Heroes - Season 4

I don't care if this is the last season or not. I'm done watching Heroes. Recent events have forced me to realize that I'm wasting too much of my time continuing to watch series I no longer like. Why have I persisted this whole time, as the show has done nothing but get worse? I've seen many blog posts about how a few changes could "fix" the show, but in my mind it's beyond saving. Even if they hired good writers and actors and it somehow became watchable again, I know in my heart that I will never care about this show for another second. It's like when a man cheats on his wife and that's it, she knows she doesn't love him anymore and she never will. It's over. Why was I still watching? It honestly was partly curiosity at just how bad it could be, but I think most of it was so I could write this stupid post about it. I tortured myself for 18 hours over the last few months so I could say how much I didn't like it. That's no way to live. I briefly considered stopping the blog altogether or at least only writing once in a while, but I still like doing it. I will however promise never to experience anything just so I can blog about it again. I will finish watching the current seasons of all my shows and write them up. Then I will look at all of them and decide if I actually enjoy watching them. If I do, great, see you next year if you get a new season. If I don't, that's it. I'm not wasting my time anymore.

Heroes fucking sucks.

Star Trek

As someone who's never given the Star Trek franchise much of a chance, this movie made me want to. It was somehow a prequel, sequel, reboot, and homage all in one, and they all managed to work. It seemed like it did a lot to make both series fans and newbies happy, and I think it succeeded in most areas. Most of the science and some of the plot contrivances are a bit silly, but it captures the spirit that seems interesting to me, of an interesting jaunt through the galaxy with exciting adventures that don't get too bogged down in what would probably actually happen, tied together by a likable cast of spaceship crew. It does what the Star Wars sequels failed to do for most people - retain the classic feel while modernizing the style and not taking the risk of ruining the set rules.

Without getting too much into details, the movie manages to set itself up fresh as a new series, while still remaining within the overall continuity of the franchise without erasing anything. It's a pretty clever setup, and it's all quickly and deftly explained in one scene in particular that I quite enjoyed. I appreciate that all the characters are highly competent and intelligent, because it lets them figure it out without dumbing it down too much or losing the audience. The way that the classic crew comes together in the course of a single mission is a bit convenient, but I just have to be impressed by the way that they accomplished everything they had to with the reboot while still having time for a pretty solid actual conflict to the story.

The villain's background and evil plan are where the film is at its weakest, relying on some extremely sketchy scientific babbling and a rather poorly thought out concept of vengeance, but in the end it allows for an intimidating antagonist that's at least slightly sympathetic in a certain way. The special effects and action are pretty good, with a pretty brisk and exciting pace throughout as Kirk gets the crap kicked out of him while the good guys always just manage to scrape by without getting obliterated. The pacing dips slightly with some unnecessary CGI creatures somewhere before things really get going towards the conclusion, but overall it was a fun, light piece of cinema as I couldn't believe that two hours had passed by the end. The cast was pretty darn strong, with everyone seeming to do a good job. I liked Quinto's Spock despite being sick of his face on Heroes, Urban actually worked outside of a crazed badass role (not that Bones isn't kind of a badass), Pegg was great for the short time he was there, and Pine made me like Kirk a whole lot. The whole movie is filled with nods and references to moments and lines from the Star Trek canon, and it's well set up for further cinematic escapades. I definitely look forward to a sequel.

Heroes - Season 3

Heroes' third season was two stories in one, the first of which was completely awful and the second of which was decent at times but still pretty bad. It's really sad how far the show has fallen. The first season was pretty darn good. The characters were interesting and sympathetic for the most part, and it felt like what might happen if a bunch of people suddenly had crazy powers. By now though, almost every single character is irritating. The two Asian dudes are still kinda funny, and the best moment of the season occurred when they encountered Seth Green and Breckin Meyer as a couple of comic geeks who recognized them from the Isaac's books. Even they are suffering under the weight of the show's increasingly terrible writing, though. No character can be rooted for when their motivations and ambitions are constantly changing for no reason to suit whatever lame purpose the plot currently requires, as the series slowly descends into the worst kind of crap that plagues the comic industry they were supposed to be avoiding.

I don't care if I spoil anything that happened months ago, so I'll just give an example of how stupid these characters are. Peter comes from a future where Nathan had revealed the existence of humans with powers to the world, and things weren't going so well. Instead of warning Nathan of the consequences at some point before he does so, he decided his best course of action is to SHOOT HIM IN THE CHEST DURING THE PRESS CONFERENCE. I don't even remember how Nathan managed to survive, but it's no surprise he did when nobody ever dies. This is a pretty egregious example, but pretty much every significant decision anyone makes during the third volume has some gigantic problem with it that anyone with a brain could have avoided. The fourth volume is a little better, with some of the more all-powerful characters' powers being limited a bit to reel it in and some decent revelatory episodes here and there. It's still brought down by almost everyone having a severe case of either mental retardation or schizophrenia, and the complete refusal by the writers to really kill or remove any characters unless they were introduced fairly recently. The only reason I still watch is some idiotic notion against not finishing something I've started, so I can only hope the next season is either magically good again or terrible enough to finally get this thing canceled, though with the way they set it up, only the latter seems plausible.

