Busy For Fun Blogs: Heroes

Showing posts with label Heroes. Show all posts

Showing posts with label Heroes. Show all posts

NBC axe the Heroes; will you miss them?

You can read my piece about NBC's decision to axe Heroes at OWF, but I thought it was also worth a mention here because I've reviewed it from beginning to end, through thick and thin. I'm not going to shed any tears over its passing, because it was creatively dead a few years ago and deserved to be cancelled, but it's definitely a shame Tim Kring and his team never found a way to capitalize on that heady debut year. I guess part of its legacy will be as a warning to showrunners that you're only one half-season away from a slow, lingering death, no matter how successful your show was to begin with.

HEROES 4.19 - "Brave New World"

WRITER: Tim Kring
DIRECTOR: Adam Kane
GUEST CAST: Todd Stashwick, Elisabeth Rohm, Ray Park, David H. Lawrence XVII, Adam Lazzare-White & K. Callan

[SPOILERS] My expectations have deflated to such an extent since Heroes came back from hiatus that I was just relieved this finale, "Brave New World", slipped by innocuously without causing me to roll my eyes more than five times over the hour. There were even a few genuinely good moments that worked because they were logical and surprising, but unfortunately the majority of this finale was a rote conclusion that just left you feeling deflated that this -- this -- was the pay-off to nineteen hours of invested time.

Samuel (Robert Knepper, who could have been marvelous with better writing) has transported the carnival to New York's Central Park, where he intends to lure a huge crowd using Emma's (Deanna Bray) ability to attract people with her cello-playing (what, flyers no good?), and then announce his kind's presence in the world by killing all his customers in a giant earthquake of his creation. Emma's unwilling to help in this crackpot scheme, so Doyle (David H. Lawrence XVII) is ordered to puppeteer her body, having apparently forgotten he'd joined the carnival to rehabilitate himself.

Peter (Milo Ventimiglia) and Sylar (Zachary Quinto) are on their way to save Emma, but spend the majority of the episode trying to convince Matt (Greg Grunberg) that Sylar's actually a reformed character after five "years" stuck in a mindscape to ruminate on his past behaviour. Meanwhile, Claire (Hayden Panettiere) and Bennet (Jack Coleman) are trapped underground in a carnival trailer with diminishing air supply and no hope of escape, until they're rescued by the surprise return of Tracy (Ali Larter), whose escape plan involves using her command of water to drag Bennet through mud to the surface. She then mysteriously vanished, assumedly because Larter has more important things to do (if you can call a third Resident Evil sequel important.)

The more satisfying subplot, or at least the most interesting, actually belonged to Hiro (Masi Oka), who has survived his brain operation and takes receipt of a mysterious origami swan (when did this become Prison Break?) Turns out that his lost-in-time girlfriend Charlie is coincidentally in the same hospital as Hiro, but has now aged into an old woman (K. Callan), having been zapped back to 1944 by Samuel. This all owes a debt to a similar scene in Doctor Who's "Blink", although I doubt Tim Kring's seen that to steal from it, and it was actually a more creative resolution to the disappearance of Charlie than I was expecting. Even better, there was a genuine sense of bittersweet sorrow when Hiro realized that changing time would deny Charlie the wonderful life, marriage and children she enjoyed without him. It also helped that K. Callan (best known as Superman's mother in Lois & Clark) was a plausible elderly version of Jayma Mays, in both wide-eyed looks and quirky temperament.

The resolution to the season's threat played out as expected, which was disappointing. The carnival had attracted a throng of eager patrons, Sylar had to grapple with Doyle to rescue Emma, Claire gave an impassioned speech to the carnies to make them realize Samuel's been lying to them, and eventually the heroes had to evacuate the carnival as an angered Samuel started to cause earth tremours, before Peter arrived to leech his power and the two men engaged in a literal earthshaking face-off. There was actually a decent use of Hiro in the climactic moments, too, as he managed to teleport everyone away thanks to Ando (James Kyson Lee) "super-charging" his ability, leaving Samuel powerless with no more "specials" around to fuel him.

I suppose "Brave New World" was serviceable work that got the job done, but there wasn't really much sense of this being the accumulation of an entire season's setup. I don't have the inclination to pick apart all its failings, but in general you just find yourself thinking back to old episodes from early season 4 and realizing how much of that had little bearing on this finale, how many storylines were pointless, or how many characters were forgotten about. Where was Mohinder? Why didn't the writers grab the obvious opportunity to link Samuel's threat to the "cracked planet" motif that went unanswered throughout season 3? Why didn't Matt want to help Peter stop Samuel, too? Why did Gretchen play no part in this finale?

I think we've debated the pervasive reasons for Heroes' failures too often, so I'm not going to regurgitate all those points again. Suffice to say, it seems to me that the writers' room just have a bad system of collectively writing episodes in four-episode batches, with little sense of broader planning. The show has always struck me as a fantastic mini-series idea that nobody quite knew how to evolve into a continuing drama. Half-length seasons and an edict to regularly rotate characters (even popular ones) would have helped matters, but it's too late for that now.

Volume V "Redemption" ended on a pretty flat note, but there's certainly more obvious potential in the direction of Volume VI "Brave New World", which begins with Claire echoing her introduction in season 1 by leaping off a Ferris Wheel in full view of TV cameras and surviving her fall. A season where the world is now aware people with super powers exist is actually a great idea (one I've been hankering for, too), and it should work brilliantly as a final storyline if Heroes is fortunate enough to get picked up for a fifth season. A lot of people appear convinced Heroes won't be back next year to explore its sixth volume idea, because the ratings are in the sub-5m gutter, but I'm not so sure -- it still has very strong DVD and overseas TV sales, plus it nearly has enough produced episodes for syndication.

Heroes doesn't really deserve to come back, but if it does manage to get another reprieve, I hope an agreement is reached to ensure season 5 will be the end of the road.

8 FEBRUARY 2010: NBC, 9/8c

Heroes: Tim Kring interview

The AV Club's Steve Heisler has a really good interview with Heroes' showrunner Tim Kring, discussing some of the show's continuing problems, with a few admissions and interesting defences from Kring. I think it's clear that Heroes' writers understand and appreciate the problems inherent with their show, and would perhaps have done a better job had the workload not been so heavy, and the original plan to replace most of the cast every year had gone ahead. Anyway, I still think Kring's team shot themselves in the foot several times, rather needlessly, but he makes some valid points along the way:

"It's always hard. For us, the seasons aren't really seasons. We took about four days off between season one and two -- we never stopped writing. Same directors, same actors, same everything. So when someone says they don't like season two, it's like, 'Well, that was yesterday.' We don’t have a sense that the seasons are divided by ideas or timeframes; it's just this big long continuum. I think the first season can be divided into two places. We took a seven-week break, and the audience never came back after that. The first 16 episodes was the part everybody talks about." Continue reading...

Heroes: Tim Kring moving onto III?

Heroes' fourth season finale airs on NBC this Monday (expectations very low, incidentally), but the fate of the superhero series has yet to be decided. Actor Greg Grunberg has mentioned how the finale ends on a cliffhanger, which you'd hope the writers wouldn't have included if they seriously thought there was any chance of cancellation. And there are still compelling reasons to keep Heroes on the air, despite dismal ratings, such as strong DVD and international sales. But, now we have news from Production Weekly that creator Tim Kring and producer Aron Eli Coleite are working on another series for NBC called III...

III will apparently be set in an alternate universe where the United States Of America was invaded, leading to World War III. Of course, it's completely possible that Tim Kring will just divide his attention between Heroes and III (if the latter gets picked up), or perhaps hand over Heroes' showrunning duties to somebody else if NBC greenlights season 5. But, it's interesting to speculate on what impact these behind-the-scenes goings-on will have on the show.

HEROES 4.18 - "The Wall"

WRITERS: Adam Armus & Kay Foster
DIRECTOR: Allan Arkush
GUEST CAST: Sherri Saum, Ashley Crow, Kenneth Colom, Gregory Hoyt & Stephen Taylor

[SPOILERS] This is the penultimate episode of the whole season. This. No, really. An episode that did very little beyond deliver monochrome back-story for Mr. Bennet (Jack Coleman) that nobody really cares about, and tardily justified volume's "Redemption" title by forcing Peter (Milo Ventimiglia) and Sylar (Zachary Quinto) to iron out their differences in the clichéd mindscape of an empty city...

I have very little to say. I appreciate Heroes' attempt to focus more on character this season (by necessity thanks to budget cuts), but the writers always struggle to make any of their characters feel interesting or exciting now. Peter dreamed that Sylar will rescue his deaf friend Emma (Deanna Bray) from Samuel's (Robert Knepper) clutches at the carnival, but because Sylar's now trapped inside his own mind, Peter uses his leeched power from Matt to enter the psyche of his brother's killer and rescue him. Inside, Sylar's been existing in an abandoned city with every passing hour feels like a year (I feel your pain, dude). Consequently, he's had three years to reflect on his sins and his solitude has also weaned him off killing. When Peter turns up, the pair struggle to leave the "mental prison" (later symbolized by a gigantic brick wall of the title), particularly as Sylar's come to believe it's not a delusion but cosmic punishment for his crimes.

