The latest HEROES

[james_davis_nicoll]

Implied spoilers


Peter, you idiot.

The hair styles of 2012/2013 seem unflattering to your average speedster.

Mohinder, you idiot.

The writers really have no idea what to do with female characters except the Victim plot, Unwanted Power plot and the Bitch on Wheels plot. Nice to see that they are staying loyal to standard comic book writing.

Aw, Sylar really does have a heart of gold or at least a heart of a critical mass of californium.

I want more of the old Hiro and Ando, please.

Comments

[dragovianknight.livejournal.com]

Points 1, 3, & 4 count as spoilers for the entire series.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

I was going to say that they managed to get through an entire episode without killing one of the non-white characters but Strength Through Fear Man was standing next to Sylar when he blew, wasn't he?

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Popping a cap in Peter-now and Mohinder-now just seems like a prudent act given what we've seen them do. Of course, Peter should have uber-healing powers from Claire so he might require special treatment.

Even Hiro spent S2 committing well-intended actions that set up the story they had to prevent at the end of S2.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Why the heck didn't Hiro swoosh back to his office ten minutes before he arrived the morning he opened the safe to replace the going-to-be-stolen piece of paper with a similar appearing but nonsensical piece of paper?

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

This show needs to hire whoever wrote Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

They need to hire writers who can remember, from scene to scene, that:

A) Peter has not one but *two* powers that grant immortality. He might not like pain, but he should never, ever be afraid of danger that he has time to think about. And he can stop time to give himself time to think about it.

B) Peter and Hiro can both teleport, stop time, and travel back and forwards in time at will. Meaning, any problem that *can* be solved through one of these devices has already been solved.

There has to be a reason for those powers to *not work* if they're going to ever be at all interesting - either the powers need to fail, or the problem has to be something you can't stop when you've got just about everything in the Beyonder's arsenal to throw at it.

[wdstarr.livejournal.com]

It's a strong, *strong* competition for the title of Biggest F---ing Idiot In the Entire Universe, isn't it? I say Mohinder still has the lead, though the Death Commandos of the Future did make a good showing.

[blpurdom.livejournal.com]

Alternately, why didn't Hiro's dad entrust the formula-half to his daughter, rather than to the son he KNEW would open the safe anyway? If he knew that, well, what the HELL?

[rwpikul.livejournal.com]

I grant Hiro some leeway based on the fact that he _IS_ a fanboy, and may well have internalized some 'rules' that don't apply to the real world. Such as "you can't change the real now."

Unlike most of the other bits of cluelessness, Hiro's fits within the setting and should be fixable if Hiro can find a mentor. One who can hit him over the head a few times with things like "this is not a comic book," "this is not Doctor Who," "there isn't a set of writer's guidelines constraining your actions."

Either that, or sit him down to watch Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure and Back to the Future trillogy. The former, as mentioned to use your ability to do things yesterday, the latter as a reminder that there is no paradox in changing things you might be wrong about and changing 'now' might just be possible.

[dragovianknight.livejournal.com]

Would decapitation work on Peter? It works on vampires.

Of course, on this show the body would grow a new head and the head would grow a new body, and we'd have TWO of him. *shudder*

[avram]

Would his body bother regrowing the head? It's not like he uses it much.

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

Yeah, point 4 and your comment about Hiro's power are probably the two largest problems in the series right now--the writers don't know what to do with female characters, and they don't know how to handle time travel.

I can maybe forgive the second one to an extent, because nobody really seems to know how to handle time travel (even Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles has to dance around it; I'll forgive them more, though, because the stories are strong enough to last), but the first...I really think that what the show needs is a female Hiro--enthusiastic, maybe idealistic, even meta-aware if that's what it takes. I had hopes that Daphne (the speedster) would be like that, but as it stands, not so much.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

they don't know how to handle time travel.

And they don't know this because all three seasons centered around time travel (or as someone I should credit said, an effort to prevent a story they've seen in the future from occuring).

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

I...think...I get what you mean, but I can't shake the feeling I'm missing something.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

The characters never try to accomplish anything positive (except when they do and it was a bad idea). Instead, they learn about Something Bad that will happen in N months (through Peter and Hiro's time travel or through prophecy) and spend the rest of the season trying to find out why Something Bad happened and how to stop it from happening.

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

Ah, OK.

Well, there was that Charlie thing, but that was its own brand of problem.

[dragovianknight.livejournal.com]

See, and I thought you meant the writers were trying to get the show canceled, to prevent an even worse season that they have foreseen from happening.

[gjules.livejournal.com]

I would add a fourth category to the females: "Females who are defined only by their relationships to male characters." (Oh, wait! That's nearly all of them!)

Audrey was pretty awesome. I want them to bring back Audrey. :-/

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Gee, a comic book TV show, based on comic books, made by and aimed at comic book fans, that is unabashedly misogynistic?

That's simply impossible!