Okay, what are other people's opinions in what's happening in this? I want to like this season, I really do, but it's getting harder and harder with each episode. It's still good, it's decent watching, but it's nowhere near as good as last year. And they are wasting the best characters (Hiro wandering around ancient Japan with a stiffy) and in the latest episode, it seems like they're totally re-hashing last year's plot, except now it's a virus instead of a bomb.
I want the real Heroes back dammit!!!!
I don't think they're wasting Hiro, as his bits are probably the best parts of the current crop of episodes, but I get what you're saying about everything else seeming same-old same-old. Claire's storylines seem like the writers are trying to go back to the really obvious stuff they managed to avoid doing in series 1, not noticing that series one got along just fine without yet another anaemic riff on Mean Girls. Isaac is dead, yet his storyline remains healthy, and Sylar mopes about doing nothing much. Expository dialogue threatens to make up about ninety percent of what comes from the character's mouths, too.
Interesting that the girl from new Orleans doesn't have a New Orleans accent - even Uhura made the effort. Bloody kids.
This could all be feet-finding, however - there could be a big turnaround being prepped for the mid-season cliffhanger for all we know. It would certainly explain the cliched big threats if they were nothing more than red herrings - I'm not convinced by the virus that came from nowhere, for a start. Mohinder's sister had it decades ago and now suddenly it's everywhere over the season-break? Whatnow? And why does everyone call Mohinder 'Suresh'? That's his family name, and it seems a little rude now.
Okay the second series is a little underwealming - but it still ain't Flash Gordon. That sounds like damning with faint praise, but it's actually something for which we should all be thankful.
Maybe there is a big turnaround waiting in the wings for the cliffhanger, but I think it's bad writing to make your audience think you've lost it for the first 11 episodes of the season and then go "WAIT, come back folks, now the good stuff is starting!"
They introduce important plot strands in one episode (Matt's dad, Niki going to the company) and then completely ignore them in the next while we spend time with Claire and West.
Also, a lot of people have said this, and I see where they're coming from; A lot of characters have had the reset button pushed this season. Peter, no memory, so now he has to learn his powers all over again. Claire, for some reason is cutting of her toes to learn the extent of her powers, despite having survived car crashes, being shot, being speared through the head, and a mini-nuclear explosion in season one. Mr. Bennett is now back to hiding things from Claire, who is also back to hiding things from him. Sylar is not dead, so Hiro's journey last season seems kinda pointless.
I've heard that one of the better writers from season one left before this season started. If that's true, it's really showing.
Too many characters and not enough time to do any of them justice.
Thats the problem I have with it.
I gotta say, the latest episode (number 7) is really quite good. It finally feels like the show has caught its breath again, and there wasn't a single scene of the annoying Mexican twins. Although we still had some Claire and West bullshit.....
ok, where are you viewing this? I had been streaming through tv-links but that is now closed down. After that I caught a few episodes at joox but that seems to have dried up too. Do I have to resort to torrents again?
Yeah, I use torrents. To be honest I prefer those to tv-links, they're better quality.
SPOILER: It's awful. Give up watching at Season 1.
"I gotta say, the latest episode (number 7) is really quite good."
Really? This was where I drew the line at making excuses for it anymore - the writers' strike has granted this show a mercy-killing if this is what it's going to be like. The entire episode was a grim parody of a bad comic-book, but acted out by people who - and until this point I never realised it - actually deserve better, even her out of that last Resident Evil film. Even Hiro's bits lost their charm as they painted the backstory of the major villain (who was never mentioned before) as being identical to the big bad supervillain recently retconned into Wolverine's history - only to be universally savaged by readers. That's right, Heroes' new villain is ripped-off from a character who's derided as cliched and shite by PEOPLE WHO READ WOLVERINE COMICS.
It's almost an act of self-destructive genius how much of a turnaround they've managed in the space of one episode. Amazing in a way.
Would I get more fun from those pictures of Hayden Panettiere crying at a anti-whaling demo?
Well, maybe I'm only considering it good in comparison to the rest of the series (which isn't hard), but they've finally started pulling the various dangling plot strands together into what looks like being one decent storyline, if it goes the way I think it's going. And it turns out there was actually a point to Hiro being in Japan after all.
As for the villain never having been mentioned before, like the company man said, he's been locked up for we don't know how long. And the Company aren't the kind of people to go sharing secrets, so why would we have heard about him before now?
My opinions may flipflop again next week if the Wonder Twins show up, and Sylar keeps doing the same ol' shit he did last year again, but for now, I think they've picked it up.
Tim Kring has apparently got the message, promises to make things better:
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20158840,00.html
Simpleton - that sounds like a disturbingly specific sexual fetish to me.
This is pretty cool, it's footage of the Season 1 finale as seen from elsewhere in New York. It's not taken from an episode, but made for the web as part of a Lost-style ongoing extra story.
http://samantha48616e61.com/popups/drucker_clip.shtml
"Really? This was where I drew the line at making excuses for it anymore"
I'm a bit mystified, to be honest ... I'm only up to Episode 5, but I've no particular objections so far.
