I must admit, I have something of a love/hate relationship with NBC’s Heroes. There’s a lot about it that I like, but there’s a whole lot that drive me crazy. They keep adding too many unnecessary characters. Some of the characters, IMO, are quite annoying. And they’re really starting to repeat themselves. (A visitor from the future has come back to warn them about an Apocalyptic future! Seriously, 3 out of 3 seasons with the same basic plot, which is in of itself ripped off from X-Men’s Days of Future Past.) Even with only three episodes so far, season three has been no different. I’ll find myself riding high on a wave of cool stuff only to get a handful of stupid thrown in my face. Sylar, who honestly stopped being creepy towards the end of the first season anyway, is going to be a good guy now? The reason he stopped being cool in the first place is because he stopped being this mysterious, shadowy figure of pure evil and just turned out to be a goofy metrosexual with giant eyebrows. And now we’re scrubbing away the last of the fun/interesting evil. And what’s the deal with him being Peter and Nathan’s brother. For crying out loud, is there anyone in this freakin’ show who didn’t pop out of vaguely-sinister-but-ultimately-pointless Momma Petrelli? And is the show’s budget being cut or what, ’cause in the first five minutes of episode three, I counted no fewer then four or five stock sound effects. I was just waiting for a Wilhelm.
One of my biggest problems, though, has to do with the show’s build-up and delivery. People praised Heroes over Lost because “Heroes actually gave you answers”. Yeah, maybe they do give a few more answers then Lost, but at least the answers we do get on Lost are somewhat satisfying. “Anticlimactic” seems to be the name of the game on Heroes. Like in the second seasons when people were so afraid of the man “even worse the Syler”. People were shitting their pants at the mere mentioned of this guy. I mean, he was like Voldermort in Harry Potter where people wouldn’t even say his name. Then they finally track him down … and he’s just some sloppy shlub with the same powers as Psychic Village Person Parkman. And we got the exact same thing already in season three with … Level 5!!! First, there’s the guy who turns fear into strength. Now, of all of them, this one is actually pretty cool. Too bad you can already tell that he isn’t really evil, just conflicted. I’ll bet you right now he has a sick wife or child or some such somewhere that he just wants to take care of. Then there’s the flamethrower. He’d be cool if he wasn’t the shows FIFTH flamethrower. (Ted, Meredith, Peter, Sylar, and now this guy.) And then there’s Magneto … er, I mean, the German. He’s called “the German”, so you know he’s going to be a sick, twisted mother fucker! Well, actually, he turned a safe’s knob without touching it … from two inches away. (Okay, at what point are you just showing off.) And then there’s the last guy. You thought the others were bad? Oh yeah, well this guy’s even worse! His powers … oooh, you don’t even want to know. Oh, you do want to know? Well, brace yourself. Are you ready? He … screams. I mean, it’s, like, really loud. People fall down and stuff. Doesn’t seem to do any serious damage, but … you know. It could be pretty … inconvenient. A little. Sort of like Green Arrow’s wife Black Canary but without the bad ass fighting skills to back it up.
Honestly, when I saw the power supposedly too frightening for HRG to even speak aloud to Clare, this is what popped into my head.
Like I said, I want to like Heroes, but sometimes it’s like they’re just mocking us. Hopefully things start to shape up soon.
