Heroes: "Hysterical Blindness" 10/12 - Grading & Discussion

[Borgminister]

Retchin' Gretchen's got a crush!

Gigity.

Am very interested in the Sylar / Carnivale storyline. Hope it isn't lame.

And I enjoyed the deaf woman finding the true power of music...

 

[Checkmate]

It bewilders me how they can have such a great concept on their hands yet continually and religiously destroy it through boredom and tedium week after week.

I really don't get it. There's got to be tens or even hundreds of writers out there that could do some amazing stuff with the concept. But all we get is absolutely abysmal drama, ill-conceived stories, and self-conflicting character personas on an almost weekly basis.

The fuck is wrong with Hollywood?

Seriously.

The fuck is wrong with them?

 

[ALF]

It bewilders me how they can have such a great concept on their hands yet continually and religiously destroy it through boredom and tedium week after week.

I really don't get it. There's got to be tens or even hundreds of writers out there that could do some amazing stuff with the concept. But all we get is absolutely abysmal drama, ill-conceived stories, and self-conflicting character personas on an almost weekly basis.

The fuck is wrong with Hollywood?

Seriously.

The fuck is wrong with them?

I know. Is is bewildering. That's the word for it.

All I say when people ask me, "you're watching Heroes? It's still on?" is this response: "Yes. If you have season one, you should watch it again and ignore the rest." I keep watching, holding out that it will improve someday. I guess I'm an idiot.

 

[blockaderunner]

Regarding the disappearing carnaval, someone on another site said it would have been interesting to reveal that the carnival itself was a super ala Doom Patrol's Danny The Street. I doubt Tim Kiring would be able to pull something like that off.

 

[blockaderunner]

And I enjoyed the deaf woman finding the true power of music...

So is she going to be a female heroic version of The Fiddler? It's gonna be hard to run into battle with a cello.

 

[Peter the Younger]

And I enjoyed the deaf woman finding the true power of music...

So is she going to be a female heroic version of The Fiddler? It's gonna be hard to run into battle with a cello.

Maybe she can do it with a smaller, more portable instrument. Like a harmonica.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I haven't seen this episode yet, but I have noticed a lot of comments are of the, "this show used to be so good variety." I am totally feeling that.

It reminds me of Earth: Final Conflict in a lot of ways. Wonderful first season. And then they just went and fucked it up, year after year, until it was a pathetic joke. I hate to see such good shows get ruined so badly, yet I can't help watching them to the bitter end. I just want to see what happens to everyone.

 

[startrekwatcher]

I hate to see such good shows get ruined so badly, yet I can't help watching them to the bitter end. I just want to see what happens to everyone.

Yes but usually a really good show gets at least four or so really consistently good enjoyable seasons out before they head into the mediocre twilight years. HEROES only got in about a season or so before it came off the rails--because of that I really can't say it is a good series.

It's interesting comparing Lost and Heroes now in hindsight. Heroes didn't drag out its mysteries back in season one and Lost did which made for some frustrating viewing. Now I have to say Lost probably had it right by structuring it so that they had plenty of interesting material to carry them all the way until the end. Heroes has simply been struggling to find out what it wants to do. The writers clearly have no plan and are constantly throwing dozens of different story ideas out there and not being patient enough to give them some depth by developing them over several episodes. Instead they are constantly jumping from plot point to plot point without it ever amounting to a whole lot in the big picture.

 

[Crusher Disciple]

It bewilders me how they can have such a great concept on their hands yet continually and religiously destroy it through boredom and tedium week after week.

I really don't get it. There's got to be tens or even hundreds of writers out there that could do some amazing stuff with the concept. But all we get is absolutely abysmal drama, ill-conceived stories, and self-conflicting character personas on an almost weekly basis.

The fuck is wrong with Hollywood?

Seriously.

The fuck is wrong with them?

Nepotism. It ain't what you can do- it's who you know (or can kiss up to).

 

[P0sitr0nic]

For all you haters, I still liked it.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Now I have to say Lost probably had it right by structuring it so that they had plenty of interesting material to carry them all the way until the end. Heroes has simply been struggling to find out what it wants to do.

What kills me is that Lost is so much harder of a concept for writers to pull off. What the frak is it about? It's really about the characters, which means those characters must be great - there's no hiding bad characters with plotline gimmickry. How do you corral all these characters into one coherent story? How do you pace the story so the audience doesn't give up in frustration while the story spirals out of control or gets hopelessly bogged down? How do you keep it from being repetitive, and give each season a unique feel without it all seeming disjointed? It's impressive that they pulled it off at all, much less so well.

Heroes is easy! It's the X-Men without costumes. The theme is that super-powered people will always be outsiders and looked upon with hatred and fear, and to some extent, this is even understandable, because mere humans cannot be expected to use the powers of gods wisely. But these people have powers, cannot figure out how to get rid of them easily, and in many cases, see their powers as part of their identity and don't want to get rid of them.

Each of the characters have an arc that leads to one of three destinations: their powers destroy them; they give up their powers, realizing they cannot control them; or (and this should be limited to one character, perhaps this is the role that can give Hiro purpose) they manage to defy the odds and learn to use (or not use) their powers with wisdom. Hiro wanted to be a Jedi, and a Jedi someone with a godlike restraint and wisdom to know when not to use power.

Just follow that template and craft interesting plotlines around it. Don't worry about shoehorning the characters together into a "team" till it feels natural - and given their mutual predicament, it will feel natural around S3 or so. Put them through trials that convince them that while other supers can be their greatest enemies, they also can be their only friends. They should have been able to get six or so very good seasons out of that setup.