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Tuesday, October 30, 2007

TV Watch: Heroes Season Two

To say that Heroes has been backsliding a bit seems to be becoming an understatement. I was already a bit annoyed when Sylar clearly escapes the end of season one - but it's more than that. We can't escape season one.

Last season we had the pointless subplot with angst and emotion. OK, so last season it was Psychic Cop, his wife and a bunch of other stuff nobody cared about - and now it's Claire, her boyfriend and a bunch of other stuff we don't care about.

And one might think that with Nikki getting the old hospice treatment from The Company, we might be lacking in a desperate but dangerous female character looking for salvation. Except, we're not - because we've got Maria and Pablo or Estaban or whatever Aquaman's name is. They picked up Sylar after what seems to be The Company's "drop off the most dangerous people on the planet in remote locations and see what happens" plan oddly goes wrong so that he can fulfill Hiro's role from last year - the wandering superperson who can't quite seem to figure out if he has powers or not or how to use them.

And apparently Peter is just Isaac these days, without the cool loft or heroin.

Worse than any of this is Claire's dad. Remember last year when he was lying to his family while he was supposed to be holding down a real, albeit mind-numbing, job? Yet what he was really doing was wondering around the world in increasingly implausible means doing fairly evil stuff with a Haitian who can swipe minds? Sound familiar at all? Whereas Claire's dad possibly had the most development from last year - going from nemesis to hero - he seems to have completely reverted at this point. Sure, he's now doing evil stuff to destroy The Company, but considering they've gone from being controlled by the guy from Clockwork Orange to Bob The Bureaucrat, I'm really not sure they had much to be afraid of in the first place.

Course, Bob does have an ipod with every training video ever made - so ... well, they must at least have a killer IT department.

If there was ever a term for character undevelopment - Heroes would be an example right now.

4 comments:

Winkyboy said...

Yeah, what happened to that supposed promise that season two would have very little relation to season one? It really seems like s2 is just "season one after the climax".

Also, I cannot COUNT the number of times I've said to myself during season two, "that character just would not be that stupid."

Josh said...

Agreed - and I think Suresh tops my list on that one.

Winkyboy said...

Just thought I'd wind back this way and say, after reading the recap of this week's episode on Fangasm the other day, I like it a bit more. It did NOT click for me, when Hiro kissed the gal in the past, it seriously twisted the present and future... Bob becomes a nice guy. Nikki totally loves the company. Subtle things that are out of character happen, but it makes sense.

Josh said...

Huh, that's an interesting twist on it and feels kinda non-sequiter, but I'd be willing to see where it goes.

Honestly I wasn't a fan of season one until about midway through - I just didn't want that same disorientation already in season two.