Quote:
Originally Posted by BlackEleven
I wish they'd do a hard reset between seasons. Start fresh.
Season 1 was exciting because we had a mysterious villain and a conspiracy unraveling at the same time. Each episode we'd be dropped a few more breadcrumbs to follow to unlock the mystery while at the same time be able to share in a sense of wonderment and feel some empathy as a character would discover his ability and how to use it.
As it stands now, there's a bunch of story lines going on from earlier seasons, that weren't that great to begin with, woven in with some new story lines with the same characters but with new motivations (that are really clear either). Add a couple new mysterious characters to make up the "bad guys" and mix it all together and it gets confusing to follow and only mildly interesting.
In my opinion, they need to start a season from scratch, and in the season opener start by defining the problem to be solved, and concentrate on a couple characters that are good guys and a couple that are bad. Then slowly add in new characters with new abilities and gives us a few more clues to what the bad guys are up to as the season goes on. Some ties back to earlier seasons as the plot progresses are fine, but they shouldn't be central to the plotline of the current season.
The way it is now, it just feels like a mismash of a bit of everything as they jump between old storylines, new ones, characters that we're not really sure are good or bad, main plot, sub-plots, and the same time wondering what problem the main characters are trying to solve.
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I believe that was the original concept for the show; that every season would focus on a completely new set of characters that are discovering and developing their abilities with cameos from season 1 characters (Sylar, Peter, Parkman, and Hiro). Thing is, the show got so insanely popular, particularly the characters mentioned above, that the network pretty well nixed the "start fresh" idea.
Season 2 is a bit of an enigma. Yes, the finished product was pretty terrible, but I think it could have been a lot better with a full season. Really, the shortness of season 2 affected the first half of season 3. From what I understand, season 2 was supposed to consist of "Generations", which would end with the virus getting out, then move into "Exodus", and then finish off with "Villains", with "Fugitives" starting the third season. So when you look at it like that, that's an awfully big adjustment to make when you lose a complete arc of a story.
I was fairly happy with how "Fugitives" went, and felt that it was definitely the strongest volume since the first. The only real exception for me was that god-awful 1960s episode.
From early indications, "Redemption" seems to be really getting back to what made the show successful: the storylines that each of the characters are involved in all seem to be connected, yet not at the same time.
Regardless of how the season turns out, I'm in it for the long haul.
ETA: A friend of mine who watched all of Heroes for the first time in the summer made a pretty funny observation: Heroes really
is like a comic book -- just look at all the retcons they've done since the series started
