Heroes 3x20 "Cold Snap" Discuss and Grade

[Hermiod]

Where do people come up with the "so and so is only on for the huge following of fangirls/boys" bits?

Just because the networks -- lost in archaic beliefs such as "sex sales" -- say something like that, that doesn't make it true. I don't know many fans of Claire, either, yet she's apparently on the show solely for all the teenaged boys she attracts to the show (which is pure baloney).

Kill of both her and Peter and I bet there'd be minimal impact on the show's ratings. If anything they'd improve a bit.

I suspect you'll find Ali Larter is of far more interest in that department. Hayden is suspiciously unpopular.

I'm no fan of the so and so was cast because of their looks idea, and I don't actually believe it, but male Sci-Fi fans have been hammered with it for so long it's only fair to point out when female fans are guilty of it too.

Us guys like looking at hot women, it's true, but we aren't going to watch a show we otherwise don't enjoy because of that, and I don't believe that any woman (except Temis with Flanigan ) will watch a show they don't like because of some hot guy.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Where do people come up with the "so and so is only on for the huge following of fangirls/boys" bits?

Just because the networks -- lost in archaic beliefs such as "sex sales" -- say something like that, that doesn't make it true. I don't know many fans of Claire, either, yet she's apparently on the show solely for all the teenaged boys she attracts to the show (which is pure baloney).

Kill of both her and Peter and I bet there'd be minimal impact on the show's ratings. If anything they'd improve a bit.

I suspect you'll find Ali Larter is of far more interest in that department. Hayden is suspiciously unpopular.

I'm no fan of the so and so was cast because of their looks idea, and I don't actually believe it, but male Sci-Fi fans have been hammered with it for so long it's only fair to point out when female fans are guilty of it too.

Us guys like looking at hot women, it's true, but we aren't going to watch a show we otherwise don't enjoy because of that, and I don't believe that any woman (except Temis with Flanigan ) will watch a show they don't like because of some hot guy.

I wish my glands could excuse bad media, but I'm not 15 any more, honestly I can't see "sexuality" no more because I saturated to complete ogle density sometime ago.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

I don't know many fans of Claire, either, yet she's apparently on the show solely for all the teenaged boys she attracts to the show (which is pure baloney).

Well, I wouldn't use anecdotal evidence unless you're OK with anecdotal being used to prove you wrong. I know at least several people who can't stand her character but like her in the show just to look at.

 

[Checkmate]

Well, I wouldn't use anecdotal evidence unless you're OK with anecdotal being used to prove you wrong. I know at least several people who can't stand her character but like her in the show just to look at.

Finding someone attractive is not the same as tuning into a show solely to stare at them. Do you know anyone who does that? For any show?

 

[Jaron]

If I wanted to watch a show with attractive women, I would tune in to... well, pretty much any live-action show on television. There's certainly no shortage of them.

 

[TheArsenal]

I have to agree with much of what is being said. Since escaping attractive people on television would be the near impossible trick, I can't imagine someone sitting in front of crap television just because it features two or three pretty faces from TV's gallery of thousands.

 

[Aragorn]

Well, I wouldn't use anecdotal evidence unless you're OK with anecdotal being used to prove you wrong. I know at least several people who can't stand her character but like her in the show just to look at.

Finding someone attractive is not the same as tuning into a show solely to stare at them. Do you know anyone who does that? For any show?

Of course not! People tuned into Baywatch for the writing!

 

[Hermiod]

^People watched Baywatch because the Hoff told them to, simple as.

 

[Aragorn]

^ Hoff is this planet's Captain Robau?

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Well it's official. Brian Fuller was the guy holding the show together in the first season. It was nice we got Pushing Daisies, but not at the expense of Heroes! They need to chain that guy to the desk and not let him get away! He's the only thing stopping this show from sucking.

This episode actually felt like a competently written and produced show for a change. Fuller definitely has a handle on the characters - he does a nice job conveying character through little details and dialogue, something that has been glaringly lacking for the past two frakkin years.

