Heroes: "The Wall" - 2/1/10 - Grading & Discussion

[MichaelDornFan]

I wonder if they'll steal footage from the 10.5 movies for Samuel's ability...

 

[ALF]

Man... what a waste of an hour. So cruel to bore us like this for 42.5 mins.

I found it extremely unbelievable that Sylar and Peter experienced being together in WallWorld for years. They would have had a much more realistic sense of bonding had that much time gone by, arch enemies or not. I'm not sure if the writers or the actors are to blame...

Trapped behind a wall. Trapped underground. Trapped watching this fucking show!

And yet I can't look away... The big question for me is... are we going to be doing this again next year? Everyone seems to think no because of all the ratings codswallop. But there is also the idea that NBC has nothing and they'd want to keep hold of whatever they do have. Plus the creators' "5 year plan". Who knows?

 

[Lt. Trull]

Sylar and Peter... the new Dynamic duo....

 

[Snaploud]

The words "five year plan" are probably written above a dartboard of random plotlines. One of the writers must have a tendency to hit that spot saying "make Sylar good/evil" or "make Sylar lose/regain powers."

 

[Lt. Trull]

The words "five year plan" are probably written above a dartboard of random plotlines. One of the writers must have a tendency to hit that spot saying "make Sylar good/evil" or "make Sylar lose/regain powers."

yeah... picture the hero's bingo dartboard of the week...
3 throws and you have a episode...

 

[ALF]

The dartboard is likely part of an overall flow chart that sees episodes and seasons looping into each other continuously.

Cruel television!

One of the reasons my favorite shows have always been Trek, Seinfeld, Simpsons, Sopranos, Deadwood, etc etc. is that they have ensemble casts and epic arcs and that they reward the viewer for paying attention.

But with Heroes it seems paying attention to the story closely only results in being disappointed.

 

[D Man]

This was kind of an OK episode, but it certainly didn't hold my attention. I watched it over the course of 3 or 4 times of loading it up on Hulu over the last few days . It's better than some of the recent awful outings, but it's funny to see the second-to-last episode of the season essentially spinning its wheels with only a small handful of the main characters even featured. I must say that when I was watching season 1 for the first time, I NEVER expected tonight's Line Of The Week to be uttered..."I can't bring your brother back, but I can sure swing a sledgehammer!"

 

[Hermiod]

The dartboard is likely part of an overall flow chart that sees episodes and seasons looping into each other continuously.

Cruel television!

One of the reasons my favorite shows have always been Trek, Seinfeld, Simpsons, Sopranos, Deadwood, etc etc. is that they have ensemble casts and epic arcs and that they reward the viewer for paying attention.

But with Heroes it seems paying attention to the story closely only results in being disappointed.

The Simpsons has epic arcs ?

Homer spent $200,000 on a new kitchen for Marge that was gone by the next episode!

 

[ALF]

The dartboard is likely part of an overall flow chart that sees episodes and seasons looping into each other continuously.

Cruel television!

One of the reasons my favorite shows have always been Trek, Seinfeld, Simpsons, Sopranos, Deadwood, etc etc. is that they have ensemble casts and epic arcs and that they reward the viewer for paying attention.

But with Heroes it seems paying attention to the story closely only results in being disappointed.

The Simpsons has epic arcs ?

Homer spent $200,000 on a new kitchen for Marge that was gone by the next episode!

No, I mean Simpsons was good at rewarding viewers for paying attention, jokes, references, etc. Albeit mostly pop culture influenced.

Yeah, their continuity overall is awful. If you suspend disbelief that Bart's been what, nine or ten for over 20 years now?

Anyway, Heroes: The Most You Watch, the Worse You Feel.

 

[Caligula]

Plus the creators' "5 year plan". Who knows?

A 5 year plan.... I can see it now:

"...Their five-year mission: To explore dull, pointless plotlines. To seek out new characters who'll disappear and be forgotten later. To boldly hang on to Sylar for the entire series' run!"

