Monday 22 December 2008

A TV Diversion rant: What's up with Heroes?


Anyone who's seen this show in its horrible third season knows how scatty it has become. Its painfully aimless, shooting for so many targets at once it ends up missing them all and embracing shitness that was merely hinted at in season 2. It was never that great in the first place, to be fair, but was an enjoyable enough guilty pleasure. The kind of thing that you could just kick back in front of without committing to much brain and enjoy. The fun factor is not to be under-estimated. So what has made it presently such a chore to watch, what has it lost since the beginning?




What made season 1 good?

. Simple. It was breezy and really only had the one on-going plot line, more about the characters.


. All the characters had more personal stories. Not everything was about the big picture.


. It had wonderfully to the point villainy in Sylar. He was iconic, dangerous and a terrific adversary. Never close to being matched in later seasons. Even their lame attempts to redux Sylar fell flat.


. It had a direction, and you get the sense that they actually had a long-term pan. Syke.


What made later season so horrible?

Lameass villains. Every single one was a dud, from the nightmare man to Arthur Petrelli. Adam Monroe had some mild potential, but was painfully wasted.


. Lameass new characters, The mexican twins who spent a season running around with no real point.


. Lameass recycled plotlines. The world is coming to an end, what's new. Come up with some new ideas, guys. Villains don't need to destroy the world to be threatening.


. Lameass writing. Poor episode to episode quality with writers having no real clue how to write stand-alone episodes.


. Lameass repitition. If I have to hear that dude say I did it to protect my daughter one more time I'm gonna find a way to kill Claire just to shut him up. Say a different line already.


. Lameass overuse of 'look we killed a major character...except no we didn't'. Nobody likes this device. Nobody except the smug SOB writing it. F*ck your fake cliffhangers man.




Still season 3 did give us this awesome clip. So there's that.






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