A FEW THOUGHTS ON HEROES REBORN AND RE-EVALUATING HEROES

Just finished watching HEROES REBORN and I thought overall it was a worthy continuation of the Heroes storyline. 

First the negatives – The various time travel plot elements got too convoluted and hard to follow.  At one point, when Hiro and Mama Petrelli went back to the past, I just kind of gave up.  Having Erica Kravid’s hatred of evo’s be a result of her sexual abuse by one as a teenager was a bit jarring and out of tune with usual heroes episodes which are violent but in a cartoonish way.  It does make perfect sense though.     

The positives – I really liked some of the new characters especially Katana Girl and Wreckless Ren which mirrored the story of Pinocchio.  The last scene between the real Katana Girl and Ren was perfect.   I liked the outright filching of plot ideas from the comic book story arcs Days of Future Passed and Kingdom Come as well as The Watchmen.  While Noah Bennett was integral to the Heroes series, I always viewed him as a villain and I was happy to see his death even if it seemed rushed and not dramatic enough.  Matt Parkman, pathetic weak cuckold, was always my least favorite character on Heroes and his decent into villainy as well as his ignominious fate made perfect sense.

Too bad there won’t be another season based around Claire’s babydaddy.  I hoped it would be Sylar although I found it interesting the person who left the note drank a strawberry milkshake in the ice cream parlor where Tommy works.  Samuel, the villain from season four, also liked strawberry milkshakes but he’s a bit old….Maybe Claire’s babbydaddy is his son?    

  

I am not sure if Fox is doing this in other countries but in Southeast Asia, in conjunction with the new Heroes series, they have been repeating all four seasons of the original HEROES show. I’ve seen every episode before but a while ago so I am rewatching to see if my opinion has changed (Something I also plan to do with BREAKING BAD when I get some time).

Well I still think the first season is one of the greatest single seasons of any TV show – complex, character driven but plenty of superhero action, tragedy, and twists, the closest a TV show has ever come to copying the multi-part narrative story arc flow of comic books. 

However, I have softened a bit on the other seasons – They are better than I remember. In particular, the first part of Season Three the VILLAINS storyline is superb with the always brilliant Robert Forster as a great megalomaniac type. Even the fourth season, my least favorite, seems okay now, perhaps too padded out and I still think the carnival of superhumans is not a strong enough threat to carry a whole season but I liked the Sylar/Peter/Nathan resolution (I think people who criticized that missed the point that Sylar is not really Sylar anymore rather a Nathan/Sylar combo).

In the end, what makes HEROES great is/was the characters – They are really well drawn, with great backstories and many facets to their personality. It’s not that big a genre but the best superhero TV show of all time IMO.