My "Heroes"?

The year is 2006, and I am in Syracuse, NY. It is a Monday night, and I am working on my thesis. My good friend comes to my room where I am working and asks me what I'm doing. I inform him I am working on my thesis. "But Heroes is on!", he says. "What's that?", I say. He informs me that it is a show about mutants, and it's awesome and if anyone would be into it it would be me. I tell him he's wrong, because there is no way they could do it original - they would just have to bite off of Marvel or DC comics. He tells me I should try it out, the previous week a girl died and was getting cut open and her chest healed back together on the table like Wolverine, and she got up and walked away, and that it was pretty awesome. "Great", I reply, sarcastically. The truth is I can use a break from work, so I walk downstairs with him begrudgingly, packing my laptop under my arm. I attempt to watch at the same time I attempt to continue my work.

A few months later, both my friend and myself had passed our thesis, and Heroes had become my new favorite show. Nothing was like it, and no other show that I was watching seemed to compare (other than The Wire, but I was able to write that off as a different genre). Season 1 includes the first few episodes laying out the entire 20+ (maybe even 30+) episode season, where you know what happens at the end - New York blows up, and different people on earth have an interest in stopping it. They don't know one another, and the writing really made the first season great. Not just good, but great. To take a ridiculous premise like mutants, and make it into a mainstream popular show that is liked by both freaks (like me) and normies (like you) is incredibly impressive.

Enter Season 2, or as I like to call it, the beginning of the crapfest. Season 2 starts out interesting enough - mutant plague that wipes out the planets population, a main character dies, another main character is possibly evil. Great. The writers strike didn't help this season, but it certainly didn't do it in. The introduction of new characters and more ridiculous plot lines were what ruined it. Season 1 is a destruction of a city, Season 2 is the destruction of the human population - somewhat cliche transition, but whatever, I was ready to go with it. Seasons 3 & 4 (I really don't think they intended to make two short and crappy seasons, I just think it happened that way) occurred in the same "season". Season 3 introduces "Papa Petrelli" as a bad guy who seems invincible (thankfully they killed him off) and Season 4 introduces more backstory that doesn't enhance, but confuses the entire story.

I've said for a while that what they should really do is begin this season with Angela Petrelli awaking from a dream, and, thank god, the past three seasons have been just that - a bad dream. The beginning of Season 2 was so promising, and they crapped it up. Since I am (somewhat) watching the season premiere now, I can tell that is not going to happen. They should have copied a different X-Men plot line, something a little more manageable. Season 2 was supposed to be the mutant plague and was probably going to end with Peter (who has Claire's super-human ability to heal) sacrificing himself to create an antivirus - why not just take the Senator Kelly angle and have someone else pushing Nathan to the top and have a few government officials get dropped in the meantime. I don't think they would have needed to add characters like crazy to do that. Who knows, who cares. It's already screwed up.

As I'm watching this premiere, I'm wondering why these obviously powerful mutants have never shown themselves. This one dude makes tattoos (why?!), and this other dude has really fast moving knives (really, why?!). How did they never show up before now? The first season is a worldwide event that unites these people, how were so many mutants left out, honestly lol? Why does Ali Larter have this new character. I liked the old one who would pass out and would wake up with people ripped in half like Chewbacca went berserk. That was a great story line - great scene in Season 1 when she is talking to herself in the mirror, siick.

Ordinary people doing extraordinary things. Sweet. Now it's special people doing really stupid things (my description sounds like the special olympics). It's just not interesting. The stories are unnecessarily complex. Why is that small chick from The Nanny Claire's roommate? She's weird.

Season 1 ends with Peter about to explode and fulfill Issac's prophecy (also, Issac's power was seeing the future when he was on Heroine, are you kidding me?! That's awesome!) and then Nathan comes in to pull Peter away in time to save the city and possibly sacrifice themselves. Very good ending. Simple, elegant. Now I have Sylar (who is still alive and 'impersonating' Nathan) talking to Matt Parkman in his mind. Why? How? Matt is the Professor X of this show. No one can control him, AND he's brash. If anyone should be drunk with power it should be him. Forget it. I was going to try to give this season a chance, but I think Heroes is as good as dead. It died the day Season 2 started. Hiro became his own hero and the subject of the fairytale stories his father told him as a kid - it was him all along! Oh-em-gee, like I give a shit. And how come that guy Adam was the only one who had healing power before Claire? Would we have all these evil power-drunk dudes from feudal Japan?

I give Season 1 5 out of 5 BuDa's, and the story since then 1 out of 5. This show is terrible. Have people really go evil, or really go good. I'm sick of this Sylar is good, no he's still bad, but he's kind of good, but he's still a bit evil, but he is rational and might be good... but he's not and Kristen Bell is dead. Why am I supposed to care about a story in which the characters change their basic convictions for no apparent reason, and others who are still performing the same crazy shit. Hiro is boring because he's been doing the same thing since Season 1 and it never goes anywhere. I don't think this show has until the first hiatus before they get desperate.