CBR: Fallen Heroes? CBR Responds to Entertainment Weekly

[CBR News]

CBR takes a look at Entertainment Weekly’s recent piece focusing on the latest \r\nseason of \"Heroes\" and what they would to do improve the show. In this editorial \r\nresponse, we wonder if the Heroes have truly fallen.


Full article here.

[Flinkman]

i have to disagree & say that i believe you guys to be off base on this one. it seemed to me like there was a lot of excuses being made for really poor writing this season.

also, i do think Heroes could benefit from the LOST format. yes, LOST does have an overreaching "uber arc" as you put it...but that is what keeps people hooked, the idea that it's actually GOING somewhere as opposed to running 12 different arcs at a time & hoping they'll intersect at some point. LOST also has lots of little stories & arcs that haven't spanned the entire series (though many have) as well. and even with all of the stuff they manage to cram in, they still find ways to have more great character moments. imo, it's almost a little ridiculous to even compare the two because honestly LOST >>>>>>>>>>>>>> Heroes.

[ZT4]

This has been a one trick pony that got lucky from having the best self-contained season seen in modern television history. It hasnt changed it's format, it hasnt changed it's structure, and it hasnt encouraged any better acting because the scripts are excessivley shallow and seem to encourage them to speak in block capitals.

[Jared]

I stopped watching a little more than halfway through last season. No one seems to think that I've missed out by doing so.

[Pixie_Solanas]

Why is CBR trying to justify the steamy p.o.s. the show has become?

It's not enjoyable, it's not fun, and it's certainly NOT one of the better shows on TV (as so blithely argued in the piece).

[babydave]

Who the hell reads Entertainment Weekly anyway?!

Don't get me wrong; I'm not lashing out at a magazine for criticizing a show I like. I, in fact, had a subscription to EW for YEARS, so I know what I'm talking about. The only reason I even had the subscription is because my school forced me to sell magazine subscriptions and it's one of the few magazines that was even remotely interesting to me. Over the years, I began to read fewer and fewer pages of each subsequent issue and rarely, if ever, found a film review I agreed with. Whereas an issue would take me an hour or more to read when I first picked up the magazine, I was spending maybe 15-20 minutes depending on whether the articles I liked were a page or pages and whether it was the "Spring/Summer/Fall/Winter Preview" type of issue. It's just not a good magazine and it's not worth the paper it's printed on... even if it were free and available online, it wouldn't be worth the bandwidth it takes up.

I think season 3 of Heroes is overall better than season 1, and I actually enjoyed the start of season 2 more than the end of it, but maybe that's because I always knew who Takezo Kensei was going to end up being and it was fun to see it happen and it's fun being proven right.

Also, I don't think Heroes did everything right in Season 1. I was quite often bored by season 1. Maybe it's because I knew where things were headed.. maybe it's because I've already read the same story in comics 2 or 3 times (Rising Stars, anyone?)... I was bored. Seasons 2 and 3 have been a welcome change of pace and direction and while I agree that some things are problems, I believe that EW's solutions are typically stupid. (Making Black Holes is an AWESOME power, especially when you use it to kill yourself rather than kill someone else... stupid EW)

The days of the influence of bad magazines (and even RATINGS) are over. Always find a way to tell your story.

[gwor]

Heroes has become so bad, I wish someone would start a petition to get it off the air.

Every new lame episode tarnishes that brilliant first Season.

What went wrong? The entire vibe of ordinary people experiencing the fantastic has been supplanted by convoluted plots and inconsistent, whiny characters. It seems to me that as more comic book people flocked to the writing staff (Loeb), the show really fell off the rails.

The solution? Let Peter 'blow up' the world and start this show from scratch....

[Caanan]

I'm hoping the way this season ends is that the escalation they're going through right now with all the villians, the fighting Petrelli clan and their fighting companies comes to a head until it cannot be escalated any further, than BAM! it's all taken care of. No more Petrellis. No more people pulling strings and moving pieces across a chessboard, and the heroes that are left after all is said and blown up, have to get back to their lives and you know, work for a living (seriously - none of these guys have jobs - how do they eat? Who pays the rent?) ... but yes, anyway, then we can get back to the more street level, people with powers in the everyday, situations.