Danko calling his operation "gun control"; Hiro's reference to TNG as an explanation for Wonder Baby; Hiro wheeling Ando out in a wheelbarrow with Wonder Baby strapped to him. Stuff like that makes a huge cumulative difference when it's a regular part of the show. Fuller also has brought back wit, another element we've missed since S1.

The fact that Hiro and Ando's scenes were not painful to watch but actually charming really tells the tale. Fuller knows how to make those characters fun; everyone else just flounders when given the task. There was also a sense of style that I remember from the first season. Since he left, the show has really gone flat. They have all the elements but nobody knows what to do with them.

Fuller did a fair bit of housecleaning to start to get this mess in order. Tracy gone (good); Daphne gone (I didn't mind her, but we can't have her and Janice and the kid in the story without the risk of soapy nonsense); Micah back (pretty obvious that he was Rebel but he's a good character and I'd like to see him be made a regular; he's old enough now that he can be a real character and not just "the kid"); Hiro given back time-stopping power but not teleportation or time travel (very good).

Now Fuller just needs to rescind Mohinder and Ando's powers, do something to repair the Petrelli dynamic, and make sure not to just toss Matt and Jancie back together (that marriage should be broken for good) and we'll be well on our way to recovery. He should also consider that Micah is a good product-placement substitute for Claire - the kid who can use the tech doohickeys that pay part of the bills for producing this show - which gives Claire less of a reason to remain in the cast.

I'm sure they can find another blond girl for the fanboys to drool over, who can act and whose character has a legitimate role in the story going forward. If Fuller can figure out what the heck to do with Claire, I will be very impressed, because that seems like an impossible problem. If the actress were any damn good at all, maybe he could evolve her role by having the character grow the frak up.

I thought Sylar would make overtures to team up with Danko and sure enough...good way of trying to tie Sylar back into the story though long-term, he'll continue to be a problem.

I loved the smart use of powers. Tracy icing the security tags to steal clothes; Micah providing his "aunt" with money and a message via an ATM. We need lots more of that!

Oh and keep Wonder Baby around. It's odd, but the kid playing him is a good actor, or has a strong personality or something - he seems to be there and not just this fleshy blob that the other characters cart around and waggle toys at.

This whole situation reminds me of Enterprise in it's fourth season. A new producer comes in, and there is a great increase in quality; but it comes late in the show, when half the audience has already tuned out. It was too late for Enterprise, is it too late for Heroes?

A repeat of the ENT situation would drive me up the frakkin wall! But fortunately, Heroes seems in a healthier situation, due to NBC's ongoing epic fail and probably the healthy international revenues which was cited as a reason for Heroes' early renewal.

Heroes is actually NBC's second-best performing scripted show. Chuck fans should sweat, but not Heroes.

 

[Hermiod]

^Tracy's clearly not gone.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

^Tracy's clearly not gone.

Damn, I was hoping the wink meant "goodbye." I doubt the character can be salvaged and was willing to give Fuller another chance with Barbara. Regardless, with the third triplet (clone?) out there, Tracy's days are numbered. What happens if she gets evaporated?

6.4 million viewers? There's still going to be a next season? That's outrageously low for a high budget show.

We don't have the whole picture regarding the revenue. How much do product placements, DVD sales and international revenues really factor into things? For that matter, how big is the budget nowadays? BSG looked pretty frakkin good yet survived at less than 2M viewers towards the end of its run.

It's extremely difficult to do a time travel show well. Doctor Who isn't a time travel show. It's an adventure show that uses time travel as a plot generator, much like Quantum Leap was. The difference is rather huge, compared to a drama that uses time travel as a plot-revelator and a problem-solving tool, such as Heroes. In the former, fudging the rules in the name of a good story is alright, even preferable. In the latter, the rules must be totally consistent or the story breaks. Even Bill and Ted eventually figure out how absurdly powerful a tool unrestricted time travel is.

