about the new MCU status quo - Scarlet Witch's powers are very broad and defy limitation... something that potentially makes her too powerful for the universe.  What she did in the movie defied the 'mind control and telekenisis' description that was given to describe her abilities...

Wait, what? that's like literally the only real complaint about the show.  That's what makes the reverse Flash part of the plot so good, he is the only villain that Barry shouldn't be able to easily dispatch.  It makes the "robot bee girl" or "regular criminals with fancy guns" episodes just so completely dumb in comparison.