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HEROES |
Hiro Nakamura - Masi Oka Claire Bennett - Hayden Panettiere Mr Bennett - Jack Coleman Nathan Petrelli - Adrian Pasdar Tracy Strauss - Ali Larter Matt Parkman - Greg Grunberg Peter Petrelli - Milo Venitmiglia Sylar - Zachary Quinto 
OTHER HEROES SEASONS Season 1 Season 2 Season 3 OFFICIAL SITE bbc.co.uk 
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OrientationClaire Bennett goes to college but before she knows it her roomate has killed herself (or was she murdered?). Tracy Strauss is back and is killing off those that shot her frozen body into a thousand pieces, but she strikes a deal with Claire's Dad Noah to leave him and Danko alive. Danko ends up dead, however, because a man with superspeed and knives was looking for something. That something is a key that leads to a broken compass apparently belonging to someone in a creepy travelling carnival. The carnival is the place where Hiro first learned that he would be a great hero, a path that has led him to a point where his powers are killing him. To save himself would mean that New York would be destroyed, but he can perhaps change a few other people's lives for the better. Matt Parkman is being haunted by Sylar, the man who now wears the face of Nathan Petrelli and actually believes himself to be Nathan Petrelli. Brother Peter is back on the job as a paramedic and is using his powers to save lives. HEROES is back for its fourth season and the signs are that it may have learned a thing or two about what made it great and what derailed it along the way. There are a lot of characters, multiple plotlines, bursts of violent action and lots of character angst to be getting along with in this opening double bill/feature length pilot. Some of these characters, however, have already come together and the plotlines and characters have a focus in the background - the creepy carnival borrowed from Ray Bradbury's wonderful SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES. Carnivals are inherently creepy and ones where the future is seen in living tattoos (also borrowed from Ray Bradbury, THE ILLUSTRATED MAN this time) are even more so. What all this means and where it is going is impossible to say, but there is already a sense that there is a plot and point rather than the wild meanderings of other seasons. The news of Hiro's fatal condition is a blow, but then this is HEROES where being dead isn't always as terminal as it sounds. Matt's conversations with the Sylar in his head are more effective than they have any right to thanks to the playing of the two protagonists and the rest is the usual mess of events swirling around out of which we hope some sense will come. This time around, however, confidence that it will is high. Roll on the next episode. TopInkSamuel from the Carnival manufactures a lawsuit against Peter Petrelli in order to determine whether he is worthy of being invited to join the 'family'. He also displays a little of his own mean streak. Claire has to deal with the fallout of Gretchen learning her secret whilst Matt Parkman is given a taste of what it i like having Sylar inside his head. HEROES is back to its slowburn, character-based ways, which is fine by us if it continues to concentrate on just a few characters at a time like this episode does. By telling only 3 stories at once (4 if you count the introduction of the deaf woman who sees sounds), each gets the time to breathe and progress naturally. The Matt Parkman/Sylar duel is easily the best, being tightly written and well acted, showing the evil side of Sylar off to perfection and just how Matt's innate nobility can be used against him. The Claire Bennett story is pure filler until we find out who Gretchen really is (she can't be just what she sees) and the Peter Petrelli story is clearly part of the main arc and so doesn't go anywhere very fast. How exactly Samuel's earth-moving capacities squares away with his manipulation of living ink is a mystery that is never even mentioned, but on the whole the show is back to teasing and pleasing in equal measures. TopAcceptanceHiro has decided that his mission in life is to correct all his mistakes, but when he gets a call from a would-be suicide on the roof, he tries to rescue the man from his mistakes instead. Traci Strauss tries to go back into politicking and finds that she has changed whilst the man formerly known as either Sylar or Nathan Petrelli (depending on your viewpoint) discovers events in his own misremembered past that could lead to serious consequences. It's only in the revelation of the last few seconds that this episode shows any sense of going anywhere. Hiro is coming to terms with his own mortality, but his GROUNDHOG DAY of trying to save a man sacked for photocopying his backside is played for laughs rather than pathos and is a standalone story. Traci's discovery that she is no longer the amoral political animal that she was isn't