Time travel is probably the most difficult thing to base a show on (assuming the show is actually based on time travel - your distinction is very pertinent). ENT showed one very wrong way to do it. To explain why your characters don't just travel back "before" everyone else and "win the war," you muddy up the rules and don't let the audience know anything, which creates frustration and resentment because audiences don't appreciate being jerked around. And since the main characters don't know the rules either, they end up looking like helpless morons. We don't want our Starfleet heroes to be helpless morons.

Lost is doing it the right way, or one right way:

Spoiler: all Lost to date

The rule is, nobody can change the past. Well maybe Desmond can, for reasons yet unclarified, but almost everyone can't. If anyone tries to change the past, the timelight "fights back" and stops them. Simple rule, doesn't create grandfather paradoxes or multiple branching timelines, the audience is neither frustrated nor confused.

These heroes ought to be running the world

Now there's a terrifying thought! Just because you have superpowers doesn't mean you have the intelligence or wisdom to wield power responsibly. That's probably (or should be) the underlying theme of this show. Fuller should get on that - this show needs some kind of underlying theme to lend it some coherence.

That's what I don't get. Why is it Peter that gets all the fan girls? To this day I don't get the Milo Ventimiglia appeal. Nathan's the hot one. Peter's a dork.

It's the Luke vs. Han thing. When you're a teenager, Luke seems more attractive (being closer to your own age and very nonthreatening). Once you grow up a little, it becomes obvious that Han is way way way hotter.

But I'm very broad-minded and luuuuv both the Petrelli boys. For that matter, I still think Luke is cute.

I don't believe that any woman (except Temis with Flanigan ) will watch a show they don't like because of some hot guy.

Don't remind me that SG:A is gone! No more Shep! (Damn, no more Sam Anders either. This is downright tragic.)

 

[Hermiod]

Damn, I was hoping the wink meant "goodbye." I doubt the character can be salvaged and was willing to give Fuller another chance with Barbara. Regardless, with the third triplet (clone?) out there, Tracy's days are numbered. What happens if she gets evaporated?

I'm mainly basing this on Bobby Drake. It's very likely that her powers at least have similar potential.

What she did with the sprinklers went way, way beyond anything she'd done before.

Don't remind me that SG:A is gone! No more Shep! (Damn, no more Sam Anders either. This is downright tragic.)

Excuse me while I get the violins.

 

[Dorian Thompson]

Now Fuller just needs to.......do something to repair the Petrelli dynamic.....

Now there's a tall order, Temis, considering that there isn't a Petrelli dynamic anymore. Their bond's severed. All gone. Heroes' clueless writers torpedoed it dead, the popularity of bromance in current culture be damned. Even that moronic Katie Jacobs on House managed to get House and Wilson back on track, but not so for Nathan and Peter. Of course House and Wilson have the advantage of Wilson actually noticing when House does something crappy to him and reacting to it, but Nathan remains nonchalant to this day about his brother's attempted murder of him. I don't give a crap that it was "future" Peter. It was Peter. If the shooting incident had been the real motivation for Nathan's rounding up of the heroes this volume, that would have been sweet. It at least would have made some sense from a psychological perspective if Nathan were pissed off but too damned anal to admit it and thus using the opportunity to exact a little revenge on Peter and further his political career at the same time.

I don't think even Bryan Fuller can fix the Petrellis. They could have the knock down, drag out, throwing a full size butcher knife across the room at baby brother's head type confrontation that the brothers on my favorite show had but I suspect that ship has sailed with Nathan and Peter. If Nathan was gonna get pissed he'd have done it long before now. Nathan doesn't seem the type to whip a butcher knife across the room anyway. He's too reserved.

 

[Checkmate]

If the last episode was any real indication, Fuller seems to have decided to get over Kring's original premise completely. Namely to only show character origins and then have them flounder.

