Heroes finale
I seem to be almost alone in this, but Heroes really lost me about six episodes ago or so. I haven't enjoyed it nearly as much as I was hoping this year, especially since the plot kicked up into "high gear" and all the characters left their native environments and so on.
For me the big downside of Heroes is that the characters don't make any sense in just about anything they do. And since the characters don't really get *developed* as such, and they serve only to advance the plot, their actions and the plot should seem to tie together in some way to be at least plausible.
I'm not talking about the powers, but just simple stuff like "Why is DL still walking around?", "Why did Claire just leave with Mama Petrelli and Nathan in the carpark?", "Why does Peter keep telling people to shoot him in the head?", "Why does ANYbody believe this vast conspiracy to blow up half New York will have any positive effects?", "Why didn't Hiro bother to step outside and tell his friend 'Hey Ando, Sulu knows about my powers, we're gonna train swords, I'll be back in a bit' to stop Ando running after Sylar himself", "What was the point of Linderman's power if he's just gonna get killed?", "Why does anybody think Claire's dad is a sympathetic character?",
and my favorite--
"Why weren't any of the characters besides Peter and Sylar REALLY involved in the climax?"
Seriously, Hiro had his little part to play but otherwise everybody else was really just laying on the sidelines bleeding. The Sylar/Peter fight from the alternate-future was WAY cooler.
This was all contrasted with a really kickass season finale of 24 in which a bunch of cool stuff happened over the last few episodes. And a terrific Office with some great climactic events!
I can't help but compare Heroes to Buffy, in which all the characters had really strong personalities, character arcs, and where all the stories revolved around the characters' personal decisions, problems, and choices... rather than the bizarre random-clockwork nature of Heroes.
For me the big downside of Heroes is that the characters don't make any sense in just about anything they do. And since the characters don't really get *developed* as such, and they serve only to advance the plot, their actions and the plot should seem to tie together in some way to be at least plausible.
I'm not talking about the powers, but just simple stuff like "Why is DL still walking around?", "Why did Claire just leave with Mama Petrelli and Nathan in the carpark?", "Why does Peter keep telling people to shoot him in the head?", "Why does ANYbody believe this vast conspiracy to blow up half New York will have any positive effects?", "Why didn't Hiro bother to step outside and tell his friend 'Hey Ando, Sulu knows about my powers, we're gonna train swords, I'll be back in a bit' to stop Ando running after Sylar himself", "What was the point of Linderman's power if he's just gonna get killed?", "Why does anybody think Claire's dad is a sympathetic character?",
and my favorite--
"Why weren't any of the characters besides Peter and Sylar REALLY involved in the climax?"
Seriously, Hiro had his little part to play but otherwise everybody else was really just laying on the sidelines bleeding. The Sylar/Peter fight from the alternate-future was WAY cooler.
This was all contrasted with a really kickass season finale of 24 in which a bunch of cool stuff happened over the last few episodes. And a terrific Office with some great climactic events!
I can't help but compare Heroes to Buffy, in which all the characters had really strong personalities, character arcs, and where all the stories revolved around the characters' personal decisions, problems, and choices... rather than the bizarre random-clockwork nature of Heroes.
4 Comments:
Trust me - you're not alone in this - I've seen several disappointed reviews of the Heroes finale, and I wrote about several of the same plot holes here: http://blog.codedread.com/archives/2007/05/21/heroes-finale-letdown/
The worst ones in my opinion are:
- what was the point of the time travel episode to the future for Hiro? How did the events in that episode re-shape the timeline (I can't figure it out)
- why did Peter lose control of his powers? He already had Ted's power and most of Sylar's powers from before.
- how did Linderman and Mama Petrelli engineer the whole explosion thing? Were they just hoping that Sylar would confront Peter and cause him to lose control of his powers? Pretty flimsy plan if you ask me.
All in all, the over-arching story made little sense, and I suspect that the consequences of the finale are almost zero (Peter is still alive, Nathan is still alive, Sylar is still alive)
I agree! The whole "dark future" thing was pretty cool (and, I expect, heavily influenced by X-Men's "Days of Future Past") but ultimately what did it have to do with anything?
At the time I thought it was cool that Hiro now believed a FALSE premise, that it was Sylar who would explode rather than Peter. But I thought that would lead to some kind of tragic confusion. Nope.
And Peter's wonky powers were incredibly goofy! "Shoot me in the head, I can't control it! Oh wait, I'm okay now, don't shoot! No, really, I mean it, shoot me now!"
I'm guessing that Linderman and Mama Petrelli (and Richard Roundtree) probably had prophecies about the explosion in the form of precognitive paintings, but ... they were pretty lousy prophecies, all things considered.
I'm not sure how they could justify Nathan being alive, but I wouldn't put it past them to try.
They also never even brought up the subject of that DNA-type symbol that's laced throughout the story everywhere. Probably going to come up next season.
It just seems sad, the missed opportunity--you have a guy who can read minds, a super strong woman, a girl who can't be hurt, and a guy who can absorb powers, all fighting a guy with a melting pot of superpowers... that's a recipe for a really badass climax!
Re: badass climax - yes, totally missed opportunity that probably had more to do with budget than anything.
Re: Nathan surviving - I could see him soaring up into the sky safe enough, then dropping Peter and zooming away before he exploded...
Ha! That's a good point, Nathan probably could just drop him and fly away.
The logistics of the climax probably did have a lot to do with plot, but I can't help but think Buffy probably had nowhere near the budget of Heroes and did far more with it consistently.
Part of their problem, I think, was that Sylar was really powerful but had no defenses, so they couldn't really justify a slam-bang fight with Jessica/Nikki or with Peter. All they could manage was people standing around staring at each other as their powers do things on their own.
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