exactly either a revelation or very interesting and Noah Bennett wallowing in his own lack of direction is just embarrassing. As for Nathan suddenly discovering a death from his past that he had forgotten (Haitian or no mind-wiping Haitian) - that's just pushing suspension of disbelief a little too far. We really like having some character in our plot, but we also like to have some plot to go with the characters. This is one of those meandering episodes that gives HEROES a bad name by looking like filler, feeling like filler and, unless you have a deep interest in the characters, absolutely is filler. Still, we have that last moment to savour and hope that it might spur some sort of central plot on a bit. TopHysterical BlindnessSylar had shapeshifted into Nathan's body and then had Nathan's personality imprinted. When he was shot dead, therefore, as Nathan he emerged in his original Sylar body and with no memory at all of who he is. Picked up by the police, he learns that he has powers and that he might have killed his own mother. It's not long before he's on the run again. Claire, on the other hand, comes to the conclusion that her new roomate is stalking her during Sorority tryouts. Peter tries to get closer to his family, but ends up getting closer to Emma when he shares her ability to see sounds, an ability that turns out to be more dangerous than just pretty colours. HEROES has always had the propensity to go meandering all over the place, never taking the straight line approach and this episode certainly meanders a lot. Almost nothing actually happens between the start and finish. The whole Sylar story is merely a stepping stone to getting him to the Sullivan Brothers carnival and Claire's whole Sorority adventure is merely to introduce a new character and threat to her. If you've been following the characters to this point then it still manages to be intriguing as to where all these meanders are taking us, but for anyone else it will be a very dull experience. TopTabula RasaNow that Sylar is in the hands of the carnival, Samuel sets about returning his memory to him. Hiro has come to Peter to help him, but it might be that it is Peter that can help Hiro. First though, he needs to team up with Mr Bennett to visit a mistake from the Company's past. HEROES takes another side road that goes in a direction other than that of towards some sort of resolution. Sylar's rebirth gives Zachary Quinto some strong scenes to play, but takes an awful long time to sort out. Meanwhile, Peter and Noah Bennett's little excursion has the aim of helping Hiro, but ends up pretty much achieving nothing. Which is pretty much the feeling about the whole show at the moment. TopStrange AttractorsNoah calls Tracy Strauss in to help with a troubled young man with a dangerous ability, but finds that things do not go well. Claire takes part in a sorority prank, but finds that things turn a lot more serious. Matt Parkman struggles with the Sylar in his head, but may have found the answer lies in the bottle. Noah and Tracy's attempts to save a boy called Jeremy form the heart of this episode and yet the whole point of this strand of the story is to get Tracy to question her place in the real world and the possible attractions of the Sullivan's carnival, a very long route to take for a simple point, but at least the show has the nerve to take this story to its promised end. Claire's sorority shenanigans have no relevance to anything and are pure filler, even with the added desperation of suggesting that she might be a closet lesbian to boot. Matt Parkman's story takes a new twist, but it's a twist that again takes a long time in the coming. We're on episode six now and there's a distinct feeling that we could have gotten this far through the stories in a lot less time with some judicious pruning. TopOnce Upon a Time in TexasHiro travels back three years to save the waitress he fell in love with and lost to Sylar's rampage. Saving her, though, means gaining the help of the man who originally killed her and that's a dangerous prospect. Hiro's time travelling has always been pretty much about his own life and wishes and not about the common good and there's more of that here, but the death of Charlie (way back in Seven Minutes to Midnight) was a turning point for Hiro and a real shock for the audience, so it's OK just this once. The whole episode focusses on this one story (with a sideline in Noah Bennett failing to have an affair) and is better for it. Of course, it will make a lot less sense to anyone who isn't familiar with the original storyline and, like many time travel stories, is more complicated than it needs to be, but for those who have been following the show since the beginning it is a real treat. TopShadowboxingClaire tries to find out why the invisible girl is targeting her roommate, but finds out that neither Gretchen nor herself are the real targets. Matt Parkman finds that not being in charge of his