Heroes - Season 2

The strike rushing the story arc didn't help things, but the second season of Heroes was a significant letdown. It didn't start out too badly, it just degenerated quickly and was basically a mess by the time it ended. It wrapped up back in December so my memory's a bit fuzzy, but everything's kinda held in a general distaste. I still like the idea of the show and hope they can make a comeback in season 3 so we can chalk this up to a bad situation.

Problem #1: Faulty time travel logic. Hiro travels back to feudal Japan and then proceeds to completely screw up history by changing everything about how his childhood hero's life turns out. What repercussions does this have on the modern day? None, of course. Peter starts off screwing around in Ireland, picking up a wee lass, but eventually loses her in an apocalyptic future before traveling back to the present. He then follows an obvious villain around who convinces him to help prevent that future from happening. Part of Peter's motivation is to get the Irish girl back. I don't know exactly how alternate timelines and all that are supposed to work in the Heroes universe, but if somebody was trapped in a possible future, I wouldn't think the best way to get her back is to make sure the place where she is never comes into existence.

Complaint #2: Peter is an idiot. With his power, he's one of the central characters by default, but he's a complete moron in season two. He follows the villain around despite everyone telling him he can't be trusted, and despite the fact that he has the ability to read the guy's mind at any time and discover his true motivations. He only discovers the truth in time to stop the world's destruction in an absurd moment that of course takes place in slow motion.

Issue #3: Pointless plot tangents. Nikki tries to continue her life with her son, but runs into problems, none of which have anything to do with what's actually happening. The split-personality bit is getting old, and the way it resolves makes me wonder what the point was. I also wonder what the point was of having her husband survive the grave injuries he sustained in the previous season if they were going to kill him off anyway. There's also a subplot involving a couple Mexicans that seemed to bear absolutely no relevance whatsoever. When you kill off a character and then revive them five minutes later, and that causes the fans to be disappointed, you've done something wrong.

Grievance #4: Inconsistent characterization. You'd think by now that Claire and her father would stick together through thick and thin, but unfortunately she's not quite done being an angsty teenager. The entire subplot with the Bennets and Mohinder and the Company (why can't TV writers ever have better names for evil monolithic plot-device organizations?) was a big mess of pointless betrayals and anger. It seemed like they were forcing conflict where it didn't belong. Again, I'm pretty sure the strike spelled doom for this season if it wasn't doomed already, but I'll give them a chance to fix it.

Heroes - Season 1

It's really nice to see a comic book-style science-fiction show have some success on a major network. Heroes isn't perfect, but it's a very entertaining serial show that manages to build up storylines over time and still deliver closure once in a while. One of the main criticisms of Lost is that they present a lot of questions and don't give a lot of answers. I don't really mind, since it's always interesting despite this, although I may have been aided by watching the first three seasons over a couple months instead of an episode a week for three years. Heroes has a similar style, with a large, diverse, and interesting cast, extraordinary things that are supposed to be explainable scientifically (although I really don't buy the genetic justification for a lot of these powers), and lots of mysteries. There is a definite, discernable story arc though, and while it remains to be seen if all that they seemed to wrap up actually was, they do provide a bit more satisfaction in that regard. They're also not afraid to kill off minor characters, although there hasn't been that much death in the main cast. I understand the difference between film and television, where you need some consistency week to week, but it gets a little fishy when only guest stars seem to get bumped off.

The story, while intriguing, does have a few little problems with it. Whenever you introduce time travel to a story, you add a lot of potential for cool scenarios, but you also invite trouble. Heroes is always pretty vague about how changing destinies really affects the timeline, and some bits just don't match up. "Save the cheerleader, save the world" is a recurring idea, but when it's all resolved, it's hard to discern exactly why. They also introduce some causality loops just for fun, although some people wouldn't think about that as much. In the end, I wasn't fully happy with the way things resolved, but it's still pretty good, and better thanks to the cast. Everyone is right for their part, and mostly do their job well. There are occasional awkward line deliveries, but the work is pretty solid in general. The characters themselves are all developed well over the course of the show, and they go out of their way to add a human element to all the super powered craziness. It's always fun when a new power is introduced, and after that initial revelation, they usually do a good job of making that person more than a plot device, although a couple tend to stray into that territory. It's still early in the show, and there's plenty of time to mess things up, but right now they have a good thing going.