[Jmacq1]

I'm hoping the way this season ends is that the escalation they're going through right now with all the villians, the fighting Petrelli clan and their fighting companies comes to a head until it cannot be escalated any further, than BAM! it's all taken care of. No more Petrellis. No more people pulling strings and moving pieces across a chessboard, and the heroes that are left after all is said and blown up, have to get back to their lives and you know, work for a living (seriously - none of these guys have jobs - how do they eat? Who pays the rent?) ... but yes, anyway, then we can get back to the more street level, people with powers in the everyday, situations.

The problem is that for every fan that wants the Heroes to be more normal and "street level" there's another fan that wants Peter and Sylar to have a knock-down, drag out fight that levels half of Manhattan simply from the side-effects, and another fan that's just waiting for spandex outfits and an official "super-team." Given the exceptionally poor reception to Season 2 which started out pretty much exactly as you describe (many of the Heroes reset back to somewhat "normal" situations), it seems the middle group has won out.

[crood]

This season's paring down of the cast seem entirely limited to those introduce in season 2, so I don't see it helping all that much.

I think their original plan of having each season focus on a different set of heroes might have been for the best. It diminishes the "stupid factor" since we don't need to see people repeat mistakes.

Barring that, I'd probably eliminate (or at least depower) some of the following:

Hiro - Unfortunately, if he grows too much we lose the quirky nerd we love. They also need to come up with lame excuses why he won't fix things out of hand.

Peter - If his depowering is permanent, or at least remains in a reduced state, it's already been done. They seem to put him on the shelf too often.

The Haitian - The guy's a walking, rarely talking deus ex machina. His use in some instances only highlights when he goes un used without explanation.

Sylar - I know it's blasphemy, but the character was created to die. The fact that he's getting a whole new personality this season pretty much confirms the limitation of a serial killer with dozens of powers. The whole "hunger" excuse is pretty lame since it doesn't explain why he was still a psychopath in season 2 nor why Arthur doesn't have it since acquiring Peter's abilities.

[Joe Rice]

I don't know if it's fallen . . .it's always been pretty terrible. I couldn't get through and episode on Season 1.

[crood]

The Petrelli's are rich, so that explains Peter and Nathan.

Same for Hiro.

Noah has a job with the company, which probably pays very well to ensure secrecy. He probably had a lot saved, so that there wasn't a money problem during his time working at Kinkos.

Mohinder worked as a cab driver in Season 1 and was working for Primatech in season 2. Like Noah, he was probably paid quite well during that year.

Matt's probably got some trouble due to his unexplained absence. However, not a lot of time has passed since the end of Season 2. He referred to "the week he'd had" in his message to Mohinder. It's probably been a bit longer than that, since Nathan probably had to go through a string of interviews and press conferences on being appointed to the Senate and he was in the hospital for a few days after being shot.

[Agent Helix]

I don't know if it's fallen . . .it's always been pretty terrible. I couldn't get through and episode on Season 1.

Ditto. It's always been an unwatchable pile, and I really hate to see articles that seem to exist solely to apologize for it.

[jesse_custer]

I don't know if it's fallen . . .it's always been pretty terrible. I couldn't get through and episode on Season 1.

I got through an episode. Walker Texas Ranger has better writing and acting than this garbage.

[Caanan]

The problem is that for every fan that wants the Heroes to be more normal and "street level" there's another fan that wants Peter and Sylar to have a knock-down, drag out fight that levels half of Manhattan simply from the side-effects, and another fan that's just waiting for spandex outfits and an official "super-team." Given the exceptionally poor reception to Season 2 which started out pretty much exactly as you describe (many of the Heroes reset back to somewhat "normal" situations), it seems the middle group has won out.

I don't know. One of the better ideas introduced in Season 2 was Monica. A normal kid dealing with her 'Anything you can do, I can do better' powers. And I really enjoyed the Parkman/Mohinder odd couple routine. It made sense for loser Parkman, who had just lost his job, his wife, etc. to move in with a housemate, and focus all his attentions on Molly, and maybe his friendship with Mohinder might have kept him from turning into *gulp* a ... m-monster! ;o\

Maybe they just need a balance.