own body gives him an opportunity to fight back against Sylar and Sylar's body remembers something about how it should look. The whole Bennett/invisible girl storyline is completely irrelevant to anything that has gone before, but proves to be one of the more interesting aspects of a better episode. The idea of Noah's past coming back to bite him in the ass is a good one, though Samuel's trying to move in on Claire's loyalty is clumsy to say the least. Even better is the duel between Matt Parkman and Sylar for both his body and information about how the current state of affairs came to pass. It's entertaining, surprising, well-played and comes up with brilliant climactic moment. By contrast, the Peter Petrelli/Emma storyline is tediously going nowhere. TopBrother's KeeperHiro finds out that in order to save his girlfriend Charlie he is going to have to go back in time and save a film from being destroyed by Mohinder. He will then have to save Mohinder from being killed by Samuel without Samuel finding out. The Haitian tries to warn Peter that his brother is just a personality in Sylar's body, but since Peter won't do things the way he's told, he reunites Sylar's body and soul. Tracy Strauss finds that she can no longer control her icy power and Claire may be the only person it is safe to talk to. The reintroduction of Mohinder into the story is an interesting twist and some of the backstory behind Samuel and his late brother's story is revealed, but there is still a real sense that this story is being padded out way beyond its natural length. Tracy's freezing malfunction, for example, is a complete byline that might prove to be important, but here is just a distraction from other, more interesting matters. Like Sylar finally coming into touching distance of his body. Exactly what the fall out of that is going to be isn't revealed in this episode, but then HEROES never does give up its secrets easily. Which is fine, but it's really starting to become harder to care. And why can't characters just talk to each other? Half of the issues raised in this show wouldn't happen if people just talked to each other. The Haitian is in a position to tell Peter Petrelli everything, but does he? No, of course not. Instead he leaves some obscure clues that put everyone in danger. TopThanksgivingSamuel calls together his 'family' of talented individuals for Thanksgiving, but Hiro has learned the truth about the death of Samuel's brother. The Petrelli family come together for a meal that none of them are particularly thankful for, but it does at least give Mother Petrelli a chance to explain what happened to Nathan, until Sylar shows up, that is. Noah Bennett also has family to visit as he tries to persuade Claire to ignore what Samuel said to her. Thanksgiving is an American tradition with little resonance for anyone outside of that country and so an episode built around families sitting down and airing their personal differences is always going to struggle to be interesting, not least because that particular drama has been played out in endless non-genre shows before. The Bennett dinner is particularly tedious as it is little more than a family drama in which separated parents snipe at each other and eldest child announces that she wants to quite college. This kind of turgid family drama is not what we signed up for. The Petrelli family dinner is more interesting since the tension between Nathan, Peter and their mother is barely restrained hatred and things really start to hot up when Sylar makes his entrance. The third strand shows us the truth about the death of Samuel’s brother, but that doesn't exactly come as a surprise. It then ends with Samuel taking action that sends Hiro off to who knows where with the contents of his mind apparently scrambled in what is likely to prove to be yet another pointless plot meander. TopPreviewBBC2 sees the return of the ordinary folk with extraordinary powers show HEROES for season 4 this weekend and it's a sign of the waning popularity of the show that it comes on a wave of absolutely no publicity whatsoever. Considering the blaze of media attention that came with its launch and the subsequent switch to the BBC, the apparent lack of interest by the broadcaster can only serve to sink the show's fortunes lower in the UK. Most of our favourites, those that survived the events of the last season at least, are present and correct for the new season. Claire the cheerleader's off to college, Ando and Hiro are heroes for hire, Peter's gone back to being a paramedic, Nathan is dead, Sylar's alive, but thinks he's Nathan and Noah's having nothing to do with that mess. And the carnival's come to town, bringing with it a family that might be just as unusual as the Petrellis and just powerful. This new volume for the gang is subtitled REDEMPTION and might perhaps be the one to bring the show back to its days of glory. Top |
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