Since I am one of you, the normal viewing public, I don’t get to see the screeners and tell you what to expect for the first few episodes of the season. I watch it along you brothers and sisters, and after a month of episodes its time to tell you folks what’s going down with this season’s sci-fi, and sci-fi related shows.
We start with the goliath of shows, the world wide sensation that blah, blah, blah, its Heroes, most of you people know what I’m talking about. So from what we were told before the season started we were expecting a new story with new heroes, something totally different from what we saw last season and….. I’m still waiting. It looks like what the creators were trying to do and what the network was pushing came together and ended up with mixed results.
The first episode was ok as the star of the story, there were some ok things but there were some wrong turns that obviously happened because this story began “Four months later…” This meant that there would be no explanation for certain events, things were like this and we have to move this point on. One of those “Stuff is just like this” events was what happened with Parkman. In fourth months he had completely healed from four bullet shots to his chest and he was already finishing his detective test, are we sure that he doesn’t have the ability to heal fast too? On top of all that the dude had the time to divorce his chick leaving her with a super baby? Which ended up not being his according to later episodes. He also somehow got custody of Molly and got her into a school. This guy was very busy in those four months eh?
Other things introduced of importance were “The wonder twins.” Which I called by the second episode that they would end up being a repeat of the Nikki/Jess mess from season one. You know the Nikki passing out then having Jess do some evil crap and when Nik came back she would cry about it? This happened almost exactly the same for the first six episodes or so. For this season we got Maya and Alejandro crossing a border to a new country then getting separated and finally Maya bugging out and having her powers activated. This dance seemed to have stopped after four episodes when they finally came in contact some one else with a storyline.
A final point was that we learned which of the superpowers (Pete, Sylar) from the show got the reset. A reset of one of those two HAD to happen for the second season because you cannot have those two titans not go at it if they both were left at full strength. One would eventually do something to draw the other, so one had to have his powers taken away, or curtailed to some degree to keep them separated for a while. In the first episode we learn that this was Peter by having a touch of amnesia which affected the little training he got from season one.
On the second episode we got Maya and Alejandro do their version of the Nikki/Jess dance, Peter (re)learn that he is special, that he has super abilities and he doesn’t know why or how. Claire trying to fit in a world that she no longer belongs to because she is different from everyone and she cant say anything about it. Now is it just me or did that just sound like … the beginning of season one? Yes I know I didn’t talk about the other half of the episode but this half DOES sound a LOT like the storylines from season one. Wait, actually having a mysterious person killing super powered folks is also similar to a certain storyline from the last season. This little repeating problem continues to develop bit by bit as the show goes on, and for me its taking a LOT away from what Heroes can actually be.
On the third episode we got the Maya/Alejandro with the Nikki/Jess Dance, Peter trying to figure out his powers, again, but this time he isn’t jumping off things, and Claire being annoyed by having to hide herself from everyone. More repeating, more digging themselves into the hole and in fact a fatal mistake was made in this episode. We learn that the other superpower of the show was also reset. Sylar has to start bashing brains again to get more powers because he apparently can’t use the ones he had before. The titans were both castrated and they both have to, AGAIN, go on a path to (re)gain their powers. They are both taking the same trip they took last season. This was a HUGE mistake and it just adds to the other stories that are repeating what we saw THE LAST SEASON.
Another thing that is bothering me in season 2 is that we get previews that end up being way better than the episode itself. We get hype up to something that ends up having nothing to do with the episode, what was in that mysterious box!??!?! Naaah, I’m not going to open it. And when they do, “ Oh is just a passport, a plane ticket and 17 bucks.” Some one is killing heroes, who is next blah, blah, blah, and we get Parkman ask Mama Petrelli a few questions that she doesn’t answer. We still don’t know if saving the cheerleader saved the world but at least that hyping lasted for half of the season and could be stretched for that long because of the mad chase everyone was part of to get to her. And because of the future ramifications and so on.
For the episode that just aired…. I don’t know man, that Hiro storyline is not entertaining me at all. There is no draw to it and by having that semi-flashback episode retelling what we saw the first two episodes in episode three didn’t help this at all. I think the problem with it was what I said earlier, that what the creators wanted for the series and what the network execs ended up demanding later clashed and his story, which I think was supposed to be a main one, and it ended up being a third or fourth story down the line.
I didn’t really need to see the “How I figure out how to use my powers.” Storyline from Micah’s hot cousin, at least not having it be longer than 2 or 3 minutes. The stormtroppers finally roasted Uncle Owen so this would probably, and finally, send Pete Skywalker in an adventure across the galaxy and away that backwater pub. Bennet seemed to be having all the fun this episode but we didn’t see any of that. Parkman and Nathan were playing grab ass for a bid which lead to us learning that Parkman probably has some extra abilities that he might develop later on.
After 5 episode these are the problems I see with the show.
1. Too many storylines repeating from the last season
2. I should’ve said this first but, WHERE is the story?
Tim Kring did an interview with G4tv saying that the “volumes” were going to be shorter this season, that the second volume was going to consist of only 11 episodes instead of drawing it all the way to the end of the season. So if we got 6 episodes left till the end of volume 2… where is the story? The only thing we have close to an overall story is the dude/dudette killing a specific group of powered people.
Everything else we get outside of this is seeing the everyday life of these “Heroes” running around and stuff. Is kinda like coming in on a Monday to work and hearing stories from a couple of people telling you what they did during the weekend. One person might have something really interesting happen but most have nothing that I want to hear.
3. Get to the story ALREADY!
So for this season so far Heroes gets a,
In the sigh-o-meter.
5 episodes in and there has been almost no build up to anything.
The only reason it didn’t get a two is that it’s Heroes and something might still happen that might be good. It really should’ve gotten a two.