Fuller seems to want to take the show into full comic book mode. With powers manifesting to and being used to their fullest, with real, driving stories full of conflict and action. Not a soap opera that just kind of has heroes in it.

I mean, we saw Tracy crank it up big time and go full on Bobby Drake. Micah was using his powers intelligently and creatively. Matt was "clouding men's minds" all Xavier like. Ando went pew pew on the bad guys. And it was fun and logical to boot whlie still keeping the drama going at the same time.

Was it the best episode ever? No. But it was a ray of refreshing sunshine after two and half years of drudgery.

Having said that out loud, I'm embarrassed that I stuck with it for that long!

 

[backstept]

Tracy finally became an interesting character in this episode . . . I hope she comes back at some point, and it was strongly hinted that she will

also it was nice to see Micah again
also glad to see Hiro with a power back

I hope they restore Peter's powers so that he's at least a match for Sylar again . . . I mean . . . you can't let Sylar types go un-checked

 

[Dorian Thompson]

NO. No more Peter with unlimited powers again. He should be able to handle any situation when his powers are unlimited and you inevitably sit there thinking, "He could have done this. He could have done that. Why didn't he do that?" Peter with unlimited powers is limited very much as a character. He no longer has to use his brain. Not that he does it much.

Sylar should have remained dead after season one, Zachary Quinto's charisma notwithstanding.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Now there's a tall order, Temis, considering that there isn't a Petrelli dynamic anymore. Their bond's severed.

Fuller has my blessing to just ignore big chunks of what's gone on before in his repair efforts. Frak knows that the writers to date have ignored all kinds of stuff. If Nathan's behavior in this Volume, for instance, came outta nowhere, why can't it go back where it came from?

He could even invent some shadowy mind-controlling character who's been hanging around for the past several episodes and blame everything on him.

I hope they restore Peter's powers so that he's at least a match for Sylar again . . . I mean . . . you can't let Sylar types go un-checked

Or keep him nerfed and let him use his noggin to defeat Sylar. How how about some teamwork from the gang? Now that some groundwork has been laid with getting everyone working together, assembling a team (something I think lots of folks would love to see) seems pretty natural. Peter, Matt and Mo could be the core. They need to get Micah, too - between him and Matt, they basically control the world. Mama Petrelli can be Den Mother with Spidey-sense to tell them when trouble is approaching.

 

[Hermiod]

NO. No more Peter with unlimited powers again. He should be able to handle any situation when his powers are unlimited and you inevitably sit there thinking, "He could have done this. He could have done that. Why didn't he do that?" Peter with unlimited powers is limited very much as a character. He no longer has to use his brain. Not that he does it much.

His powers were never unlimited. Watch his scenes with Claude again. There was always a limit, that's why his brother had to fly him off at the end of season one.

Sylar should have remained dead after season one, Zachary Quinto's charisma notwithstanding.

Totally disagree.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

His powers were never unlimited. Watch his scenes with Claude again. There was always a limit, that's why his brother had to fly him off at the end of season one.

He had sensible limitations in S1 but those went away and it got bad in S2. Just one example, Adam kills that woman (one of the original metahumans) in an exceedingly suspicious way and Peter doesn't give Adam a quick scan to see what's up. I could accept that Peter is excessively naive which is why he doesn't scan minds as a matter of course, but at that point, he'd have to be brain-dead not to do it.

His time travel ability also raises the issue of why he can't travel back in time and solve pretty much any problem that arises, or at least try. They had an interesting angle going with the plotline where Peter swipes Sylar's power in order to know how to change things - time travel alone doesn't tell you what to do, and you just might make things worse - but that was just one of many plotlines that went nowhere and were unceremoniously dropped.

Fuller's got a big job ahead of him.

And I wouldn't drop Sylar - Fuller seems very competent, and I'd like to see what his solution to the Sylar Dilemma might be. Hey, he made Hiro and Ando fun again rather than so annoying I wanted to kill them through my TV set. Let's give the guy a chance.