At the carnival, Samuel tries to make Claire (Hayden Panettiere) understand the kind of man her dishonest father truly is, by showing her his darkest secrets projected in the Hall Of Mirrors. It turns out Bennet was once the world's most candid used car salesman back in 1985, married to a black woman called Kate (Sherri Saum), who was murdered in their home when a delivery man with telekinesis burst in to rob them. That tragedy spurred Bennet into investigating the presence of "specials" in the world, which eventually brought him to the attention of Johnson (Eric Roberts), who recruited him into The Company and, it's inferred, helped Bennet get over his grief by pointing him in the direction of waitress Sandra (Ashley Crow).

So, Sylar's been rehabilitated (again), admittedly in a more plausible way than previously because of his long isolation and the fact he has remnants of Nathan's "goodness" still lodged in his brain. How long will his salvation last? About as long as it can, before the writers decide they need a villain again because Sylar's boring when he's not carving open people's heads (heck, he's actually quite boring even when he's doing that nowadays.)

And the writers failed to give us a worthwhile "origin story" for Bennet because his transformation from sincere salesman to bad-ass Company agent felt very sketchy and more deserving of a webisode. The episode ended with Samuel growing weary of his attempts to make Claire understand his motivations (er, that he's a petulant, immature carnie on a power trip), so he buries her deep underground with her father inside a RV, and announces his plan to transport the carnival to Central Park and raze the Big Apple to the ground. Mwahaha! That'll show those "normals" never to, y'know, visit his carnival and pay his employees to entertain them as part of a job he's actually enjoyed all his life. Oh yeah, his dead brother lied to him about his powers (with good reason) and his childhood sweetheart thinks he's a creep, so flattening NYC is reasonable payback, uh-huh.

The strange thing about "The Wall" is how much of the season's storylines went undernourished yards from the finish line, so next week's finale will either be a thrilling, lean spectacle with no fat on its bones, or a hectic mess as the writers struggle to bring the year's disparate elements to a close while servicing all the characters. I'm predicting an awkward storytelling mess with perhaps more special-effects than we've had all year as a salve for the easily pleased, what about you?

1 FEBRUARY 2010: NBC, 9/8C

HEROES 4.17 - "The Art Of Deception"

WRITERS: Mark Verheiden & Misha Green
DIRECTOR: SJ Clarkson
GUEST CAST: Todd Stashwick, Harry Perry, Elizabeth Lackey, Erin Allin O'Reilly, David H. Lawrence & Ray Park

[SPOILERS] I feel like I'm beginning to rate the success of Heroes purely on how much happens in an episode, how quickly, and how well it keeps me entertained. See, if I rate it on storytelling complexity or my emotional connection to events, it's still barely working at all. "The Art Of Deception" was better than last week's dross because it had more relevance to the season's storyline, and there were a few scenes I rather enjoyed, but that's about as upbeat as I can get about Heroes now, as it plods towards it finale...

This week, Samuel (Robert Knepper) has become a pariah amongst his own people for destroying an entire town (and a good few thousand people, right?), which has an uneasy similarity to what's going on in Haiti right now. Claire (Hayden Panettiere) decides to return to the carnival, after being told by Lauren (Elisabeth Röhm) that her father (Jack Coleman) has tracked down Samuel's location and they're on their way to take the carnival barker by force. As Claire persuades Samuel to give himself up, knowing her father's close by with a gun trained on him, Mr. Bennet is surprised when another gunman starts to viciously shoot members of the carnival – including Claire, Samuel, Lauren and Lydia (Dawn Olivieri). It turns out Samuel's framed Bennet as a bloodthirsty enemy of his people -- with the real shooter being his henchman Eli (Todd Stashwick) -- and has thus created a bigger villain than himself in the eyes of his people.

Quite why the carnies don't think it strange that Bennet would shoot his own daughter is a question left unmentioned. Neither Claire or Bennet offer that fact as proof he probably wasn't the gunman. Also, it felt ridiculous to me that Lydia died from her gunshot wound, considering the fact Claire has already demonstrated she can heal people by saving Peter's life from a gunshot wound only a few episodes ago. So why did Claire suddenly forget she could save Lydia's life very easily? Oh, it's because Heroes constantly fails to keep its own mythology feeling plausible, consistent or airtight. If it's dramatically necessary to have someone die, they'll die, even if viewers are left to view Claire as either very stupid, utterly heartless, or both.

The only other significant storyline involved Sylar (Zachary Quinto) turning up at the Parkman residence, pretending to be an old cop buddy of Matt's (Greg Grunberg) in front of his unsuspecting wife Janice (Lisa Lackey). Sylar was there to get his powers "mentally blocked" by Matt, which he now believes is the only way he'll ever find peace in this world. Yes, Sylar wants to turn over a new leaf again. To be honest, it's rather laughable that Sylar's character is asking to be neutered once more – it's as if the writers have forgotten the plot arc of season 3 that saw Sylar "depowered", only to crave the return of his abilities. So, why doesn't Sylar remember that having no powers won't bring him happiness? Oh, because the story demands that we go down this avenue.

Anyway, Matt eventually manages to go through with Sylar's bizarre demand, but takes the opportunity to imprison him inside his own mind, then goes to the time and trouble of bricking up Sylar's body behind a wall in his basement. No, seriously. Matt's suddenly twisted enough to let a man starve and die in his own basement, and isn't in the least bit concerned that he's acting like a creepier murderer than his own, unfortunate victim. He even went out and bought some bricks and mixed some concrete, it would seem. I worry about him.

But none of it really mattered, because Peter (Milo Ventimiglia) arrived at Matt's house to interrupt his activities (Peter must have a lot of air miles), leeches his friend's mind-reading ability, and heads down to the basement to free Sylar because he knows from a precognitive dream that Sylar will rescue his friend Emma (Deanne Bray) from Samuel's carnival in the near-future. Speaking of whom, Emma turns up at the carnival towards the end of this episode to tend to Samuel's gunshot wound, despite the fact she doesn't have a compass to let her find the way (am I wrong about that?) –- but, hey, it's what the story demands, just forget about internal logic. The writers always do.

Sure, I'm giving some nitpicks more weight than they deserve, but that's perhaps a bad sign in itself. It's now more fun to pick Heroes' threads apart, because none of the characters or storyline are interesting enough to make me give its silliness a free pass. I'm glad the carnival are united behind Samuel against "so-called normal people", because they'll at least become the awesome force of villainy they were supposed to be from the start, but that's about the only welcome development contained in this episode.

25 JANUARY 2010: NBC, 9/8c

HEROES 4.16 - "Pass/Fail"

[SPOILERS] Fail, Heroes. It was a fail. And coming so close to the season's end, I'm getting worried the show's about to flush whatever good work it had done down the toilet. Ever since it came back from hiatus, Heroes has been struggling to keep its storyline moving along, throwing all manner of unnecessary subplots into the mix, and sending characters on brief, pointless mini-adventures...

In "Pass/Fail", written by Oliver Grigsby (who should perhaps chalk this one down to being given a sow's ear to work on), we have three tedious storylines to struggle through. Hiro's (Masi Oka) brain tumour finally starts to threaten his life[*] when he collapses, and as he's rushed to hospital he dreams he's on trial for misusing the space-time continuum -- with father Kaito (George Takei) as a stern judge, former nemesis Adam (David Anders) as the prosecutor, and Ando (James Kyson Lee) as his defense lawyer. Why should we care about a "courtroom" drama taking place in someone's imagination? Well, it's all symbolic of Hiro's life-or-death struggle and regrets for the choices he's made. Fair enough, but it's still very difficult to see this as anything other than an opportunity to have some old faces guest-star, again reference the heyday of season 1, and give Hiro an unconvincing sword fight. Did anyone doubt Hiro would survive? Who else was wincing at Ando's dialogue as he watched his friend struggle for his life in the emergency room? Real people don't talk like that.

Meanwhile, Sylar (Zachary Quinto) is harassing Claire (Hayden Panettiere) at university, convinced she can help him get his killing instinct back. She quite understandably wants nothing to do with the man who once sliced her skull open, no matter how much he insists they have so much in common. But Sylar eventually manages to get some "pearls of wisdom" from Claire by shape-shifting into her friend Gretchen (Madeline Zima) while they sought refuge from him inside a cupboard. Is there anyone who didn't guess "Gretchen" was actually Sylar all along, given how interminable that scene was, and how Zima played it like her brain had been scooped out?

Finally, the introduction of a childhood romance as motivation for Samuel (Robert Knepper) continued to develop, as he tried to get Vanessa (Kate Vernon) to reciprocate his love, by reminding her of their shared history together over a milkshake in a local diner. The fact he'd created her dream of a picturesque cabin home in a beautiful garden still wasn't enough to persuade her to become his girlfriend, which appears to tip Samuel over the edge when he took his frustrations out by destroying an entire town after an argument with a waitress.

While I'm glad the show's reminding us of Samuel's tremendous power again, I'm not convinced by the sudden arrival of Vanessa to explain some of his behaviour this season. It feels like an unplanned idea to stretch his storyline out, as otherwise it's all boiling down to a power-crazed carnie who's just a danger to himself and others. I guess they needed something else to add complexity and humanity to Samuel's character, but throwing in a girl he was infatuated with as a kid isn't doing it for me. Or maybe it would have been okay if Vanessa had been alluded to from the start, but it just feels very improvised.

