Friday, December 7

i knew it - Heroes edition

in this day and age of the internet, you think it would be easier to come by information on shows - how many episodes have been ordered, how are they doing in the ratings, etc. etc. i'm REALLY trying to get info lately because of this damn writer's strike. however, in general, i've found info on TV shows really hard to come by.

in my recent hunt for information, i found out that Chuck and Life (both new shows that i enjoy thoroughly) were greenlit for full seasons (i guess they originally only had 11-13 episodes each). cool beans. i ALSO found out that NBC may not have time in their schedule to air the last episode of Journeyman (which has NOT been picked up for a full season yet). next week is the 11th episode, and then there's a 12th out there that's been filmed and everything that wraps up the story just in case no more episodes are ordered but NBC might not have a time slot to air it in. oh, and it's part 2 of what happens in episode 11. wow. nice one NBC.

all that's fine and dandy, but here's the real reason for this post: Heroes and their sloppy, sloppy finish to season 2 (or season 2 part 1 if the writer's strike ends in time). quoted from an article on tv.com from a month ago:

NBC's Heroes is preparing for the worst. According to TVGuide.com, the superhero drama is reshooting the final episode of the season's first half--also known as Volume One or "Generations."

Originally scheduled for multiple volumes, the second season of the drama may be halved, and the reshooting of the December 3 episode is designed to wrap things up nicely...by transforming the episode into a potential season finale rather than a midseason cliffhanger. The strike was allegedly also the cause of the indefinite postponement of the Heroes: Origins spin-off.

so there you go. damn writer's strike.

- kawitchate

Tuesday, December 4

Heroes - week 11

so i bet you all think you know what i'm going to say.

and you're probably right. at least partially.

here's how it went. i was ENGROSSED up until the commercial break at 8:35 - i mean i was on the EDGE OF MY SEAT the writing was so good. i was loving it.

then i started to realize... there's no way they can cover everything i want them to (or better yet, everything they should) in the time left. and then the scenes with characters started getting shorter and shorter (Claire reunited with her dad was WAY too short of a scene, same with Peter and Adam storming the compound, Hiro and Adam facing off, Nathan and his hastily called press conference, etc. etc. etc). and then it was over.

what happened? i HAVE to think the writer's strike (or the impending writer's strike at the time of writing the second season) meant they needed a quick finish to the half-season (season?). for Heroes to drag on for 6-8 episodes (at a slow, but steady pace - better than what came after it) and then quickly (and somewhat sloppily) wrap up in 3-4 just plain sucked.

what should have happened? i think there were about 2 episodes missing - one dealing mostly with Nathan (as we saw VERY little of him this season, more on that below) and another dealing with what happened 30 years ago with the old heroes (when Nathan and Parkman were talking to Mrs. Petrelli and she was like "It happened 30 years ago..." close up on her face and everything... you KNOW that was begging for a flashback episode).

if i could have more episodes, i would have liked one that showed what happened to the OTHER characters 4 months ago (see my post from a few weeks ago) and maybe yet another dealing with more of the aftermath of Claire's dad being "dead." but if i can't have those, we SHOULD have had at least the 2 i described above.

and we didn't. and the season suffered horribly for it.

notes:

- all in all, for an episode that had almost every (every?) hero in it, the pacing and face-time for each hero wasn't all that bad. as i said, i was really loving it up until i realized that this was it, there was no more time to cover everything that needed to be covered. it's just too bad that we didn't get the 2 episodes i described above that were needed to make this REALLY good.

- virus was stopped, but what was the aftermath of it? where's Peter's Irish lass? was that future really avoided? the whole virus storyline sort of just stopped once Peter incinerated the vile. so... is everything cool then? hello?

- Elle maturing is still a fun ride. when she went to face Sylar on her own i was worried they'd kill her off, but i'm glad they didn't. in fact, it was really neat how she smiled when Sylar said that she saved their lives, was their hero.

- the Company using Claire's dad to quiet her was pretty cool, but felt rushed (again, that's why i wish there was another episode with Claire dealing with her father's death). i wish he would have stayed "dead" longer... however, he isn't going to get to BE with his family for a while, so i guess that's interesting.

- i really liked the Nikki/Micah moments between the two of them in the car, but otherwise that ENTIRE storyline was dumb and boring. and now she's "dead" and honestly i couldn't care less. i really haven't liked what they did to her character (and her family for that matter, killing DL the way they did) all season long.

- the Suresh/Sylar/South American chick/Molly storyline was pretty tight. i'm surprised Sylar showed his true self so early to the South American chick, but whatever. oh, and i was kinda sad that she didn't die since i find her pretty annoying - HOWEVER, now that she's on the good side and knows what Sylar did, i think she's going to play a big part in bringing him down. let's just hope she's less annoying.

- yes, Sylar got his powers back, and i guess it was about time. the next "chapter" is called Villains, and as much as i'd like to see Sylar and Adam team up, i think what is more likely is that the Villains are going to be Sylar and the Company... although Sylar knows that the Company was the one that took away his powers, so he's going to be after them as well. very interesting. oh, and they'd BETTER start off next season by showing us what happened to Sylar 4 months ago, how the Company got him, and all that happened to him down in Mexico up until the twins came upon him in the middle of nowhere.

- i liked everything that went down at Primatech Paper with Adam and Peter and Nathan and Parkman and Hiro, but it just should have been LONGER. show Adam and Peter storming the place. show the face-off between Adam and Hiro as Hiro takes him in time and leaves him there. show some more of what's in the vault. and for god's sake did they rush into that press conference thing - where the hell did that come from?!? which leads to my next point...

- they shouldn't have killed Nathan. i mean sure, dead doesn't necessarily mean dead - especially with Claire's blood everywhere now, but for some reason i think they're going to make this one stick. the writer's think it'll serve to strengthen Peter's resolve, that Nathan was just an ends to a means for Peter's character (and Peter is EVERYONE'S favorite, right?). i mean the signs are there - Nathan doesn't have his family anymore, he was a broken man, a drunk, a destitute... they were getting him ready to die. and i HATE them for it. Nathan has always been one of my favorite characters and they SHAT ALL OVER HIM this season (both literally, by making his life hell, and figuratively, by not giving him enough face time on the show). this once-proud Congressman with a family suddenly had NOTHING, and that doesn't make for interesting TV? where was the Nathan-centric episode this season?!? hell, where was he in ANY of the episodes?!?!? and now you have the audacity to kill him?!? you give him a few brotherly lines in this episode and show his quick turnaround back into the man he once was by calling the press conference and you think it's enough? well it's not. if you can't tell, i'm actually livid. if this death sticks, i am seriously going to think about dropping this show.

and that about sums it up. it was a fun ride taken by itself, but the season was missing 2 key episodes (ideally 4) that would have made the package whole. as it said at the end, Heroes returns "in 2008," but with the writer's strike, does that mean it will return for the second half of season 2, or will we have to wait until the Fall for season 3?

i'm willing to give the sloppy pacing and writing a break because of the writer's strike, but if Nathan truly is dead, that's going to be something hard to forgive. if they would have given him his dues this season, i wouldn't mind as much.

but they didn't.

and i do.

damn you Heroes for being so good last season and sloppy - yet still a blast in its own right - this season. and damn you for Nathan's death.

i still love you... but you're on thin ice.

- kawitchate