HEROES THE TV SHOW

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HEROES content:

It's actually the existence of excellent serial genre tv like "Sopranos" "Deadwood" "BG" and of course "The Wire" that's about the only thing that gives me hope "Heroes" won't stink on ice. The rules are still enough different for network and cable shows that it may not be able to break the strictures of a such a commercial medium, but hell - the Diniverse didn't transcend nothing, and it got to be pretty great by focussing on fundamentals. Heroes looks more like it's trying to be a "fresh new" take on superheroes for people that never actually read comics and don't realize that the concepts they're selling are getting to be an alternate set of cliches away from the underwear-on-the-outside set of cliches, though.

I kind of liked it, and the interview with the writers yesterday (today?) on CBR gives me a lot of hope, they're going to "learn from the X-Files" and not put too much mythology behind it, y'know, that some bits of the plot just are the way they are and you have to accept it.

You all know Sale and Loeb are behind the scenes on this one, right?

can't go wrong with the wire which rules but i'd say go for battlestar (maybe just because this is ilc). get the miniseries + first season box, it'll blow your dome.

ps you in TO this wknd? i'm back

AW HELL YEAH

Japanese dude = awesome.
Heroin dude = not awesome.
Cheerleader girl = I am intrigued to know why she is so into hurting herself (if there's a good reason and not just TEENAGE MASOCHISM IS HOTTTT)
Camgirl = BEST POWER.
Indian guy = REALLY HOT.
Guy who thought he could fly but probably just has psychic link to brother so his "I think I can fly" was actually "my brother can fly" = to quote my roommate, "That's a pretty shitty power. Especially going from 'maybe I can fly' to 'oh my brother is hungry'."

Studio 60 is about a million times better.

(show 2 was meh-plus, compared to show-one's meh).

This episode was light-years better than the first two. DAMMIT. </jackbauer>

I dunno, though. I still think we could do with about half as many characters. Certain scenes bothered me enough that I might be giving up on it.

Ditto likewise.

Hiro & Sidekick are a hoot; the Agent Sean arc has creepy legs, potential telepathic roffles, and potential rebound love-interest cute FBI lady with power-haircut.

Suresh is only interesting to watch Waifgirl fail at emoting. Mirror Mom is, like, whatevs, she should go back to being accused of killing her husband in Legally Blonde. Flying Hovering Emo CIF should be renamed Turd Ferguson, but skeevy politico bro, after getting punched out, "Good man!" + thumbs up = awesomes.

Also, I'm very very very glad that Indestructible Cheerleader continues to have her body mangled in increasingly grotesque and stomach-churning ways so that I can puke right before Studio 60.

Since nobody else has said it, I will - the Black Guy that Psychic Cop Guy couldn't mind-read in the bar was wearing the same sigil round his neck as was scrawled on the photos that Indian Guy (with an annoyingly British accent for someone who's supposedly never left India) found attached to the map in the back room of the apartment belonging to Serial Killer Head-Choppy-Offy Guy.

See? Those weeks watching Lost paid off.

Best episode yet, agreed.

More payoff than watching Lost itself.

This was the best so far, but damn I wish the corny shit would just stop. OH NO QB is a wannabe rapist! OH NO secret room of stuff is now empty! OH NO Milo V is a Saddle Creek street teamer! God bless The Politician, The Cheerleader, & I DID IT!!!!

Folks in awe of S1 and shitting on the rest of the series (cf. the majority of loons on the ILE threads) really need to check themselves. If anything, S3 is matching S1's qualitative pacing (in terms of starting slowly, to be kind, and eventually ramping up to The Good Stuff).

^^ OTM

Have they explained the Niki/Jessica/Tracy connection yet? Are they identical triplets or clones? I missed that.

And yeah, gripes aside, the plethora of powered folk has made this season a lot of fun.

Finally got around to watching the Season 1 DVD set, and enjoyed again how up until the end Nathan's choice wasn't clear - let the bomb explode or help his brother stop it? Watching in a short timeframe, enjoyed how each episode had either a good cliff-hanger or provided an emphatic plot point towards the overall arc.

Makes me want to buy the Season 2 set and see if it plays differently in rapid succession. Maybe the week-to-week wait was too strenuous on the various plots (resetting Peter, angsty Claire, Mohinder & Parkman vs. Parkman's dad, the plague siblings, and Hiro in the past)? Or maybe it'll just satisfy a completist itch.

don't forget Irish bar wench unfortunately but conveniently stuck in some future that may no longer exist.