Overall, if you didn't watch this episode you didn't missed anything a one-sentence recap couldn't rectify (Hiro nearly died, Samuel got dumped, Claire became Sylar's accidental therapist), and "Pass/Fail" ultimately felt like another wasted hour. We're so close to the end of this season, yet there's a severe lack of urgency to anything going on. The carnival have basically spent a season being absolved of the "villains" label they were branded with in the premiere, as it's clearly just Samuel who's the misguided danger someone has to eliminate. And, despite the fact the Irish carnie has proven himself capable of beating Sylar[**], and we know he gets more powerful around "specials", Knepper still isn't striking much fear into my heart.

I'm just sensing a huge anticlimax on the horizon. Pass.

18 January 2010
NBC, 9/8c

written by: Oliver Grigsby directed by: Michael Nankin starring: Hayden Panettiere (Claire), Zachary Quinto (Sylar), Robert Knepper (Samuel), Sendhil Ramamurthy (Mohinder), Masi Oka (Hiro), James Kyson Lee (Ando), Kate Vernon (Vanessa), Sasha Pieterse (Amanda), Madeline Zima (Gretchen), Jack Coleman (Mr. Bennett), Kate Vernon (Vanessa), Robert Knepper (Samuel), Danielle Savre (Jackie Wilcox), Sally Champlin (Waitress Lynette), David Anders (Adam), Tamlyn Tomita (Ishi), George Takei (Kaito), Quin Baron/Reed Baron (Baby Matt), Jordan Dang (Young Ando), Lisa Lackey (Janice), Satomi Okuno (Young Kimiko) & Dawn Olivieri (Lydia)

[*] Do you remember that subplot where Peter went on a mission with Bennett to leech a life-giving power from that reclusive teenager so he could save Hiro's life? Doesn't that all seem so utterly pointless now.

[**] To be fair, everyone's beaten Sylar at one time or another now. He's become a bit of a joke.

HEROES 4.15 - "Close To You"

[SPOILERS] I'm surprised we're so deep into season 4, but even more astonished that there are only a handful of episodes left to air! "Close To You" was another so-so episode, really, but at least we're getting some movement with Samuel's (Robert Knepper) plans, while the irritating recent use of Hiro (Masi Oka) bleating in "geek code" came to a swift end...

Mr. Bennett (Jack Coleman) is having trouble locating Samuel's teleporting carnival, as he's become estranged from Claire (Hayden Panettiere), who owns one of the compasses that show the way. Bennett instead goes to Matt (Greg Grunberg) for assistance finding Samuel, which is granted after some persuasion, but it becomes clear that Matt isn't happy about getting involved and would prefer to focus on his wife and baby. Bennett's plan is to bring the mountain to Mohammed, when he realizes that Samuel's infatuated with childhood friend Vanessa (Kate Vernon), who reveals their history together after being charmed by Matt's mind control. She could prove the best way to lure Samuel out into the open.

Peter (Milo Ventimiglia) is worried about the compass tattoo that's appeared on his forearm, but particularly when his mother Angela (Cristine Rose) meets his friend Emma (Deanna Bray) and reacts to her very dismissively. It turns out that Angela's dreamed a future that apparently shows Emma helping Samuel kill thousands of people. Peter's convinced she must be mistaken somehow, so leeches her power to experience the dream himself -- only to see a distraught Emma playing her cello in the carnival's "Hall Of Mirrors", before apparently being rescued from her torment by Sylar (Zachary Levi).

Is Emma's ability to draw people to her through music going to be exploited by Samuel, perhaps to swell his ranks with "specials"* to boost his own power? Whatever's going on, Peter tries to change the future by rudely destroying Emma's cello, but that only appears to turn Emma against him. Has Peter pushed Emma down a dark path, to be manipulated by Samuel at some point, in his effort to help her?

A more comical vibe comes from Hiro and Ando (James Kyson Lee), as they have arrived in Florida with a plan to rescue "Dr. Watson" - a.k.a Mohinder, as Ando deduces from his mind-scrambled friend. Quite how a Japanese citizen can turn up at a US asylum and get himself locked up isn't really explained, but we'll chalk that up to Heroes' very elastic grasp of reality. This subplot was better than expected, although the double-act of Hiro and Ando stopped being funny or particularly likeable two years ago, so the pair usually just test your patience now. Incidentally, I was pleased to hear Ando mention Hiro's visit to the future from season 3 (where he witnessing Ando kill him, seconds before Tokyo was destroyed), as that's one of a few loose threads from last year that were left to flap in the breeze. Maybe it'll find resolution (along with the graffiti of the cracked planet) someday soon.

Overall, "Close To You" was pretty average but it flowed a lot better than last week's insulting double-bill grind. The annoying thing about season 4, right now, is that you get the impression there was a really good story to be told, and that if the writers could go back in time with knowledge of how these episodes have panned out, they could rewrite the show to fine effect.

Simple changes would have worked wonders: getting Emma involved sooner, explaining various people's abilities quicker, introducing Vanessa much earlier, letting us in on Samuel's back-story sooner, bringing the Sylar/Nathan story to a faster conclusion, and less of the pointless distractions. If you're having serious issues finding ways to keep characters like Hiro busy, or relevant, then write them out already. Really, we wouldn't mind. Hiro isn't the highlight of the show anymore, believe me. Still, at least a combination of a major rethink and a budget cut has meant this season has focused more on character than the last two seasons bothered to, although the paucity of thrilling action sequences has been a shame for a show that once juggled character and action with aplomb.

11 January 2010
NBC, 9/8c

written by: Rob Fresco directed by: Roxann Dawson starring: Jack Coleman (Mr. Bennet), Hayden Panettiere (Claire), Zachary Quinto (Sylar), Milo Ventimiglia (Peter), Robert Knepper (Samuel), Elisabeth Röhm (Lauren Gilmore), Dawn Olivieri (Lydia), Greg Grunberg (Matt), Lisa Lackey (Janice), Deanne Bray (Emma), Cristine Rose (Angela), Sendhil Ramamurthy (Mohinder), Masi Oka (Hiro), James Kyson Lee (Ando), Kate Vernon (Vanessa) & Sasha Pieterse (Amanda)

* The term "specials" has been used enough this season that I'm going to officially adopt it as my term for "people with abilities", "supers" and "superheroes" -- all of which never sounded right.

HEROES 4.13 & 4.14 - "Upon This Rock" & "Let It Bleed"

[SPOILERS] A double-bill of dreariness to kick-start the second-half of Heroes' improved, if languid fourth year. It's puzzling why this show seems to have given up trying to do the basics expected of a superhero drama, particularly one fresh back from a four-week hiatus. Where's the energy? The momentum? The kick up the backside to launch the final run of episodes? I think the lack of spark is partly to do with budget cuts that have curtailed the action sequences Heroes used to serve up, so it's becoming clearer that the writers are less confident when asked to go small-scale and character-driven -- but it's still sorely disappointing that Heroes begins a new year with two dull installments, introduced by another conceited voiceover from Mohinder (Sendhil Ramamurthy)...

"Upon This Rock" is by far the worst episode we've had in ages; one content to drip-feed background minutiae about "big bad" Samuel (Robert Knepper) that just confirms what we've guessed, long assumed, or already know. Claire's (Hayden Panettiere) already suspicious of the carnival barker's true intentions, after leaning from Lydia (Dawn Olivieri) that Samuel developed a sudden obsession with "collecting" people with abilities after the death of his brother, then later catching Samuel looking guilty with a box of materials from Primatech. However, Samuel's able to persuade Claire his intentions for the carnival are noble...

To do this, Samuel's finally appeared in Emma's (Deanne Bray) storyline, introducing himself as the person who owned her the mysterious cello she was sent anonymously, before helping her use her" sound-seeing" ability to... well, apparently her music can attract people she's thinking of, and Samuel wants her to track down Ian Michaels, a homeless man with the ability to make nature bloom. No, it doesn't a lick of sense, given what we know of Emma's ability, but we just have to go with it. See, having attracted the hobo for Samuel by playing her cello in Central Park (a cursory glance around would have been just as effective!), Michaels later helps fertilize an area in the desert Samuel has apparently selected as his family's new home -- a kind of readymade Eden for super-people? It's enough to convince Claire he's on the level, anyway.

Most distressingly, Hiro (Masi Oka) is once again neutered by the writers because his character's always been too powerful -- even when operating at lower capacity because of a brain tumour. At this point in time, it's interesting to compare the use of Hiro to Misfits' Curtis, too, whose ability to control time is reactionary and never premeditated. Yes, the time-travel could have been reigned in that simply, Tim Kring. Anyway, after teleporting away from harm in "The Fifth Stage", as he was being drained of his ability by one of Samuel's henchmen, Hiro arrives back in Tokyo... but has now gone "crazy" after his mind-scramble, meaning he can only communicate via tedious references to fanboy trivia.

