I was one of those who decided to skip out on the fugitives volume this season because I was getting fed up with the whole show. Well, last night I was just surfing online (Trying to find all the episodes to Babylon 5 actually), came to Hulu, and just suddenly started watching this Fugitives storyline. I've really gotten into it and just watched the episode in which Rebel was revealed. I'm not ready to say I'm enjoying it as much as I have season 1, but I think what might make this show work more is the viewing in large doses. While some of this story has left me scratching my head (Claire I've had enough of even though in the last few episodes, and please no spoilers, I'm almost done, she has come around a bit; Nathen finally revealing himself so we can stop the Cherade; stuff like that, Micha being Rebel which was really predictable.). Still, there was a part of me that has really gotten into this story. The only episode I must say I disliked the most was Building 26 (The third episode I think), since it most reminded me of Villians. I'm not sure if I will watch the show as regularly aired or wait until all the episodes are on Hulu, since I seem to enjoy that way more, but I must say the turnaround from being really bad to now has been somewhat impressive. I'm looking forward to seeing how this volume ends and the last episode (Matt takes Daphne to the Moon) was one of the better episodes I've seen in a long time.
I've been very busy in the past few months so haven't been able to see much of this volume (I have 7 of the 12 still to watch) so hopefully time to view a big burst will come soon!
I thought Fugitives was their best volume since season 1... except Im still mixed about the finale, but Ive come to realize that whether I like the finale or not will depend on what happens in season 4... if that makes sense.
If you're up to the "Matt takes Daphne to the moon" episode, then you're well into the part of the volume where there was a definite improvement in quality. So it's not just seeing it in large doses that gives you that impression. Towards the end, characters started behaving in-character much more consistently, they didn't behave idiotically for the convenience of the plot nearly as much and occasionally were pretty smart, the dialogue was zippier, and even Ando and Hiro went from painful to watch, back to being pretty charming (if still pointless). And there weren't very many "why the frak are they wasting our time with this crap" moments like in comic book stores and whatnot. As for the ending, hold onto your hat... And yeah, how you feel about it depends entirely on whether they can actually capitalize on the dramatic possibilities like I'm hoping, and not do what they did in Villains, namely take an interesting idea and just let it fall flat on its face.
Agreed about seeing these characters acting better. I remember one of my main complaints about Villains was the character motivations and just how stupid everyone was. It was like during the travesty that was the Eclipse 2 parter (An episode I was looking forward to for reasons in which not any of it was actually shown) that the writers just decided to give up. This story, the plot is tight (I still don't understand what the deal is with Noah and Angela and how containing the people with abilities was helping them but hopefully that gets answered soon) and the characters have become likeable again. Also, can we please give Sandra more to do. I don't know what episode it was, but when we saw Sandra go gung-ho, I saw a lot of promise in the character that I would love to see grow. Looking forward to the final 5 or so episodes.
Ok, I just had a season 1 moment. 1961, I would say, is the quintessential Heroes episode, right up there with Company Man and the like. That was an absolutely great episode, giving us much needed backstory and really filling in the holes from this volume such as Noah and Angela's role, Nathen's role and the whole theme of Redemption and Forgiveness. It's episodes like this that got me into Heroes. Not just the action, but the theme of extrordinary people doing extrordinary things and being likeable at the same time really touched me in season 1, which I'm sure the same happened for others. It makes me sad really that the writers took thier sweet time to almost force this show's cancellation with mistakes and just bad bad judgement. I really loved these last three episodes I saw. They set up for the finale, but I loved the stuff with Alice, the black and white flashbacks, and just overall this feels like the Heroes I got to love in season 1. I also loved how they are using Oldies to help this story. Stuff like the music from this episode, "We Got to Get out of This Place," and the song for when Syler first approached Danko. There is so much to this story to digest it's hard to really write about it but man do I wish we got this stuff in season 2. It would have been so much more satisfying, because 1961, is very necessary and should have been done in season 2. BTW, I'm not liking Claires new look. I really hope they change it really soon.
That's how they end it? I'm not really sure how I feel about this whole twist of fortunes, but man why do they have to show us clips of Volume 5. I would have been happy if they hadn't for this one. Overall, I really liked this volume, but this ending almost feels like redo and reset of everything. The company is back, Sylar/Nathen is in power, and Tracy is mad as hell and is not going to take it anymore. I just don't know what to think of the whole solution. I will say though it's an interesting way to keep Sylar, Nathen, and the like around and I'd hate to lose Quinto. He was really one of the cast members carrying this show. As for what I'd like to see improved with heros, I'm sorry but I do not like Ando and Hiro. Get rid of them, have them go back to Japan or something because they are now beyond annoyance. Heck, as to who to bring back, start with Noah, Angela, Peter, Sylar, and Nathen and go from there. Everyone else is expendable, and I used to really like Claire. Now I think she has served her usefulness and it's getting annoying and repetitive now. Hopefully I'm right and this is a reboot of sorts and get some new writers in there. What I liked about this story also was that there was one focus. I didn't like the side tracks to India or stuff like that but at the end, things started coming together and the Heroes joined together. We need a lot more interaction between them, almost like an X-Men for TV. I'm not saying Copying the X-Men, but just the interaction between them was very good. I'm not sure I'm going to watch the next season on TV or wait till Hulu at the end mainly because as the subject of this thread says, Heroes is a lot better with watched all at once in a period of a week. Things just flow better and that's a good strength to have. We'll see what happens, but I'm glad I ended up watching this Volume four anyway.