I think Heroes might be dead after the next 13 of "Chapter 4"

They just cancelled the video game.

Heh, depends on the episode in question, IMO. The writing is wildly inconsistent, is how I've seen it. We definitely had more good episodes and a promising start in Season 1 (though I agree with most Heroes fans that the finale was a let down in a whole lotta ways), but it was by no means perfect. Just showed a lot of potential and ambition and it was genuinely fun to watch that year (I cared about most of the characters a lot more back then and I'll admit to falling for the whole Bennet family storyline, which unfortunately has felt like it's been repeating itself since that first year, somewhat). I didn't have as many problems with Season 2 as a lotta folks did, but the better episodes were definitely in the second half of that shortened season. Season 3 so far is just...I mean yeah we might get a cool moment here and there, a bit of the old show and characters shine through, the acting is still strong (sometimes in spite of the writing), but they've really dropped the ball.

The dialogue has always unremarkable, just services the plot, but it's made me cringe in places, even in Season 1. Sometimes it seemed to depend on who the writer was and which character they were writing for. It's never been so consistently bad that it's made me want to stop watching though.

TaraLivesOn said:


I'm not sure I'd take a cancelled video game as a good sign of the death knell being sounded for the series, game deals fall through all the time and then show up again years later. How are the ratings for this year though ? I know at the beginning of the season the network was pretty disappointed in 'em.

If cancellation looks likely, I hope Tim Kring has enough foresight to end things. I'm not gonna buy a Heroes comic book, so they better not pull that shit (I'm thinking back to when Carnivale guy Daniel Knauf talked about finishing off the series in comic book or novel form...to be fair, the second season of that series had been finished before HBO axed it, so those would've been his only format choices to finish the story, had it ended up happening).

They can tell us what the original 5-year plan was on the Season 3 DVDs. I wouldn't mind knowing all the different versions of it too, from how Season 1 was meant to go down if Claire's friend Zack had stayed (and not gone on to become John Connor), had Noah Bennet not become a breakout character...how Season 2 would've played out in full...how Season 3 was planned before Tim Kring decided to respond to viewer complaints and "fix" things. If he really did have things planned out in detail.

I finally caught up on the last two episodes and I still don't know where they are going.

But it is getting a bit boring.

Apparently the upcoming eclipse episode was supposed to correct the entire course of this series, but then the lead production management is now fired so who knows what's happening.

I don't get the father figure. Did he always have all the powers? Is he the original source? Doesn't explain why so many others have power though.

Can someone remind me who was the disabled man in the wheelchair that Peter used to take care of - what was his relationship to Peter and how did he know he was there when he was invisible? Has that storyline been discarded?

By the way, how come Claire has to fly for awhile to get to Pinehearst and her flying father was there with freezing girl in what seemed like minutes. There was some kind of time loss.

WTF?!? Claire can fly now too? And there's ANOTHER character that has all the powers?!?

...I'm so glad I finally gave up on this show.

I don't remember Claire flying.

No no, Claire flew a plane, with Elle, to get to Pinehearst. Claire still only heals herself (and her blood can heal/resurrect others--sprinkle a bunch on Adam Munroe's ashes, damn it) and apparently doesn't feel pain, except for when oxygen is cut off.



We don't know yet. At the very least, as indicated by the flashback, he seemed to have Matt Parkman-like mental control powers (though perhaps not telepathy ? Just the ability to assert his will over others ?). Who knows whether the ability-stealing was always a part of him or only came while he was hospitalized at Pinehearst. Maybe the scientists used him for a bunch of experiments and ended up producing a more extreme version of Peter's power (ie, stealing the power entirely, rather than aquiring/copying). Maybe we'll find out more tonight.

I don't think we're meant to get the impression that Arthur Patrelli is the original source (unless we find out that he's longer-lived than Adam was). They haven't implied that he's immortal and ancient, so far. I think they're only touching on the father because he was a background plot point in Season 1 and Tim Kring may've always had him in the original 5-season plan.

I'm okay with his inclusion, but not sure how much I like the character so far. Wait and see.

Hoping they don't retcon Angela Petrelli the way they sort of have with Sylar (attempting to make him more sympathetic). No matter what way they slice it, she was willing to go along with Linderman's plan to blow up New York in Season 1 and sacrifice hundreds of thousands (millions?) people to prompt a re-do. Although even that could be ret-conned, if it turns out Angela was under mental control. But it'd be so lame if they went there. I like her as a villain with the odd redeeming quality, she doesn't need to turn out to be good or gray.



Charles Deveaux, who was also the father of Simone (the woman Peter was sort of seeing/fighting-over-Isaac-with in Season 1, before Isaac accidentally shot her while trying to get Peter). We found out through flashbacks or maybe through time travelling scenes (I forget) that he was a part of The Company. I don't remember if we found out what his power was, but it might have something to do with dreams (which would be similar to Angela's, she apparently dreams glimpses of the future). He appeared in a couple of Peter's dreams, post-death even.