Ando (James Kyson Lee) comes to realize that Hiro's incessant chatter about "Arkham" and "swamp dragons" are a kind of geek-code indicating what happened to him and who was responsible. So, it looks like we're in for a mind-numbing adventure as the two friends are reunited to reference Star Wars, Star Trek, Don Quixote, Arthurian legend and Battlestar Galactica in an effort to get us back to the carnival. It's a time-wasting effort, pure and simple, because it was impossible to know what to do with Hiro at the carnival. Indeed, most people that Samuel "collects" tend to vanish within a few episodes, because there's really nothing interesting for them to do once they become part of Samuel's clique.

The episode ends with the funeral of Nathan Petrelli, whose suicide has been kept secret from the public, who were instead told he died in a plane crash. At this point, Heroes tries desperately to make his burial (with somber flag-folding and a fighter jet flyover) land an emotional punch, but it's incapable of doing so. As good as Adrian Pasdar was, Nathan was never a particularly emotive character. He was even a very annoying villain for part of season 3, and considering the fact he technically died a year ago, I've exhausted my sympathy for the Petrelli family's loss. Plus, it's always in the back of your mind that a spot of time-travel will facilitate Pasdar's return someday, however brief, as nobody's truly "dead" in Heroes' universe.

Overall, " Upon This Rock" just didn't interest me and quite a few of the subplots (Emma, Hiro) were listless bores that don't bode well for the future of those subplots. There were a few interesting moments with Samuel/Claire at the carnival, but not enough to make this episode worthwhile. Indeed, you could probably skip this hour entirely and not really have missed anything crucial to your understanding of the season's story.

"Let It Bleed" was definitely an improvement, but it was still pockmarked with problems, periods of monotony and dubious diversions. For reasons that don't make much sense, this episode actually takes places 86 hours before the funeral denouement of "Upon This Rock", begging the question: why not just stick to a linear timeframe, particularly considering the events here were twice as engaging as your mid-season premiere? I give up.

Claire is frustrated by the Petrelli's and her father (Jack Coleman) for keeping the fact Nathan (her biological dad) was actually an amnesiac Sylar (Zachary Quinto) in disguise all these months. The only person who understands her feelings is Peter (Milo Ventimiglia), who was also lied to -- although I didn't see him grabbing the phone to let Claire know the deal with "Nathan" when he discovered the truth, did you? Anyway, the half-siblings further bond, shortly before there's a rather extraneous subplot where Peter rages against the situation by rushing to the scene of an office place massacre...

A fired employee has gone crazy and started shooting his colleagues, but Peter's there to fend off the gun-toting desk-jockey with his current Haitian super-power of... being able to dampen other people's super-powers. Oh, okay, he can also knock people unconscious by touching their head, but it still looks like a terrible way to go about things. What if you get killed? That will really make your mother happy, losing two sons in as many days. Anyway, Claire tracks Peter to the office (both getting the jump on the emergency services, somehow) and, despite the fact Peter ends up getting shot after giving his best impassioned speech to the gunman (a very funny scene, the bullet the punchline), she uses her power to heal his wound. I also found it funny how Peter, the victim of a gunshot, was being left alone on a gurney in the street, instead of being rushed to hospital by paramedics.

Faring better was the subplot with Sylar arriving at the carnival to attack Samuel, for reasons I've forgotten about. I got a superficial kick out of seeing Samuel successfully defend himself from Sylar, by creating a localized dust-storm that literally twisted Sylar's flesh into gruesome deformities. That was good fun, and actually gave Samuel some added credibility as a worthy, powerful villain we should take seriously. He's often so introspective, lyrical and charming that you forget he's the season's primary antagonist. I know that's part of his character's makeup, but I think we need some stronger emphasis on Samuel being bad news now we've started the second wave of episodes.

Like Hiro, the show has never known quite what to do with Sylar's near-omnipotent powers, either. He's lost his abilities, he's found love and decided to go straight, he's had his body and soul literally torn apart. And now, well, it appears he's lost his killing instinct and has become "impotent", as Lydia puts it when she's sent to his trailer for an awkward sex scene. I guess some residual goodness leftover from Nathan has made Sylar this way, so I'm guessing we'll now have to watch Sylar get his groove back -- once again. Is anyone else feeling a sense of déjà vu? And I'm still confused by Lydia's power, incidentally. She can sense people's desires, right? So why does she sometimes need Samuel to inject her skin with ink to produce a tattoo for an easy visual? Anyway, Sylar steals Lydia's power (well, at least the writers remembered he can do that without slicing heads open), and Samuel gives him a tattoo that shows him his destiny: Claire.

There's also a subplot for Mr. Bennet, who manages to capture exiled Edgar (Ray Park), after the "speedster" sneaks into his apartment to kill him as a "peace offering" to Samuel. Together with Lauren (Elisabeth Röhm), they interrogate Edgar in a restaurant's freezer (which weakens his power), but despite coming to an arrangement to work together, Edgar instead chooses to flee when he's released. Which kind of means the whole subplot was needless, but it gave Park the most lines of dialogue he's ever had over his entire career.

Overall, both of these episodes were worryingly poor, offering a mix of pointless or tedious storylines and weak dialogue. Writers Juan Carlos Coto and Jim Martin are hardly the dream-team of Heroes' writing staff, but quite how these stories were given the blessing of the creative team and positioned as the mid-season premiere is anyone's guess. They nudged along a few elements of the season's arc (Samuel's plan), but they mostly ran around in circles (Edgar, Claire), reset a few characters (Hiro, Sylar), or wasted our time (Peter, Emma, Bennet). I wish I cared enough these days to get upset about this, but I'm just resigned to the fact Heroes blows hot and cold now.

4 January 2010
NBC, 9/8c

written by: Juan Carlos Coto (4.13) & Jim Martin (4.14) directed by: Ron Underwood (4.13) & Jeannot Szwarc (4.14) starring: Jack Coleman (Mr. Bennet), Hayden Panettiere (Claire), Adrian Pasdar (Nathan), Zachary Quinto (Sylar), Milo Ventimiglia (Peter), Robert Knepper (Samuel), Elisabeth Röhm (Lauren Gilmore), Dawn Olivieri (Lydia), Cristine Rose (Angela), Julian De La Celle (Young Samuel), Noah Greenwood (Shonen), Doug Haley (Young Joseph), Henry Hayashi (Ramen Vendor), Ray Park (Edgar) & David H. Lawrence XVII (Eric Doyle)

HEROES 4.12 - "The Fifth Stage"

[SPOILERS] The mid-season finale rocks up with a non-shock the producers gave away weeks ago (in a desperate bid to build some interest), and the usual assortment of fun, diverting, dumb moments. There's been nothing offensively bad about this fourth season, though, and nowadays expectations are so low that episodes slip by having entertained you for an hour. It's only when you stop to think about Heroes that the nitpicks and silliness begin to stack up, so best stick your brain in neutral and watch the pictures...

"The Fifth Stage" saw Claire (Hayden Panettiere) and Gretchen (Madeline Zima) arrive at the Sullivan Brothers' carnival, where they're greeted by Samuel (Robert Knepper) and given his smarmy conman routine to try and persuade her to stay. You know, the spiel about family and acceptance that he gives every other week. But given the fact Samuel still doesn't know his earth-moving powers are increased by the presence of other "specials", I'm not sure why he's so committed to swelling their ranks in this way. This was assumedly a style of recruitment Joseph would never have made standard practice, as he knew the danger that could arise if too many people with abilities surrounded his brother, so I guess it's just bad luck that Samuel's endangering everyone unwittingly? Damn, I'm thinking again...

While Gretchen is skeptical about the carnival, after seeing the staff exploiting their powers to trick people out of their money. The only evidence of this is that one stall holder prevented a bad-tempered man winning a prize, but allowed a cute girl to win -- which doesn't seem so bad to me (or Claire), but Gretchen's very principled it would seem. Claire's eventually persuaded to join the carnival on a trial basis, thanks to a combination of Lydia (Dawn Olivieri) literally illustrating her desire to become "The Indestructible Girl" with a tattoo, meeting reformed nemesis Eric "Puppetmaster" Doyle (David H. Lawrence), and seeing Samuel tell stories to a group of kids before bedtime.

The more interesting storyline followed Peter (Milo Ventimiglia), who went in search of Sylar (Zachary Quinto), armed with the Haitian's (Jimmy Jean-Louis) abilities of power-dampening and mind-erasure, determined to get his brother Nathan (Adrian Pasdar) back --- mind, body and soul. This led to another Peter/Sylar fist-fight, minus any super-powers (although Sylar somehow managed to shape-shift in Peter's presence to surprise him in an elevator), and a gruesome, unsubtle scene of Peter literally crucifying Sylar to wooden beams with a nail gun to entice Nathan to the surface.

Thank heavens for Pasdar (an actor who's far too good for the likes of Heroes), as he managed the impossible and made Nathan's farewell rather tender and emotional as the two Petrelli's said their goodbyes on a rooftop, with Nathan determined to commit suicide in order to end his existential suffering. It was a moment that almost worked perfectly, but was swiftly spoiled by chintzy special-effects of Nathan falling to his death in cheesy slow-motion. And then the fact Sylar simply walked away from this fall, the victor of this extended battle for his body, left you puzzled that Nathan's plan was so one-sided. Did he know his jump would only result in his death and not Sylar's? And why would that be the case anyway? I see no reason for Nathan dying if Sylar didn't, as they share the same body. Oh well. A major character has died and it didn't really land the gut-punch it once could have -- and am I alone in thinking Pasdar could be back anyway, considering the fact his real body is in cold storage? There's bound to be someone around who can resurrect the dead, or can transfer their spirit into a dead body to allow Pasdar the chance to play a different character. I guess it depends how well his career continues after Heroes.