^^^^^ btw I have not stopped laughing about this since it happened

I forgot all about Caitlin. (I like that name.) They should've brought her back in the recent future-forward season 3 ep.

Like Reed Richards curing Ben Grimm, Pete'll never stop until he gets her back. Someday...

Peter seems to have completely forgotten that she exists! Lolololololololololololol.

It's truly a ridiculous plot hole that he just up and forgot about leaving that broad in the future... rumor has it that it will be addressed this season, but what can they do? That future doesn't exist anymore, so... it'll be a messy out.

Peter re-engineers the virus then painstakingly recreates the exact circumstances of that timeline. conveniently, several subsequent episodes seem almost identical to season 2 episodes.

Elle and Claire sure became fast friends! I'm a little disappointed that Claude didn't show up as kind of hinted at by the past week's online comic (I know it's unlikely they'll get Eccleston to return) but overall, good ep again this week. Nice to see all the characters reconverging.

I missed the part where Matt saves himself and Daphne from being killed. I saw him get punched through the chest, but then he was okay again. What did he do?

It was a big psyche-out, a Jedi mind trick on Knox, Parkman Sr.-style.

Ah. He made Knox think that he had killed Matt. I kinda figured that's what happened.

I have achieved absolute apathy about this show.

yeah, last night's episode was a goody. this season has been very untidy in a way first season wasn't, but it's starting to come together.

I've really liked the way they're using Zachary Quinto in the show. He's one of my favorite actors in Heroes, and I had hoped from the beginning that he wouldn't simply be this one-shot villain. They're doing some nice stuff this season with evolving him from a villain to a major player.

He's the only character they're still using correctly on this show.

Hiro and Ando are little more than caricatures now, Claire is wangsty and annoying, and I miss smarmy Captain America Nathan - his finding God subplot was so bloody unconvincing.

This week's Entertainment Weekly has a cover article on Heroes, and includes these out of character actions on their list of things in need of correction. According to the article, the actors have been frustrated with this same issue, but have been told that the stories will service the direction of the show.

I haven't read the webcomix for a few months. Maybe there's some backstory there I'm missing?

Agreed about Claire - she should be more than the Kim Bauer of the show.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/10/arts/television/10hero.html

Execs apparently got really upset by the EW story and fired Jeph Loeb and Jesse Alexander.

execs otm

Thoughts re: yesterday's episode?

OTM, the Zachary Quinto comments above. He's become a highlight of the show. One of the better Kristen Bell episodes, too.

Is it better to not have über-powerful characters, or to have über-powerful characters taken out of commission as both Peter & Hiro have been, these last two seasons? (Angela Petrelli, too - taken out this season like Professor X in the first X-Men movie.) Strikes me like a generic cop-out, to avoid writing a stronger story that renders the characters helpless in other ways.

Suresh, much better as a powered evil scientist, although it still seems he wants to act evil but be angsty about his choices.

Curious how they'll deal with Papa Petrelli. The father appears to permanently steal the powers, while Sylar's able to duplicate them. If/when defeated, will the powers revert to their original owners, or will folk like Peter get new powers?

i've forgotten what an actually good episode of heroes is like but i think this was one! i did not feel like bludgeoning any character for once. well except for Hiro but his bit paid off with them discovering Isaac's last comic which was a nice touch. the ending with the two opposing factions looking all X-men-y was great too.

so sylar's actually had Peter's empath power all along?

Apparently they're left-brain/right-brain versions of the same thing. Peter just had to fix the watch etc etc

but watch-fixing is hungry work

Probably Bell's best episode of the series. Solid ep, though it feels like it's been three or more episodes straight with this sort of reconvening of characters together. I think Team Mom vs. Team Dad is kind of set by now. Though kind of amusing ("the Hulk is red?"), hopefully Hiro gets his memory back quickly.

Btw, w/regards to Peter's girlfriend last year, looks like they're just gonna drop it completely. I could've sworn they said when the season started that they were going to come back to that, but oh well.

With regard to that timeline being lost, given that the X-Men continue to circle the "Days of Future Past" and Apocalypse futures, why not have Caitlin show up having taken the powers formula, with good or bad result, and now she's back for revenge or romance?

Or maybe there's a character like the Koontz book "From the Corner of His Eye", who can walk between alternate timelines, and brings her back?

Deal with it using the online comic, even. I need closure, people!

nononono leave her in limbo! hahahahahahaha Peter sux

I'm glad they gave Hiro a reason to be cloying and cute now!

Slow to find this, but CBR does a weekly Q&A with the Heroes folk. This week answers a few questions I had.

