Save the Cheerleader, Save the World, Jump the Shark

A warning to anyone who hasn't seen every Heroes episode up until now: plenty of spoilers ahead.

The first Season of Heroes was somewhat of a breath of fresh air. I'll admit that it was slightly overrated. It quickly built up a devoted following of viewers claiming it to be the greatest thing since sliced bread. I never felt that it quite lived up to most of the hype and buzz that surrounded it, but I definitely liked it. It was a cool, interesting show that was entertaining enough to watch every week. It became a weekly tradition to get together with my friends each week to watch the new episodes. Again, not an amazing show, but an entertaining show worth following.

The series stumbled in the second season. It got off to a slow start, but it was still definitely watchable. Viewers and critics alike complained about the season's slow pace and less captivating storylines. But to be honest, I never really had too much of a problem with the season in the early stages. The "Hiro In Japan" storyline wasn't nearly as bad as everyone made it out to be, and the rest of the show was still alright too. Nevertheless, the season did have some notable issues. Of course, the biggest problem was the fact that the season was cut short by the writers' strike. So storylines that could've been more effectively developed and fleshed out had to be abruptly wrapped up. The way that the British samurai dude was finally taken out of the picture felt rushed and anti-climactic. Peter's Irish girlfriend got trapped in the future, and then they never really went back and revisited that part of the storyline. (That's one way to write a character out of the story, I guess.) I was expecting/hoping that the show would go on hiatus in November and then come back for a few episodes in the spring after the strike was over so they could wrap things up more effectively and have a more satisfying end to the season. But instead, the season just came to an abrupt end after 11 episodes.

There were other problems that had nothing to do with the strike, like questionable story developments and lame payoffs. There was the romance between Claire and the flying kid, during which I often felt like checking the channel to make sure that I hadn't accidentally switched over to The CW instead of NBC. Speaking of Claire, the show kind of wrote itself into a corner with respect to Claire's healing power. Throughout the season, they started focusing more heavily on the notion that powers can be transmitted through blood. So anytime someone gets killed or seriously injured, the answer is simple: just give 'em some cheerleader blood, they'll be good as new. So now we have all these characters walking around who have healing powers and can't be killed, unless of course they get shot in the head or decapitated or something, because the rest of your body can't heal if your brain gets destroyed. So by the last few episodes, we were stuck with the old mantra "remove the head or destroy the brain" in regard to any characters actually getting killed off. In essence, Heroes became a zombie movie, minus the gore and the rotting corpses.

Speaking of deaths, they found some pretty mediocre ways to kill off characters. First there was D.L. getting shot by some jerk at a nightclub in a flashback episode. Then Nikki/Jessica/Ali Larter/whatever got blown up trying to rescue her son or niece or something from a burning building. It was a death that felt so unnecessary and unsatisfying that my first impression was that she had to have lived through it. More on that later. The whole subplot with the girl and the comic book and the burning building was just plain lousy from start to finish. Bad guys steal the kid's priceless comic book. His cousin has the power to imitate whatever she watches on TV, so she decides "If I watch Spiderman climbing a wall on my iPod, then naturally I should be able to break into the house of dangerous gangsters and get the comic book back without ever being in any danger!" Ugh. Bad, bad writing. And then the gangsters catch her and she winds up tied to a chair in a burning building. What, they couldn't just tie her to the train tracks instead? So Nikki shows up and saves the girl, and then Nikki gets blown up for no reason whatsoever. Unnecessary story developments like that ended up weighing down what could've easily been a decently satisfying season. And don't get me started on Mohinder's clumsy, unconvincing progression from being one of the smartest, most interesting characters on the show to being a lackey for "the company". But in retrospect, that deterioration was nothing compared to the shit they tried to pull with the character in the third season. More on that later.

The year-long gap between the end of season two and the start of season three proved to be devastating, primarily in terms of ratings, but also in regard to holding the interest of the loyal fans. If there's a year-long gap in between episodes, then you almost have to start from scratch and find a way to draw people in just as effectively as when the show started. Sadly, the third season just hasn't accomplished that.

I obediently made it through all thirteen episodes of Volume Three, titled "Villains". I never really felt that the volume lived up to the title. Sure, early on, there were all these new villains running around causing problems, and the show did try to adopt a darker overall tone. But in the end, it didn't really feel like a story arc about "villains" per se, because... well, I can't really figure out what this season has really been "about" in the first place. The writers seemed to be under the impression that more plot twists equals a more solid show, but that wasn't the case. Characters jumped from the light side to the dark side so frequently that in the week between each episode, you had no idea who was on whose side anymore. The Sylar character was thrown back and forth so much that it's a surprise Zachary Quinto didn't suffer whiplash as a result. I lost count of how many times he jumped from good to bad and vice versa, not to mention the whole "We're your parents. No we're not. But actually we are. Just kidding, we're not," thing. By the end, all that was left was an unintelligible, jumbled mess.

