Seriously?
OK, first - Sylar is one of my least favorite characters in television history. I am so tired of his melodramatic nonsense, and in particular this season when he is whatever the hell the story needs at the moment. Bad guy, good guy, soccer mom, yada freaking didn't we kill him a couple times already?
Second. Did someone mention to the writers that Arther Petrelli was not actually conveniently located sixteen years in the past? That has to have been one of the worst plot twists ever put to print. OK, so perhaps it wasn't broadcasted - but it also simply didn't make any sense. Let me guess? Arthur had snuck in as the chef?
The show still has its moments, but the plot is just unraveling at the seams. Sure, I say this a lot about Heroes - so I guess it would be better put as "I'll be fascinated to see how they pull this one out."
Monday, December 08, 2008
TV Watch: Heroes, Our Father
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The show has felt very choppy this seasons. I think it's overall better than the second season, but it feels all over the place. Papa Petrelli coming back into the past to get the catalyst seemed rather ridiculous. How'd he know Hiro had it at that place and time? Why didn't he just go back and get it from Hiro's mom?
And Hiro is... incompetent? I mean dude, Petrelli shows up, just warp out. Don't sit there and wait for him to mess you up. GO!
If they'd been smart they would have thought out a 5 year plot line starting in the first season and then play it out over time. It seemed like they didn't know what to do next after the 1st season and have been trying to catch up ever since.
Yeah, I hate to say it - I mean I really hate to say it, but Hiro is pretty much penciled into my list of dislikes about the show.
Once again, when it's convenient, he can do just about anything. He could zap Adam in and out of the coffin, rescue Claire at the last minute, etc.
But he can't tell when someone is right behind him? Or has grabbed him? And remember - Arther has done that *twice* now. Sure, he's all uberpowerful and can defeat the Haitian (as if that even makes any sense) - but c'mon.
Not to mention that this whole mess is Hiro's fault to begin with...
*Sigh*. Agreed re: plotlines. It's like they have more time than anything else.
As far as the writers' "conveniently" putting Arthur in the past. He stole Peter's abilities. He can time travel.
He only took Hiro's abilities away. He already had that ability. As to character consistency. They are traveling through various realities, stuff can change and so can people. what would be really unbelievable is consistent characters (other than consistently stupid). Also: It's only TV and it's still entertaining.
The point isn't really Arthur's powers - he can do pretty much anything. The point is the overly convenient fact that he happens in at the exact right place and time - despite no context whatsoever.
And sure, this is opinion - but it's not entertaining to watch Hiro bumble around for thirty minutes only to have the whole thing snatched up by a lame plot point. I've mentioned before how problematic characters like Arther, Sylar and to a certain extent Hiro are - they're like the R2D2's of plot devices. What? You didn't know R2 had a jet pack? Well he does now!
Arthur and Sylar are barely characters, they're more like dumping grounds for plot twists with accents. That's not explainable by time travel, that's just bad writing.
Broadly speaking, time jumping is a very risky plot device because it opens up a whole mess of problems. There's invariably a ton of contradictions. Then there's the obvious questions of, why somebody did or didn't go to a particular point in time that would have had an obvious advantage to them. It's just messy.
Time travel can be done well, but it has to be a very limited device. Like if you ever watched Babylon 5, there was some time travel involved, but it was a very limited case and not a controlled scenario. So people couldn't hop about through time at will, just at one particular moment. It effected the plot, but it had been built into the plot from the get go.
Now, having said that, it's not the biggest problem with the show right now. The problem is that I don't get the motivations of most of the characters right now. Papa petrelli is trying to get the formula to make the army of badasses, but to what end? Peter's motivation makes sense. Sylar... just wants a hug? I don't know. I don't get Nathan in the slightest anymore.
The same of it is that there's a lot of characters on the show that I like, but it's such a messy plot that it takes away from it.
I hate to say it, but I thought this episode was horrible. Hiro promising his mom that he could protect the catalyst and then having it taken away by Arthur so easily. It makes Hiro look stupid, and the writers look even more stupid.
And then, what is going on with Sylar. He went from being bad due to an incontrollable hunger, to trying to be good, to being plain insane. It makes no sense. Why show that Sylar has somewhat of a conscience, that he's a killer because he doesn't know how to control the hunger, and that he's basically struggling to find himself if you're gonna take it all back. I liked when Sylar had a method to his madness, when he was a conflicted individual trying to find himself. Now he's just crazy.
As for Arthur, I felt his story line was interesting and that it could have been taken so many places. But instead the writers just give his an anticlimactic death. It seems pointless. I slightly hope he's not dead. I just hope that the writer's know where they want to take these storylines and show that in the next episode.
Also, I read a series called Guardians of Time trilogy by Marianne Curley and it dealt with the time travel and the butterfly effect beautifully. I feel that the time traveling in Heroes is all over the place.
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