I'll concede that this may be because I was bullied into persevering with the first series even though I thought the first few episodes were fucking rubbish.
So far, Season 2 has passed the time amiably enough, although I'm now looking for the plot to move up a gear.
Cheers
Jim
NOT-REALLY SPOILERS FOR THOSE WATCHING SEASON 2 AHOY!
Unoriginality and retreads of the worst X-Men storyline ever aside (Legacy Virus - bit of an odd one to rip off after riffing on Watchmen for S1), I wasn't spear-waving enraged by Heroes' season 2 quality-dip (at least not as batshit crazy-mad as some of the online types) until last week's (6?), where the Russian bloke was saying stuff like "I trained you and your invisible friend Claude - you used to be my friend! We worked together in the company--" and then it struck me that all I was hearing was dialogue that consisted of exposition and not much else, as the vagaries of evil plans got spelled out like the audience was comprised of idiot-children that needed everything explained to them in minute detail. Then episode 7(?) happened and we're expected to believe that the big bad supervillain who will kill everyone is genocidal because his best mate kissed his girlfriend 400 years ago and he didn't take it well.
As motivations go, it's fair to say that this hasn't got me *entirely* convinced, but I'm of the opinion that the current writing pool is letting the side down, rather than the series being a total loss. It's lost a few million viewers stateside and the producers have been told to up their game, so it's not like it's Dr Who or anything - seemingly existing in a vacuum immune from criticism, constructive or otherwise - so there's every chance it'll improve again after the writers' strike.
This week's episode, Four Months Ago, was pretty good, explaining much of what happened in the gap between series 1 and 2, but still dropping the ball on several key factors, namely, The StinkTears Twins; Guess what they were doing four months ago? Yup, having a good ol' cry, and sweating, and then running out the door.
Also, Elle. Decent character perhaps, but Kristen Bell cannot act worth a damn. (Yes I know, no-one on the show's gonna win an oscar, but most of them aren't annoying. Bell unfortunately is.)
Well, it's over.......
The final few weeks, despite their flaws were certainly a lot better than the first five or six episodes. But, now that I've seen the hastily tacked on ending to this season, and compared it to to the original ending that I read online, I cannot help but wonder what might have been.
I can only hope that whenever Heroes does return, the writers have actually learned from their mistakes this year and picked up their game somewhat.
Definitely meh. And stop bringing characters back from the clutches of old Morr himself!
"...I cannot help but wonder what might have been."
What was the original ending you read online?
*Kinda spoilers by implication*
Apparently the original ending was written when they thought that it was going to be a 20-something episode season like last year, and this was just going to be the mid season break. So the episode was going to end with the virus being released, Nathan being infected, and that whole area of Texas being quarantined. I don't have the exact link to it, I read it on a Heroes board.
Cheers. I've been watching it on YouTube- not great, but not the worst thing I've ever seen either.
Watching the Beeb rather than downloads, I've only seen up to the finale of season 1 - but even that was a real let down, and I'm tempted not to even bother with season 2 now.
The fact that Sylar is still alive is enough to make me despair at the quality of the writing.
My thoughts exactly. I was getting gradually less and less enthused, but I thought - 'Oh, I've already stuck with it this far, I might as well make the effort to catch the end.'
It was pretty dull and anti-climactic. No real surprises, no real sense of drama or danger, and the cop-out with Sylar getting away is the push I needed to say goodbye to the series. I think I'll just go and read Watchmen again instead.
i frickin loved it.
Nobody is doing anything else like it.
They have to save the world all the time( see men in black)
there isn't a day goes by when the world isn't under threat of being totally annihilated.
good stuff and good to see comicbook, superhero enthusiasm on the box.
you can stick your lost comparisons up yer mineshaft.
I really enjoyed it, although it was rushed towards the end but there was nothing they could do about that 'cos of the strike.
Really looking forward to season 3.
Steve
You can put me down in the "Really quite enjoyed that" column as well.
I've just seen Episode 11 of Season 2 - that is the unexpectedly truncated end to this series ...?
If so, under the circumstances, that wasn't bad. Bear in mind, fellow comic nerds, that if nothing else this series is bringing the major superhero cliches into the mainstream.
This is (and trust me on this) a Very Good Thing.
Cheers
Jim
Moved a little too damned slowly for my liking although I'm sure that's already been said.
Enough so to get Tim Kring apologizing for it's ridiculous slowness anyway - a lot of the plotlines felt quite pointless and also who cares if any of them die from now on because all they need is a tiny bit of Claire's blood to get them back on their feet again - which removes any kind of real suspense from anything that isn't brain removal.
Also I thought someone said 'Sylar's treatment of the brains has been left ambiguous until series 2 when he'll explain exactly what he does with them'
...yeah?! c'mon then - does he make brainhoumous or what?!