Now, if a TV show or a movie is crazy and impossible to follow, that's not always a bad thing. Look at David Lynch movies for example, which can be awesome viewing experiences because you have no clue what's going on or what's around the corner. It's a different story, though, if something is impossible to follow in a frustrating, unengaging way. Unfortunately, that was the case with Heroes this season. It became tough to follow because so much stuff was thrown out there, often with no rhyme nor reason for doing so. And all the while, they never managed to give you that much of a reason to care about what was going on, so there was no real urgency in trying to make sense of everything. I mean, I still watched because I was interested in seeing how things would develop. But this season, I noticed that watching the show felt like more of an obligation than a pleasure.

Once great characters were rendered either useless (Peter) or retarded (Mohinder). Peter, formerly the wunderkind who could absorb any power he came in contact with, became irritating and inconsistent. In the whole "Future Peter coming to the past to fix things" plot in the beginning of the season, he came off as this jerk who had no idea what he was doing. And for the rest of the season, he remained this snotty jerk running around trying to fix things. Looking back, I'm not sure what Peter actually was trying to do all this time. And then once he lost his powers, the little about him that was still interesting was wiped away. I blame this not only on the writing, but on Milo Ventimiglia's boring, one-dimensional performance throughout the season. Remember in X-Men 2 when Cyclops is begging Jean Grey not to sacrifice herself, and he's trying to be serious and emtional, but he's wearing that laser visor thing over his eyes so he just looks really goofy instead? That's what the Peter Petrelli character reminded me of all season.

That character's weakness is nothing compared to what happened to poor Mohinder Suresh though. In the first season, Mohinder was the lone primary character without powers, a brilliant mind trying to study the mystery of this phenomenon. In the second season, as I mentioned earlier, he made some uncharacteristic lapses in judgment. In season three... hoo boy... while doing his research one day, he impulsively decides that he wants powers, so he injects himself with superhero blood and turns into The Fly. I really wish I was making this up, but alas, that's what happened this season: significant changes to characters without any real rhyme or reason for doing so.

Let's see, what else happened... Ali Larter came back. Nikki's still blown up, and poor little Micah is still an orphan, but it turns out Nikki has an identical twin living on the opposite side of the country, and she also has powers. Oh, and Hiro had his mind erased and thought he was ten years old for a few episodes. Don't worry though, because could still time travel by closing his eyes. Ah, the time travel! That was another problem this season. In the first two seasons, the show largely steered clear of time travel paradoxes by never having the characters anywhere near themselves in the past or the future. This time around, Hiro hangs out with himself as a kid, and Claire even takes care of herself as a baby. But on the two or three occasions when a character teleported back in time a few minutes to the same location, one of the two of themselves simply disappears when time passes and they reach the present again. Ow, my brain!

The season's biggest attempt to try to recapture the magic, so to speak, was with the "eclipse" story arc that lasted two or three episodes. Apparently, all of the characters first gained their powers during an eclipse (a key plot point I don't remember them mentioning before this season, meaning that they're just making up explanations and backstories as they go along). So for the duration of this new eclipse, they temporarily lost all of their powers. It was interesting to see everyone fighting and trying to figure out problems using solely their strength and intellect. But the event, in the lead up to it and in the advertising for the episodes, just still kinda felt like a big thing happening for the sake of having something big happen, as a desperate attempt to attract viewers and get people to start caring again, of which it was only partly successful at doing.

There were a few interesting touches this season that did work, like the development of Claire's character after Sylar stole her powers and she became determined to revenge and never be a victim again. Then there was that one episode with the creepy puppet master guy, which stood out this season as some of the most genuinely unsettling stuff ever done on the show. And then the chick who could run really fast was pretty cute (which I guess is some kind of compensation for the fact that Kristen Bell's character got killed off this season). Beyond all that, there aren't too many positives about this season that stick out in my mind, so I don't really feel the need to keep watching again when the show comes back in February. Volume Three had a nice enough ending to go out on. They destroyed the formula, Claire killed Sylar, and the all-powerful Arthur Petrelli is dead too. All is well, the end.

The last episode ended with a prologue for Volume Four. Nathan is sitting in a limo with the president talking about people with abilities and the threat they pose to society. He hands over a folder with information about everyone with powers and what they've been involved in, and the president vows to deal with it. The title of Volume Four is "Fugitives". Now I'm no psychic, but let me try to guess what's gonna happen: The existence of people with powers is made public, they all become outcasts and start being hunted down, some of them decide to use their powers against the humankind that turned its back on them, while other seek to use their powers for good, alliances form, battles ensue. Sounds familiar? That's because it's X-Men. If the show manages to find a way to defy my expectations and return to top form, then maybe I'll give it a shot again. But for now, I think I'll pass.

It's a shame: A few years ago, it was one of the most promising new shows on TV. Now, it just appears to be another show that started off strong but then faded out much earlier than it should've. Gotta love that first season though.