There really wasn't much else going on in this episode, although Mr. Bennet (Jack Coleman) and Lauren (Elisabeth Röhm) shared a scene where he revealed that they had a sexual relationship before she "Haitian'd" herself Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind-style. Hey, don't sweat it Lauren, this romance was news to everyone watching up until a few episodes ago, too! Incidentally, doesn't the existence of the Haitian opens people up to abusive mind games? I mean, Lauren only has Bennet's word that they were once close lovers. I wonder how many Company relationships were started by employees convincing each other they were once madly in love but the Haitian got drunk and mind-wiped them at the Christmas party?

Overall, "The Fifth Stage" wasn't much of a mid-season finale, as nothing was particularly shocking or exciting enough to have you counting the days till its January return -- although I quite like the addition of Eli (Todd Stashwick), Samuel's new right-hand man who has the power to multiply his body. But this entire season has been more measured and deliberate than Heroes has ever been before, trading season 1's pace and season 3's craziness for something more slow-burning. It's worked quite well, but those who fell in love with Heroes because of its high-tempo and jaw-dropping surprises are probably a little bored, while those with patience are being given too much time to notice the undertow of silliness and directionless characters (like deaf Emma, who is yet to factor into the story in any meaningful way.)

30 November 2009
NBC, 9/8c

written by: Tim Kring directed by: Kevin Dowling starring: Jack Coleman (Mr. Bennet), Hayden Panettiere (Claire), Adrian Pasdar (Nathan), Zachary Quinto (Sylar), Milo Ventimiglia (Peter), Jimmy Jean-Louis (The Haitian), Robert Knepper (Samuel), Madeline Zima (Gretchen), Elisabeth Röhm (Lauren Gilmore), Dawn Olivieri (Lydia), Cristine Rose (Angela), Todd Stashwick (Eli), Bryan Krasner (Burly Guy), David H. Lawrence (Eric Doyle) & John Lee Ames (Game Operator)

HEROES 4.11 - "Thanksgiving"

[SPOILERS] Hot on the heels of Dexter's "Hungry Man", Heroes does its own Thanksgiving episode, but it's of a decidedly softer nature (i.e. no family meal ends with the c-bomb and strangulation... just arm and forehead slicing.) Is there some deep-seated issue with the American psyche regarding this holiday?

In "Thanksgiving", three of the show's most prominent families are brought together for anxious meals: the estranged Bennet's, the dysfunctional Petrelli's and the assorted oddballs of the carnival clique. It's a decent way to give an episode some shape and tackle things from a character perspective, but each subplot had its highs and lows. Mr. Bennet (Jack Coleman) is cooking for daughter Claire (Hayden Panettiere), his ex-wife Sandra (Ashley Crow) and her new beau Doug. Is this a likely scenario, given the fact the Bennet's have only just divorced? Do we really believe Sandra would look twice at someone as drippy as Doug? Well, I didn't buy a lot of it, but it was mildly amusing at times.

And, as predicted from the moment the show ret-conned her into existence a few episodes ago, Lauren (Elisabeth Röhm) walks back into Bennet's life and will no doubt become his hot, younger girlfriend. As someone who worked alongside Bennet in The Company, she'll be of more use to the show than Sandra ever was, but I still miss Bennet having that bedrock of a seemingly normal family. It was a fairly dull storyline in some ways, but it at least ended with the prospect of Claire, now reunited with Gretchen (Madeline Zima), using Samuel's spinning compass to go out and get some answers.

The Petrelli get-together was where the big development came, as Angela (Cristine Rose) decided to treat her sons Nathan (Adrian Pasdar) and Peter (Milo Ventimiglia) to the most underwhelming Thanksgiving dinner ever, despite her fortune. Would you really decide to eat around a tiny table in Peter's empty apartment? Regardless, the fun here was in seeing Angela squirm at the questions her sons ask her regarding Adrian's true nature, before she's forced to admit he's Sylar shape-shifted body with Adrian's mind stuck inside.

Needless to say, Ventimiglia's reaction to all of this was on par with dog's expression when told to get off the furniture. Still, there was fun to be had when Sylar (Zachary Quinto) finally managed to reassert his personality and, after an electrical lightshow, reunited his body and mind. But perhaps not his "soul"... as while attempting to kill Angela it appears that Nathan is still capable of regaining control of Sylar's body and does so. I guess this gives Nathan a Jekyll-&-Hyde personality now, which could be interesting to see play out. I just wish Heroes' producers hadn't already confirmed Pasdar's departure from the series, as it feels like we're just waiting for the inevitable. To counter that feeling, I have mild hope they've fed us misinformation so that when Sylar loses this battle we'll feel surprised.

Finally, Samuel (Robert Knepper) watched Chandra Suresh's film reel and now understands his dangerous potential. So, if he didn't know this before now, he's been gathering "specials" together for genuinely altruistic reasons? That seems like a slipup to me. Anyway, Hiro (Masi Oka) is upset that Samuel's still not telling him the whereabouts of girlfriend Charlie, and continues to have a hold over him as a result. He's once again too stupid to just go back in time and prevent Samuel from kidnapping her in the first place, too, but we'll cut the writers some slack there. Time-travel's always a bitch to write logically. Here, Hiro gets an ally in Lydia (Dawn Olivieri), who is confused that Samuel hasn't used Hiro's ability to save his brother from death, so orders him to take her back in time to witness the ambiguous death of Joseph first-hand. And, as we suspected from the very start, it was Samuel who killed him (by flinging a rock into his windpipe in a fit of pique) after he refused to tell him what his ability was.

Back in the present, Edgar (Ray Park) learned that Samuel murdered his own brother and covered it up, but when Samuel tries to pin the murder of Joseph on Edgar to conceal his own guilt, Hiro facilitates Edgar's escape by freezing time. But, Samuel's wise to what Hiro did, so appears to try and erase Hiro's power as punishment using the "mystic" henchman, but it doesn't appear to go according to plan and a youthful-sounding Hiro teleports away in the middle of the procedure. I'm hoping this doesn't signal a return to "kid Hiro" once again, as Oka's performances when he cranks Hiro up to eleven can get very grating, but the procedure did unfortunately feel similar to the one performed by Arthur Petrelli last season...

Overall, there was enough going on in "Thanksgiving" to make the episode worthwhile and entertaining, even if there were only really a few developments worth making note of. The Sylar/Adrian battle felt a bit flat considering its potential and extensive buildup, but hopefully there'll be better opportunities to deal with this situation now it's boiled down to a case of "split-personality". It's also interesting that the carnival isn't the pit of villainy we were led to believe it was, as everyone actually seems quite reasonable and likeable -- it's just Samuel who's becoming a megalomaniac. As usual, a mish-mash of good and bad notes, but certainly nothing to wholly dislike.

23 November 2009
NBC, 8/7c

written by: Adam Armus & Kay Foster directed by: Seith Mann starring: Jack Coleman (Mr. Bennet), Hayden Panettiere (Claire), Adrian Pasdar (Nathan), Zachary Quinto (Sylar), Cristine Rose (Angela), Milo Ventimiglia (Peter), Ashley Crow (Sandra), Robert Knepper (Samuel), Dawn Olivieri (Lydia), Ray Park (Edgar), Harry Perry (Damien), Sendhil Ramamurthy (Mohinder), Elisabeth Röhm (Lauren Gilmore), Dusty Sorg (Caleb), Madeline Zima (Gretchen)

HEROES 4.10 - "Brother's Keeper"

[SPOILERS] I never thought we'd get an episode that reintroduced Mohinder (Sendhil Ramamurthy) and actually made me feel reasonably pleased he's back. I'll probably grow to hate him all over again once his pretentious voice-overs resume, or he's easily tricked into helping the villains, but for now his role actually made sense and helped disperse the cloud of mystery surrounding Samuel (Robert Knepper)...

But first, Nathan (Adrian Pasdar) and Peter (Milo Ventimiglia) were told by The Haitian (Jimmy Jean-Louis) to look inside a shipping container across town, which was being used to store the dead body of the real Nathan -- complete with ugly stitching across his slashed neck. ~~But, wait, wasn't Nathan's body burned on that bonfire at the end of season 3, with everyone gathered around to pay their respects? Oh, it seems not. Another case of a Heroes retcon, I suppose.~~ Ignore all that, a commenter cleared up my confusion. Read on, nothing to see here...

Anyway, this bizarre discovery still isn't enough for Nathan to realize what's been happening to him, but when the Petrelli's hear about Matt's (Greg Grunberg) critical condition in hospital, they literally fly to his bedside and get some clearer answers. Peter used his restorative touch to heal Matt's gunshot injuries, unaware that he's delivered his brother (well, Sylar's body made to look like Nathan) to the Sylar residing in Matt's mind. It's amazing this stuff doesn't confuse me these days! Matt has regained control of his body following his brush with death and blurts out the truth to Nathan when he's revived (rather inexplicably, given how big a secret this all is), before Sylar takes over and tries to lure Nathan into touching him so they can become whole. And they do, indeed, accidentally touch -- but it appears that Sylar's transference into his own body doesn't result in instant reunification, as Nathan's psyche still has control.

