Heroes 3x22 "Turn and Face the Strange" Discuss and Grade

They need to write Hiro out. If Fuller did that, I'd be a true believer. Hiro, Mohinder, and their precious Claire should all go. Starpulse did an article a few days ago about 10 things to improve Heroes. Its author suggested killing Nathan and giving Claire a new BFF. Where's the vomit emoticon? Of course he also thought Sylar should shapeshift into a woman and stay that way, so none of the posters who commented were very impressed. No, the article was not dated April 1. He appeared to have been serious. Wanted Claire and her BFF to have a Thelma and Louise type adventure.

Hiro's child routine is no longer cute because kids are supposed to grow up. Masi is what? 34 or 35 years old? It gets pathetic after awhile. Hiro never learns. If Fuller kills off Nathan, I'm gone.

 

I gave it an above average mostly because everyone's favorite badass was finally played for a dupe and was at his wits end. It's not like I don't like Noah. It's just that his constant being two steps ahead was borderline Batman's "always has a plan" motif. Putting him at the receiving end of the con job makes him more human, therefore a more intertesting character. Now, with no Primatech or government to back up his badassery (and no wife), he now has to rely on the very people he's spent his adult life hunting down for help.

 

Sylar is no longer interesting as a villian. They need to write him out and move onto a fresher villian next season.

Pasdar is a good actor and is not bad to look at but I think his character has been so poorly handled with several cases of schizophrenic characterization that I don't think he can be taken seriously as a character with understandable motivations and attitudes. I know I can't. I see him simply as a plot device.

No, I think he needs to go. He hasn't added much to the show for the last two seasons. Hiro is annoying. I feel bad for Masi having to perform some of the cringe-worthy lines he has to deliver. What has Matt added to the show? Or Suresh? Or Tracy? Or Ando?

I'm telling you they need to scrap the whole cast with the exception of Angela.

 

At least Nathan has some potential to salvage, thought, startrekwatcher. I hear what you're saying about how a cast turnover is needed. I still think there's rooting interest in trying to rebuild a fraternal relationship between Nathan and Peter. I'd get rid of Sylar before I'd get rid of Nathan. Sylar is played out as a villain. If I were the exec and really allowed to clean house, I'd keep four characters--Nathan, Angela, Peter and Noah. That's it. All four have great potential and possibilities. The Petrellis are a good solid base of characters to build around, and Noah is connected to them through Claire, who needs to attend college overseas somewhere.

 

Anything is possible. Fuller could salvage them but I have kept giving the writers a chance to salvage these characters and I can't say my view has changed. Writers have a small window of opportunity to make the audience care for characters and they succeeded in season one and two but after this season I just have nothing but indifference for almost all of them.

Even when a once solid show starts a slip into a downward spiral I almost always can stick around to see the characters I care about even if the story sucks. But Heroes has managed to make me not care about characters I once did and for me I don't see that changing especially with all the erratic scripting they've endured. They are damaged goods.

They really just need to adopt the original idea Kring had of changing out the cast each season with all new characters. It would give Fuller a chance to jettison all the baggage and could truly start anew and only retain certain aspects of the show's ground-rules that make sense. New viewers could come onboard without needing to know everything from the first three seasons which was so inconsistent at times it is pretty worthless anyway.

But I know this isn't going to happen based on articles I've read from Fuller.

The author of that article is over complicating things. What Heroes needs is what all good shows need--good writing with interesting characters and character arcs coupled with interesting well developed plot arcs--all of which are missing from Heroes right now.

 

I wish they do this with Sylar...have someone out smart him once in a while...instead they think the way to give him more character is with mommy/daddy issues.

 

And another advantage of the New chapter each season is that characters like Sylar and HGR could make guest appearances and maintain their mystery.

 

Good but problematic episode. I didn't quite buy into Noah's actions towards the end of the episode, pretty much everything from when he pulled the gun on Danko to the end of the episode felt contrived to me. It's still quite a bit better than what we were getting at the beginning of the season though, so I voted Above Average.

 

A bit below average I thought. Heavy on the personal drama. I am glad Ando and Hiro may be finally away from the baby, give them something more interesting to do. I did perk up when the truck driver said he was form Lubbock, Tx. that's where I am.

 

Average - The Peter/Hiro Nerf Modifier = Below Average.

 

He didn't know. Janice told him that the baby wasn't his - that the father was the other cop she had an affair with in the first season. Not surprised you forgot though. It was almost a throw away line in season two to explain why Matt & Janice split up and he was suddenly keeping house with Mohinder & taking care of Molly.

 

I think that it would have been much creepier, and much bolder, if Sylar as Sandra had seduced HRG instead of serving fake divorce papers.

 

I remember that but I thought that was what Matt told Nathan but that in "Fight or Flight" during one of Matt's dad's illusions he admitted that the real reason he left Janice and the baby wasn't because he thought it was his partner's baby but because he feared becoming like his dad or something along those lines.

 

I noticed that Nathan is starting to develop more of a "flyboy" look to him. His hair is a little wilder and he's wearing aviator-style sunglasses. Pretty neat, especially if they are, indeed, heading towards a more traditional superhero show under Fuller rather than Kring's original plan.

 

His DNA would still be Sylar DNA, because that is how HRG found out the guy that was dead was not Sylar.

 

I can think of 5 things to save the show... More super powered villains. More power-on-power action. Get rid of Sylar (I like him but there's reason to keep him on the show this long!). Keep Peter at a low power level. Keep Hiro from doing time travel.

 

But none of these except for the Sylar one really gets to the heart of why the show is not appointment viewing any more.

One of the biggest issues is the way there is no direction guiding the season. It is just a bunch of random boring events that don't add up to anything. The story doesn't build on anything. There is no end point, no tension, no interesting twists, no shaking up of the status quo, no interesting mysteries, no interesting character dynamics or arcs. A lot of stuff is cliched. The characters have no depth and feel hollow and as a result they are not worth the effort to give a frak about.

Think about two years ago around this time--the arc was kicking into overdrive heading into a high stakes stretch of spring episodes. This year the episodes feel very pedestrian and tired. Normally I look forward to the season finales but not so much with Heroes.

No, all the writers need to do is come up with three or four interesting plot arcs and place the ensemble into one of those arcs and give the characters some depth for the audience to care what they are going through. Let the audience experience the jeopardy, the inner conflict etc. And it is going to take a lot of work to get the audience invested into these characters again. That's why I think it would just be so much easier for Fuller to pull a Melrose Place or ER and bring on a whole new group of actors and characters.

Everyone is clamoring for another Fuller created series well now he can create his own Heroes characters and in a way everyone gets want they want. And then the writers can worry about how powerful a character is ability-wise or what abilities are worn-out.

 

Another one of thoes ill-advised Season 2 storylines. Mohinder and Matt playing My Two Dads in NYC.

I gave this an Above Average. I think the series is definitely much improved and they are developing Danko's character quite well. For a telepath, Matt's a moron and I can't believe how badly Noah got played.

 

The DNA in his brain obviously stayed the same. I wonder if the rest of him changed.

 

what the heck was that guy all about anyway?