 

[ALF]

^_^ That's funny... you know I haven't thought of this before.... but is it possible with Star Trek 09's success it might have influenced the producers to keep Sylar around more? Perhaps they did plan on killing him off, but when his "real estate" as an A list actor surfaced they decided to keep him?

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Below Average, in the usual schizo way this show has of being Below Average...

Okay first I'll get the Beyond Poor section out of the way. Noah's retconned motivation is inane melodrama. What the FRAK was wrong with just leaving him as some young guy who decided he wanted an exciting job that also sorta serves the greater good? Does every person who ever became a cop have to be motivated by having a family member murdered by a druggie/thief first? Stupid, stupid, STUPID!

Onto the Sorta Good section: Peter and Sylar's Twilight Zone nightmare has the kernel of a good story, as long as you ignore the stupidity of how the writers threw them together, Sylar's eternally garbled identity (is he being nice because he is now Gabriel; still has Nathan's persona; or has just gone so completely insane that he's done a 180 from his old personality?) and the utter wrongness of the notion that what was keeping them bricked in together was not Sylar's evil but Peter's pigheaded inability to forgive his brother's murderer. So the burden was always on Peter to change? Not the serial killer guy??? WTF, show?!?

The best thing about that plotline is that I'm sure the fanfic writers even now are scribbling furiously to fill in the blanks of their countless years trapped in downtown LA together (which sounds like the seventh circle of hell even if you were stuck with someone you liked).

Middle of the road: Samuel. His motivations have become boringly generic-villain-y. Robert Knepper deserved better writing.

Bring on Monday, let's get this mess over with. Even if they got an S5, I don't think I'd bother to watch. What would they do? Have Peter and Sylar pal around for a while and then, oops, Sylar goes squirrely again? Too many rides on that merry-go-round, I'm too nauseated to even contemplate another spin.

And ugh where the hell did Matt go?

Yeah, did he just get bored looking at Peter conked out on his basement floor and leave? Maybe he finally got a clue and took the wife & kid to Patagonia to hide out. The last thing he should do is ever have anything to do with any of those lunatics ever again.

And since when do houses in LA have basements?

Man, I'm so happy a real show (Lost) comes back tomorrow night.

Lost was frakking amazing, wasn't it! Since those guys are out of a job at the end of this year, let's give em Heroes to do all over again from the start.

Sylar could wipe the floor with Multiple Man in a second, but I guess since he wants to be good now, he won't want to kill him and we'll get a dragged out battle that wastes a lot of time.

Sylar doesn't have to lift a finger. Peter has mind control abilities, and has used them on multiple people in the past (assuming Multiple Guy counts as more than one mind).

You know, I'm not opposed to the idea of Peter and Sylar being trapped together in a shared dream state and, over what seems to them to be a very long time, working through some of their issues... but I didn't completely buy it. Maybe it was because this sub-plot wasn't given the time it required, maybe it was the writing, maybe it was Milo's acting, but whatever the reason, I wasn't quite convinced.

For starters, Peter should be on the verge of insanity, if not totally around the bend, after being trapped for years with no one but Sylar around and nothing to do but a) swing a sledgehammer and b) avoid talking to Sylar. He should be (to quote a review in another thread of his performance in Gamer) acting like a meth-addled robot.

 

[Aragorn]

I wonder if Greg Grunberg is the de facto PR actor or if he really has no clue. First he says the writers are good and carefully plot things out, now he's saying the time change (by one whole hour on the same night) hurt the show.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

This episode was worth watching just for the Pylar slash fuel. Much better than recent weeks.

Yeah I was howling at some of it. "Oh you're so cruel, why won't you let me in???" I'm sure the fanfic writers will come up with years' worth of far more interesting stories set in Twilight Zone LA (Heroes' version of LA X?) than the actual show has had in years.