An equally significant story shed light on exactly what Mohinder's been up to since the end of season 3. It turns out he moved back to India to become a teacher and has another beautiful girlfriend in tow, but he can't let go of the past -- symbolized by the fact he's kept his father's '60s research material from Coyote Sands. After playing an old film reel, Mohinder is intrigued by scratchy footage of his father Chandra's (Ravi Kapoor) fears about a newborn baby called Samuel, who appears able to draw on the power of other "specials" in the vicinity to boost his own ability. As Coyote Sands is an internment camp for dozens of people with special abilities, this means the infant's already responsible for a series of frightening earthquakes.

Mohinder is worried that such a person exists as an adult in the world -- as he could theoretically increase his power a thousand-fold in the right company -- so he tracked down the Sullivan Brothers' circus and met with Samuel's elder brother, Joseph -- a man who knows his sibling's dangerous potential, but has kept the truth hidden from Samuel for over 40 years. In the present, Samuel sends Hiro (Masi Oka) back in time to steal the film reel from Mohinder, seconds before it was destroyed to keep the secret safe. Hiro reluctantly obliges, so Samuel will tell him where his girlfriend Charlie's been hidden, but also uses his ability to prevent Mohinder's death when past-Samuel killed him for seemingly destroying the footage. There was even some welcome logic with the time-travel for once, as Hiro ensured the reprieved Mohinder can't now interfere with the timeline (as the past eight weeks of history could be riskily altered now Mohinder's alive to affect things), so he found a way to get him locked-up in a mental asylum for a few months.

With so much good work being done across the season's two main storylines, you may perhaps have expected the third subplot to be a tiresome bore, but it was actually quite an entertaining bridge towards better things. Here, Tracy (Ali Larter) went to Mr. Bennet's (Jack Coleman) looking for help, because her ability is becoming difficult to control and causing mayhem. Unfortunately, Bennet's not home, but Claire (Hayden Panettiere) is around and offers to try and help -- leading to some female bonding, semi-nakedness in a hot bath tub, and the comical scene of Claire being accidentally frozen solid and losing a foot. It's later revealed that Tracy is giving serious consideration to Samuel's offer of safe haven at his carnival, as the stresses of living amongst normal people is having an adverse effect on her capacity to control her power.

My usual practice when writing reviews is to never read anyone else's until my own has been posted online, then see if my thoughts and feelings were echoed by the majority of critics/fans. But there's a mosaic of opinion when it comes to Heroes. There are some reviews that savagely rip apart everything it does, others bow at the altar of season 1 but hate everything since then, others appear to have disliked the show since the very start (and now feel vindicated in their early hatred), some enjoy it as unchallenging entertainment, and others truly love what season 4's been doing.

I tend to agree with a wide variety of points all the critics make about Heroes -- it will always be known as the show that unnecessarily flushed away its own success, it writes itself into too many corners, it's not very logical when you pick it apart, its own rules are so silly that they undo any sense of drama (particularly when people "die"), but... I have to say that season 4 has been a lot better than it had any right to be. It's still too slow and awkward at times, plus it lacks big action moments (have NBC put their foot down over the budget, which proved unmanageable last year?), but "Brother's Keeper" seemed to prove that there's a coherent sweep of narrative beneath the surface.

Hey, the new information about Samuel's hazardous potential might even explain the future Hiro visited in season 3, where the planet was seen literally splitting apart. Is it all coming together?

16 November 2009
NBC, 9/8c

written by: Rob Fresco & Mark Verheiden directed by: Bryan Spicer starring: Jack Coleman (Mr. Bennet), Hayden Panettiere (Claire Bennet), Adrian Pasdar (Nathan Petrelli), Zachary Quinto (Sylar), Milo Ventimiglia (Peter Petrelli), Greg Grunberg (Matt), Benjamin Fitch (Officer Ramsey), Jimmy Jean-Louis (The Haitian), Ravi Kapoor (Young Dr. Chandra Suresh), Aleene Khoury (Student), Robert Knepper (Samuel Sullivan) & Kavi Ladnier (Mira Shenoy)

HEROES 4.9 - "Shadowboxing"

[SPOILERS] Things are slowly coming together, I suppose. Heroes has felt loathe to put too much pace into the stories this year -- fearing mid-season burn-out without a two-volume split, perhaps? It's resulted in a rather careful structure of alternating plotlines and slowburn developments, mixed with the usual smorgasbord of stupid, creative, pointless and fun moments...

"Shadowboxing" found most of the characters dealing with a negative force. Sylar (Zachary Quinto) has now assumed full bodily control of Matt (Greg Grunberg) and is on his way to New York to find his own missing body, and Matt has been relegated to an irritating spectre. With the tables reversed, it's another battle-of-wits subplot between the pair -- with Matt getting "himself" arrested at the airport and delayed four hours, before Sylar tried to assert control by threatening to kill innocent people if Matt keeps being a nuisance.

Having bludgeoned a helpful motorist to prove his point, and threatened to kill a waitress at the Burnt Toast Diner (yes, they love that set), the story ended on a very compelling note... as Matt managed to alert the police by having Sylar idly doodle a distressing message on a napkin, leading to the diner being surrounded by squad cars, and Matt deciding to end Sylar's tyranny by forcing the cops to fill his body full of lead.

This was by far the strongest storyline, even if the situation with Matt/Sylar has begun to feel overplayed, and the fact Matt's body has been sprayed with bullets (with no life-saving characters around to save him) has me very interested. The creators have stated that a regular character will be written out this year, and despite revealing who that will be, a part of me would like to think they've sold us a fib and it's Greg Grunberg who's leaving. That's the kind of surprise I'd love to see them pull off, but a more sensible part of me still thinks Matt's just going to survive his wounds miraculously, or time-traveller Hiro will sort things out retrospectively at some point.

The weakest story was, not for the first time, centered on Peter (Milo Ventimiglia) and Emma (Deanne Bray), but it had a few nice moments to break-up the tedium. Here, Peter now has a far more useful superpower for a paramedic (the ability to heal the sick or wounded), but he's growing exhausted after an influx of dying patients following a bus crash. We also learn that Emma was once a promising medical student, but dropped out after a family tragedy (which she could have averted if she was able to hear), and I had to wonder why Peter doesn't use his new ability to cure Emma's deafness.

The most relevant storyline with regard to the season arc was undoubtedly Claire's (Hayden Panettiere), as we jumped back a few episodes to continue her college adventure. Her dad (Zack Coleman) and The Haitian (Jimmy Jean-Louis) are on campus, erasing memories where necessary and trying to locate invisible Becky. Gretchen (Madeline Zima) decides to leave for home, as recent events have her fearing for her life, which obviously upsets her (girl)friend Claire. But now it's time for Samuel (Robert Knepper) to make his presence known, and he once again gives his spiel about family and the comfort in only mixing with people who understand the difficulties "special" people face. I'm still not sure that anything he offers is of value, and his shtick certainly doesn't work on Claire, who has a solid relationship with her dad and no reason to literally run away to be with circus freaks.

Becky's actions are also given some credibility, as flashbacks reveal that Mr Bennet shot her father dead in front of her. She was taken in by the Sullivan Brothers carnival and recently accepted Samuel's mission to alienate Claire in exchange for a chance to punish the man who killed her dad. Of course, this new information again painted The Company as little more than exterminators of people with abilities, which seems to contradict other episodes. To be honest, I don't think anyone had ever settled on a definite explanation for what The Company were created to do; their ethics and working practices appear to change according to what the story needs to put across.

Overall, I actually enjoyed "Shadowboxing" quite a lot. It had some rough patches and I'd nitpick more if I wasn't treating Heroes as trivial entertainment nowadays, but it did a decent job of sweeping me along with the stories. I liked the nuggets of information we gleamed about Emma and Becky's backstories, the Matt/Sylar story was great fun (capped with perhaps the season's best shock), and it was interesting to hear that Samuel's late-brother was killed by Danko. But how does the dead Mohinder fit into all this? Did Samuel avenge his brother's death by killing the wrong man, and now needs Hiro's help to correct his mistake? Surely not, as that would put Samuel in a righteous light, and isn't he supposed to be the big villain this year?

9 November 2009
NBC, 9/8c

written by: Misha Green & Joe Pokaski directed by: Jim Chory starring: Jack Coleman (Mr. Bennet), Hayden Panettiere (Claire Bennet), Adrian Pasdar (Nathan Petrelli), Deanne Bray (Emma Coolidge), Zachary Quinto (Sylar), Milo Ventimiglia (Peter Petrelli), Zoe Bolden (5 year old Becky), Anna Clark (Megan), Assaf Cohen (Hesam), Jarvis W. George (Patrick), Jimmy Jean-Louis (The Haitian), Robert Knepper (Samuel Sullivan), Jason Konopisos (TSA Agent), Omar Leyva (Doctor), Dawn Olivieri (Lydia), Candice Patton (Olivia), Kat Purgal (Allison), Danica Stewart (Ashley), Tessa Thompson (Rebecca Taylor) & Madeline Zima (Gretchen Berg)

HEROES 4.8 - "Once Upon A Time In Texas"

[SPOILERS] Heroes literally goes back to its heyday with "Once Upon A Time In Texas", an episode that desperately tried to resurrect some of its old magic, but which ultimately fell flat despite a smattering of enjoyable moments and a winning performance from Masi Oka...