Caitlin reminds of Claremont's writing, where he'd write something mysterious, then five years later (if ever), you'd get an explanation.

HAHA - it's even got a name, the Claremont Coefficient.

ah the internet black hole known as tvtr0pes.org

why is seth green on heroes

Wow, fastest lapsed heel turn ever...

That threw me, too, unless it's Sylar going deep cover.

Kring says here that Caitlin is gone, daddy, gone, never to return.

Isaac is prolific for a dead man. Unless Hiro's Season 1 origin issues followed the current Season 3 issues.

Is anyone watching the "Destiny" webisodes? Figured I'd check those out at lunch today.

Also, now anticipating a "Run, Daphne, run!" Gump moment, when she regains her powers.

Last night was the first time in weeks - maybe all year - I didn't feel like a dumbshit wasting my time for watching this.

I'm wondering since Pushing Daisies has been cancelled whether Bryan Fuller will go back to Heroes. The guy should probably be given the showrunner's job since he actually makes good shows (that no one watches) and he was responsible for the two best episodes of season 1 - the one where we first met Future Hiro and Heroes really took off after that and the HRG ep "Company Man".

besides, Tim Kring, aside from coming off as being completely clueless about writing for TV, keeps doing stupid things like calling his audience saps and dipshits.

In that case, I think he was unfairly maligned, a little - in the full quote it does sound like he's joking. He was talking specifically about viewers not using DVR or Hulu to watch the show, anyway, when if he wanted to insult someone I'm sure it would've been the many fans who have criticized the show's storylines and characters for the past two years. And he at least admitted that season two was a mistake, though season three still had its own problems.

I'd MUCH rather have Bryan Fuller stay on the wonderful Pushing Daisies - it's such a shame it's over. It might be too late for Fuller to really save the show anyway, since at this point they've probably already shot a good portion of the rest of this season (even before Loeb and Alexander were fired). I do wonder if there's an alternate universe where Kring and NBC decided to actually stick to the original plan, which was to have new characters every season. Maybe they can still do this for season four...

he could have chosen his words better, but it's also not the first time he's said something like this - there was that thing last season where he said the audience were just not getting it, which ended with him having to apologize for the rest of season 2. Whatever the context, it's just a mistake to be calling his audience names, especially the ones who are not watching it online, and are therefore actually contributing to his show's failing ratings. and James Poniewozik's response in that post otm about the generally positive effect that time-shifting has had on the quality of TV drama.

I just think Kring doesn't really get how to balance audience expectations with his own vision for the show. for instance, he talks about network/fans falling in love with certain actors/characters and being forced to keep them on but ultimately the decision to do so is his to make. If anything, killing/getting rid of beloved characters can be a good way of getting audiences to engage with the show - the knowledge that there are real stakes involved, and that anything can happen.

I totally agree about the killing off of characters. Interestingly the third season of Lost was going through similar problems when Heroes debuted, with everything dragging along and plots in limbo because it seemed the writers didn't know where to go with them and/or were constrained by not knowing how long the series would go on. The following season, Lost fixed many problems of the show (helped by setting an end date) while Heroes has gotten bogged down in its own continuity and characters.

....and four months later.... finally. Tonight's was the Fuller return episode - it was decent, though it makes me wonder if they had to drag out the Rebel reveal for so long when we all could've guessed who it was. (Plus they pulled what has gotta be a rookie mistake by now by showing the guest star credit at the top of the episode) They actually did two fair character sendoffs in a single episode, though, I gotta give 'em credit - I really liked the Daphne one especially.

wow two great episodes in a row

Pretty decent ep tonight, I thought - not so much for the modern family drama but the 1961 story was pretty well done. The kid casting was excellent, the actress for young Angela Petrelli was particularly well cast.

just started watching this show on dvd-rs my dad burned me last year

its pretty ok

i didn't watch s1, just jumped in with s2, and its pretty lol to me to see all the concurrent commentary like 'oh this season is SO jumbled and confusing' like guys is this really that hard to follow

Why would you do that? S1 was the only good season!

Also looking up at my old posts, so desperately trying to keep my own interest in this show going. By the ridiculous S3 finale I totally just gave up. Can't believe it was still 2009!

gf & roomie out of town for the month and i found these dvd-rs in the closet lol

agree with Nhex, it all went to shit in S2

idk i'm pretty engaged by it!

oh no the dvd of the last episode is missing wtf

through an amusing series of coincidences, it turns out that saving the cheerleader has world-historical consequences that NO ONE WILL EVER KNOW. NO ONE BUT US.