Who knows if his involvement is a discarded storyline. Won't know until the end of the show. I mean they touched on stuff in last week's flashback episode that I didn't expect to see again (and maybe a couple things that didn't need the over-explaining they got, though I confess I didn't mind Elle being included in Sylar's backstory 'cause I kinda love her).



I can't keep track of the geography of this show. I know that Hiro and Ando are in Africa, that's as much as I remember. Where is The Company's main headquarters/Level 5 prisons, New York ? Seems like it. The other location was the Odessa, Texas/Primatech Paper-cover that Claire's father worked at. I can't remember where Pinehearst is. Not California, because isn't that where Claire moved with her family in Season 2 ?

So Nathan and not-Nikki got there faster maybe due to geography, but also possibly because he's a lot faster than a plane ?

I didn't hate the flashback ep last Monday. I was interested in knowing more about the father and Company member interactions (didn't necessarily need Petrelli to be the brains behind it all though) and his apparent suicide they talked about in Season 1 always sounded a little fishy.

What's this about them explaining the powers-giving-eclipse ? Is that an upcoming ep ? No spoilers, please. The surprises are one of the few reasons to keep watching.

They're not so much "surprises" as "hail mary hack writing to try to recapture attention".

Yeah, that's pretty much what I meant. It's the whole like-not-being-able-to-look-away-from-a-car-crash thing, the anticipation of "what crazy bullshit will they throw at us next"...also, I'm a masochist for this show and I'll probably continue to be for another season or two (in two it should be over though).

If Bryan Fuller comes back, I expect to foolishly get my hopes up again for this series, despite it maybe being fucked beyond repair.

What an absolutely mess of a finale. But I am used to it by now and actually expected it. They can't write a good story arc or finale if their lives depended on it.

There are moments where they almost undo the damage but then give them an episode to destroy the progress.

And they can't freaking make up their minds about sub-plots either (he's their son, he's not their son, didn't matter in the end anyway, who cares) (the eclipse takes all powers, oh no, oh wait, no it doesn't they all come back, oh well) (the dad is all powerful, no he's not, no he can override powers, he can be killed and not heal, where the hell did he get all his powers anyway, etc.)

By the way, I saw the part where Claire could have ended up with her head on the floor, but didn't, in fact it was nothing like it. But where was the part where Hiro could have killed his friend? That never even remotely happened.

So now Hiro is powerless and the sidekick and Ando has the weird power that's useless by itself.

Did they leave it open ended with Peter on purpose? Did he get all his powers back or only his brothers ability to fly? So now the senator is the typical senator trying to make laws against those that just happen to be like his secret.

They've always played fast and loose with the fantasy "science", but Ando's power, especially when applied to Daphne, makes it so that she can basically go anywhere and fix any problem (unless someone with similar powers tries to stop her, like how Arthur Petrelli thwarted Hiro and Clare with the catalyst). I'm not sure how exactly she all of a sudden knew how to control this power such that she could pinpoint the exact point in time she needed to go to...I guess one thing that could keep her in check, at least as far as not traveling to the past too much and too casually, would be the risk of altering things and making them worse. I wish they'd just do away with time-related powers entirely though. Time travel became way too big a part of the series and it's just messy and leads to lazy writing/explanations. Hiro's teleportation is enough of an awesome power if he gets anything back. I also wish they'd've killed Daphne off, she's annoying and she made me like Matt a lot less. He fell in love way too quick and easily, even considering the big-hearted guy he's always been portrayed as (I know both him and Nathan were left by their wives, but do they not care about their kids at all ? Nathan was showing visiting his boys at their school once in Season 2. If the writers had any kind of foresight, they wouldn't have given these characters families, not if they're unprepared to work them into the plot and drop them out of it in a believable fashion). It was as bad as Sylar adopting Ma and Pa Petrelli so easily, not to mention Mohinder falling for Maya.

Tracey sucks, I'd rather we still had Nikki/Jessica, but I'm willing to see how she's utilized in the future. As with many characters this season though, her moral compass seems to change with the wind. First she really cared that she accidentally froze and shattered that reporter, was concerned about what had been done to her, the scaryness of it all...and then she's one of the more conniving types at Pinehearst. Insert bland character A into any plot slot of your choice. Press play.

I assume Arthur couldn't heal himself because the bullet went into the brain in the right spot. Unless it dislodges, he's dead for good (hopefully), but if the Pinehearst fire consumed his body, he's definitely toast. Same for Sylar, I suppose, though I wouldn't put it past them to bring him back in the future, before the show ends (the glass just dislodged from all the exploding!). I think they overestimate his popularity or how valuable he apparently was to the overall arc of the show (whatever that is).

The formula could apparently only give one power, I think only whatever the user was feeling/wishing at the time...I don't know, it's such a bullshit plot device...so we can assume that Peter either really wanted to fly, or really wanted his absorbing power back and has started from scratch again. If that's the case, he has Nathan's flying ability and possibly Flint's fire (I think Flint is still alive, I wonder if they'll bother including him again to inform him of his sister's death or the fact that Claire is his niece).