As part of his "bucket list" to right some wrongs before he dies of a brain tumour, Hiro (Oka) travels backs in time by three years, arriving at the Burnt Toast diner in Odessa, Texas. There he intends to defeat Sylar (Zachary Levi), who famously added perky waitress Charlie (Jayma Mays) to his list of victims back when he was a brain-eating enigma with a penchant for baseball caps. As previous time-hopping adventures have proven, it proves to be a difficult temporal knot for Hiro to undo, as saving Charlie's life will forever alter the timeline (something already explored during the storyline this episode revisited), and she's destined to die of a brain aneurism anyway. It appears the only person able to perform life-saving surgery on Charlie is Sylar, the man who wants her dead so he can steal her photographic memory. Can Hiro trust Sylar to help by promising the killer knowledge of the future?

Okay, it sounds like an interesting story with some fun (if overused) temporal dilemmas on paper, but it just felt too retrograde visiting the first season in this fashion. This was Heroes' own Back To The Future: Part II, in many ways; entertaining and diverting, but intrinsically parasitic. Any new information we gleamed about the characters was barley worth the effort, beyond the fact Mr. Bennet (Jack Coleman) was revealed to have been having an affair with colleague Danielle Savre (Elisabeth Röhm) -- who felt so bad about it that she had her memories erased by the Haitian, a la Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind. Considering the fact Bennet's separated from his wife in 2009, I assume this is a means for the writers to have Bennet resume his interest in Danielle when the plot returns to the present.

Give the episode's title, it came as no surprise that "Once Upon A Time In Texas" contained nods to Westerns -- mainly through Hiro's strange decision to disguise himself with a white cowboy stetson, an alleyway "quickdraw" duel between Hiro and Sylar (complete with a whistling soundtrack), and an embarrassing cowboy impression from the cheerful time-traveller. For all its goofiness, at least Heroes can still do goofy.

Thankfully, there was a stronger presence in Samuel (Robert Knepper) to alleviate the frivolity, who has grown impatient waiting for Hiro to join his carnival of his own accord because he needs the services of a time-traveller now. So, the Irish carnival barker was sent back in time by his own ailing master of the Space/Time continuum to warn Hiro against changing the past. Hiro was initially receptive to the advice of the "buttlerfly man" who inspired this humanitarian mission in the first place, but after Hiro succeeds in keeping Charlie alive and the timeline intact, Samuel kidnaps the redhaired waitress and hides her somewhere in Space and Time. Now, the only way for Hiro to find his true love is to help Samuel change his own personal history, as a flashback to eight weeks prior shows him standing over the dead body of... Mohinder (Sendhil Ramamurthy)

Overall, "Once Upon A Time In Texas" washed over me for the most part, although it was nice to see the delightful Mays again and I liked how Hiro is being blackmailed into helping Samuel. The reveal that Samuel's transgressions would turn his family against him, and somehow involves Mohinder*, was also interesting and further proof that the carnival element has actually been seson 4's biggest success. It's just a shame the storylines Samuel occasionally bleeds into are fairly bland and lack a sense of urgency.

I guess your response to this episode will be largely informed by your affection for Hiro/Charlie as a couple, and your tolerance for the writers brazenly basking in the afterglow of a time when Heroes was -- briefly -- the topic of conversation on everyone's lips.

2 November 2009
NBC, 9/8c

written by: Aron Eli Coleite & Aury Wallington directed by: Nate Goodman starring: Jack Coleman (Mr. Bennet), James Kyson Lee (Ando), Masi Oka (Hiro), Hayden Panettiere (Claire), Zachary Quinto (Sylar), Jayma Mays (Charlie Andrews), Robert Knepper (Samuel Sullivan), Dawn Olivieri (Lydia), Sendhil Ramamurthy (Mohinder), Elisabeth Röhm (Danielle Savre) & Candace Smith (Miss Roberts)

* I sincerely hope they have a good reason for bringing Mohinder back. It was awkward how he just vanished from the narrative with no explanation, but his character was so moribund that nobody cared. Let's just hope his return doesn't mean more pretencious voice-overs are in order...

HEROES 4.7 - "Strange Attractors"

[SPOILERS] My thoughts about Heroes' "Strange Attractors" are analogous to those of previous episodes this year: a trio of competent, entertaining subplots, each with at least one relevant development to impart, and nothing more. Season 4 is definitely trying a slow-burn style we haven't seen on the show before, as there's nothing to get terribly upset about (unlike the slothfully messy season 2), but there's a pervasive sense of tedium at times. I want this season to roar into life, but someone's churning the gearbox.

Claire (Hayden Panettiere) is grappling with her sexual feelings for Gretchen (Madeline Zima), as I'm sure many fanboys are "grappling" with themselves over the pair's lesbian kiss in episode 5 (ahem). Here, as Claire and Gretchen are kidnapped by the sorority sisters and abandoned in a slaughterhouse as part of a creepy initiation test with two vacuous Valley girls. As Claire and Gretchen wander around the house of horrors, trying to interpret clues left behind to succeed at various challenges, they're both attacked by Becky -- the head sorority girl who's actually an invisible pest sent by carnival barker Samuel (Robert Knepper) to ensure Claire's isolation. Complications are sure to arise from the fact Claire manages to prevent Becky strangling Gretchen with a metal chain, but the invisible girl gets away after a brief fight witnessed by the co-ed airheads.

The most irrelevant storyline came courtesy of Mr. Bennet (Jack Coleman), whose plan to get teenage life/death-dealer Jeremy's (Mark L. Young) life back on-track hits a snag. Despite having convincingly made the death of Jeremy's parents look like monoxide poisoning, local cops are aware of Jeremy's reputation in the community and decide to keep him in for questioning. Bennet decides to summon Tracy (Ali Larter) down to Hicksville, to pose as Jeremy's "Aunt Tracy" after he (somehow) managed to forge credible ID to backup this lie. City slicker Tracy arrives and tries to convince the indomitably insular Jeremy to let them help him. Outside, Samuel appears to Tracy and transports her to his carnival, imploring her to release Jeremy into his charge. Even working girl Tracy is half-tempted to join the carnie, after hearing Samuel's alluring talk of safety and protection with his mindful family.

Finally, Matt (Greg Grunberg) is alarmed to discover that Sylar (Zachary Quinto) is growing more powerful in his mind and has found a way to control his body while he's unconscious, or asleep. After finally revealing his mental torment to wife Janice (Lisa Lackey) and telling her to leave town while he battles his psyche's squatter, Matt discovers that he can erase Sylar by getting drunk. It's an amusing, if on-the-nose symbol of Matt's alcoholism (he's literally drinking his inner demons away, geddit?), but it worked quite well. The twist, that Sylar has managed to gain full control of Matt's body while he was in a stupor (their situation reversed) was an inciting way to end things this episode.

Overall, "Strange Attractors" was impossible to hate, tough to love. A few moments prodded our understand of the season's story arc along (the spinning compass is just a means for "supers" to find the carnival, boringly), and there was enough to keep you interested to see what happens next. I'm still intrigued by Samuel, mainly because his objective to gather the characters together (to be acts in his travelling carnival?) doesn't appear to be that malevolent. He appears to be offering them genuine sanctuary from the difficulties of social integration as Übermensch. In the closing moments, it's even possible to cheer for him, as he uses his ability to bury a police department containing cops that killed poor Jeremy by dragging him through the streets tied to the back of a squad car.

26 October 2009
NBC, 9/8c

written by: Carlos Coto directed by: Tucker Gates starring: Jack Coleman (Mr. Bennet), Greg Grunberg (Matt Parkman), Ali Larter (Tracy Strauss), Hayden Panettiere (Claire Bennet), Zachary Quinto (Sylar), Randy Flagler (Deputy Gill), Robert Knepper (Samuel Sullivan), Lisa Lackey (Janice Parkman), Erin Allin O'Reilly (Fire Breather Mom), Kat Purgal (Allison), Mark L. Young (Jeremy) & Madeline Zima (Gretchen Berg)

HEROES 4.6 - "Tabula Rasa"

[SPOILERS] The fourth season is still moving too leisurely for my taste, while apparently losing track of a few subplots (whatever happened to Matt?), and it feels like the itinerant focus of the carnival is a mystery the writers intend to stretch out for as long as possible. I'm not sure it's justifying the patience it asks of the audience, as they just appear to be "collecting" heroes and indoctrinating them into their family; the first big catch being Sylar (Zachary Quinto)...

