Daryl Tay.net

Fugitives

Four episodes of volume four of Heroes have aired so far, and I’ve caught three of them (A Clear and Present Danger, Trust and Blood and Building 26), and thought it’s about time to share what I think about volume four, after the trainwreck that was volume three.

First of all, I need to say that the “feel” of Heroes, visually, isn’t consistent at all in volume four. The directors of the first episode (Greg Yaitanes) and the third episode (Sergio Mimica-Gezzan) in particular, bring different camera angles and visual points of view to the series, that didn’t exist before, and the switch is highly jarring.

Plot-wise, if you ignore the unexplained motivations behind Nathan Petrelli’s current actions and just take it at face value, the idea of our Heroes getting hunted is not too bad, and the first episode starts off strongly. (Well, coming off volume three, almost anything would be a stronger episode). While the plot isn’t draggy like volume two, it’s also not overly sped up like volume three. That said, there is still very little proper characterisations and in particular Peter, Claire, Mohinder and Matt come off as terrible characters with terrible lines.

The next big problem I have, is the flip-flops of characters. The “I’m doing this for the family” angle of HRG is really tiresome, Hiro’s desire to be a hero equally so, Tracy Strauss’s attempts to be on Nathan’s side, then not, then on again is pathetic, and I can’t see anyone wanting to team with Mohinder after his numerous (and illogical) side swaps from season two till now. None of these issues are solved, and if anything, they seem to be worse in Fugitives.

Finally, some plot points are just stupid. Why would they capture Hiro who has no more powers, and leave Ando running around? Why would Matt, who already foresaw Daphne getting shot, leave her to be standing in the exact spot she was standing to be killed? It’s just utterly ridiculous. Also, now that the heroes are all split up, wouldn’t it be cool if Wireless were still around to be their communications network?

Sylar, however, seems to be back to his badassness and isn’t taking crap from anyone. He’s the only one who the soldiers can’t capture and is proving to be an awesome villain. I can’t wait for John Glover (Lionel Luthor from Smallville) to appear as his dad. He should bring some presence to the show, if nothing else.

After three episodes, my tentative verdict is that Heroes is still beyond hope. I’m watching it out of nostalgic reasons right now and while I do remember the days where I would watch every episode the day it was released, unfortunately those days are long gone, and it’s gonna be an extremely uphill climb for them to get back on track.