Titular "blank slate" Sylar has been taken in by Samuel (Robert Knepper) and promised the return of his memories, although Samuel is puzzled that the infamous Sylar is a tame beast, and confused that some of his memories don't appear to be his own. Sylar's rehabilitation involves getting close to the tattooed Olivia (Dawn Olivieri), which makes burly Edgar (Ray Park) jealous, and visiting a mystic in the Hall Of Mirrors who unlocks his memories and has his crimes projected in the mirror's reflections. With the truth exposed about his criminal past, will Sylar return to his old ways, or can he make a clean break?

There was also another of those diverting subplots Heroes likes to play with occasionally; little stories with shallow depth and heaps of predictability. Here, Peter (Milo Ventimiglia) vowed to help the terminally ill Hiro (Masi Oka) by leeching his power and teleporting with Mr. Bennett (Jack Coleman) to visit a young healer who may be able to mend Hiro's condition. Knowing he lives in a world of superheroes, it's strange this never occurred to Hiro, really.

Arriving at Jimmy Keppler's (Daniel Newman) rundown house, Peter and Bennett discover the boy has since lost control of his ability and now has a tragic "death touch." But not to worry, after the paranoid Jimmy shoots interloper Peter with a shotgun, Bennett restores the teenager's confidence and his curative ability at the same time -- literally after a two-minute chat. Too bad his parents are now stinking corposes sat in their sofas, past help. Quite why Peter decided to take Jimmy's power and get a plane back to see Hiro was another oddity, as surely it would make more sense to teleport Jimmy to Hiro's bedside, lickety-split?

At the hospital, Hiro's now irritating nice-guy act has him resolve to prove to Emma (Deanne Bray) that her new ability isn't to be feared. He does this through performing a magic act for patients, where freezing time is an obvious benefit for making people disappear, and Emma is duly convinced her own power may have its uses, too.

Really, I'm not even sure why ever Emma feared her power to begin with, as it's surely of great practical use to a deaf person. It may be quite unusual, but considering other characters quickly got used to flying and mind-reading, seeing sound as colour doesn't strike me as particularly problematic. Particularly as there's a real world condition called synesthesia that's very similar. Last week, we saw that Emma can control the soundwaves and use them as sonic weapons, so it would make more sense if she had been having real problems controlling that aspect of her ability before grouching about it. Still, one intriguing throwaway line confirmed that the cello Emma found in her apartment wasn't her own, so I'm guessing someone from the carnival left it there to poke her development along.

I think only having three subplots to flit between is a good move, as previous seasons got terribly convoluted with its four or five plot-strands. Of course, in the early days those five parallel storylines would each be involving and interesting, but those days have long gone. It's not that the stories here were bad, just that they feel a bit listless; Hiro and Emma were quite forgettable together, Bennett and Peter were stuck in a very predictable situation, so only Sylar's storyline actually had some weight to it. But I've grown tired of seeing Sylar face his own monstrosity and feeling guilty about it -- that happens in various ways most years.

Overall, I couldn't get excited about this episode, but it certainly wasn't terrible. It at least treated the characters like proper human beings and I liked the theme throughout this season that people are trying to start over with a blank slate. I'm just waiting for the story to shift into a higher gear, as it's becoming a bit laborious waiting for the strings to be pulled together. I think we all know the carnival are basically manipulating superheroes into joining their travelling "family", but I'm not sure how interesting it'll be seeing them add to their numbers. And surely whoever is taken under their wing next won't stay long with notorious super-villain Sylar around?

19 October 2009
NBC, 9/8c

written by: Rob Fresco directed by: Jim Chory starring: Milo Ventimiglia (Peter), Zachary Quinto (Sylar), Masi Oka (Hiro), Hayden Panettiere (Claire), Robert Knepper (Samuel Sullivan), Deanne Bray (Emma), Ernie Hudson (Captain Lubbock), Jack Coleman (Mr. Bennet), Dawn Olivieri (Lydia), Ray Park (Edgar), Daniel Newman (Jimmy Keppler) & Ellen Greene (Virginia Grey)

HEROES 4.5 - "Hysterical Blindness"

[SPOILERS] First of all, let's congratulate British director SJ Clarkson for making her US TV debut with "Hysterical Blindness". Having previously tackled time-travel (Life On Mars), serial-killers (Whitechapel) and a lesbian storyline (Mistresses) in the UK, she should feel right at home on Heroes...

After weeks of sometimes painful drip-feeding, there's a bit more pace to this fourth episode, and the carnival mystery demists slightly. Each of the three subplots being juggled were entertaining in their own right (which is half the battle for Heroes these days), so while I still don't feel thrilled overall, this did feel like an overdue step forward.

The weakest story belonged to Peter (Milo Ventimiglia), although his budding romance of deaf hospital file clerk Emma (Deanne Bray) is at least more mature writing than you'd expect from Heroes. Here, there's a really quite wonderful sequence where Emma watches a police car pass her, its siren emanating pink light, distracting her enough to wander in front of bus, whereby super-fast Peter rescues her from a squelchy end. And, of course, having touched her, Peter unwittingly leeches Emma's ability and (in quite a funny, "impotent Superman" scene) discovers he's no longer gifted with super-speed as he tries to hotfoot it down an alley.

With Peter finally realizing Emma's deaf (she's deaf, he's dumb, it's a match made in heaven!) and getting to grips with her newfound ability, he realizes he has something in common with her through which to make a connection. Although his later avowal she's part of a genus of people with super-powers inevitably scares her away! It was also nice to see that Emma's apparently useless power (albeit helpful for a blind person) does pack an unexpected punch, as she accidentally brandishes the sound-waves from playing a cello and cracks her apartment's wall in half with the sonics.

Elsewhere, Sylar (Zachary Quinto) emerged from his shallow grave and was found by passing policeman Captain Lubbock (Ghostbusters' Ernie Hudson), who had a psychologist (Christine Adams) analyse him to determine he's suffering from a type of aphasia. It's yet another way to de-fang Sylar, who is now reduced to a wide-eyed chowderhead because his true personality is residing in Matt Parkman's mind. Of course, once Lubbock identifies Sylar as New York watchmaker Gabriel Gray, a fugitive wanted for murdering his mother, Sylar's powers begin to exhibit themselves in self-defense and he escapes with the psychologist he formed an attachment to.

Despite this being a somewhat repetitive way to neuter the near-omnipotent Sylar for the umpteenth time, at least the story developed swiftly and ended on a promising note -- with Sylar evading capture through a forest crawling with cops, to stumble upon the Sullivan Brothers' circus, thus becoming the carny's first "catch". It was a welcome sign of direction for Samuel's (Robert Knepper) group, too, as it appears confirmed they exist to lure "supers" into their close-knit family. The moment of Samuel's appearance with his teleporting circus was suitably eerie and fanciful, too; a moment of true magical wonderment in a starchy sci-fi world.

The carnival don't really have much to do this episode, but their background scheming provided a fun conclusion to Claire's (Hayden Panettiere) story this week. The college adventures of Claire Bennett were in danger of becoming a plodding bore, but this episode perked things up as Claire starts to believe her new friend Gretchen (Madeline Zima) has ulterior motives for getting to know her...

After discovering Gretchen's laptop is full of photos and articles about her and her suicidal roomie (nutters don't delete their internet history in TV-land), Claire faces the worrying possibility that Gretchen an obsessive stalker-type. During Claire and Gretchen's attempt to be accepted into a sorority during a social "mixer", a girl Claire was talking to narrowly misses being skewered by a fallen flagpole, and Claire becomes convinced Gretchen's insecure enough to murder those standing between them (including her dead roommate?)

But in a rather neat development, it's revealed that Gretchen's not sinister at all. She's just a little infatuated with the diminutive former-cheerleader and seals her feelings with a surprising kiss*, seconds before the sorority clique arrived to formally welcome them into their house. And then came a clever twist I hadn't considered, as we meet Samuel's niece, sorority girl Becky -- who has the power of invisibility and has been manipulating Claire's college experience from day one (pushing her roommate out the window to her death, trying to frame Gretchen for murder) all in a bid to try and isolate her.

So it seems that Samuel's family are trying to maneuver people into joining their mob, willingly. I'm not sure what their ultimate plan could be, or how it ties into Samuel's dead brother and that compass tattoo, but at least the carnival feels like it has its finger in more than one pie now. I'm not sure it's been wise to resort to a treacle-like pace with the emphasis on characterisation these past five episodes, purely to ensure the story lasts the distance, but that's always been a problem for Heroes. It's either ladling on the special-effects and action to a deadening degree, or testing your patience with its often feeble attempts to appear more meaningful than it could ever be.

Still, credit where it's due, "Hysterical Blindness" was a satisfactory episode and perhaps the best of this season so far. Incidentally, not that I miss him and his pretentious voice-overs, but what the hell happened to Mohinder?

12 October 2009
NBC, 9/8c

written by: Joe Pokaski directed by: SJ Clarkson starring: Milo Ventimiglia (Peter), Zachary Quinto (Sylar), Masi Oka (Hiro), Cristine Rose (Angela), Hayden Panettiere (Claire), Robert Knepper (Samuel Sullivan), Madeline Zima (Gretchen), Louise Fletcher (Doctor), Deanne Bray (Emma), Christine Adams (Police Psychologist) & Ernie Hudson (Captain Lubbock)

* A moment used to publicize Heroes weeks before the episode in question actually aired, which felt a bit desperate of NBC.

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