Heroes: The adventures of Emo-Man
There might be some spoilers in here. If you think there will be and if you're afraid of such things, well, you know what to do.
Okay, so I'm sick of lazy writing on Heroes. I'm loving about half the show right now, which is enough to keep me watching. But the other half is, well, half-assed. I've never made any bones about the fact that I don't like Peter Patrelli. I don't like the character, and I don't like Milo Ventimiglia. And, after watching the last episode, I came to a clearer understanding of why.
Peter is the Superman of the Heroes universe. And I don't mean that in some Nietzchian manner. I mean he's the Man of Steel, the Smallville slugger. He's the unassailable powerhouse with a strong moral center. It's that moral center that is what big-blue brings the DC universe. His powers, after all, are god-like and therefore largely uninteresting (except when they are taken away). The problem is that Peter fails us in both ways. That is, despite being insanely powerful, he acts like an impotent adolescent. When faced with any, and I do mean any problem, he has a repertoire of two reactions: (1) Mope, (2) Freak the fuck out. He literally has 0 reasoning ability. I understand he's lost his memory, blah blah blah. But it wasn't like he was any different before the memory loss. And even if we DO blame his memory loss for this behavior, it's bad writing. The writers want us to think X is important, and the way they try to convince us by having Peter, well, freak the fuck out. Every time. As to his moral center, well, he was a nice guy as a care-giver. That was groovy. But he's not that anymore. And his whole moral quest thing was basically to prevent millions of people from dying. Which, in all honesty, all non-insane people would do.
The lazy writing doesn't stop there. We're now faced with a SECOND vision of a desolate and broken NYC. Gosh, this sure feels surprising. And here, the writers have hamstrung themselves by having Peter, whose memory they killed, be the vehicle for the reveal. I could accept NYC being blasted yet again if the character who saw it actually voiced that same opinion. If Peter (or, ideally, someone else) showed up and went 'Oh COME ON, we STOPPED this shit already' then at least there's some versimilitude. Someone in the world has a sense that this is ridiculous. But no. We have Peter. And what does he do? Wait for it. Freak the fuck out. And mope.
Also, we had a season that was about ordinary people coming to terms with their extraordinary gifts and their new place in a world that was suddenly more mysterious than they realized. We don't need a second season of it. I don't need Parkman, who started off very nicely this season, having more whining fits about what he can and can't do. I don't need to see Peter go through his power-control arc a second time. It was the least interesting part of the first season. They should have nixed his powers, not his memory. And they should have left Sylar dead, so they didn't have to worry about doubling up the same story. Sylar and Peter, fully powered, are problem characters. They ferociously limit the number of challenges that can be realistically thrown at them. And Sylar was a one-trick pony, dramatically. He's crazy in a very adolescent way and, well, one of the fundamental themes of adolescence is outgrowing it - which he is not even remotely doing.
Anyway, I had to rant somewhere. I'm still watching Heroes and, like I said, I'm still enjoying the hell out of some of it. But the parts that suck are pissing me off!
Okay, so I'm sick of lazy writing on Heroes. I'm loving about half the show right now, which is enough to keep me watching. But the other half is, well, half-assed. I've never made any bones about the fact that I don't like Peter Patrelli. I don't like the character, and I don't like Milo Ventimiglia. And, after watching the last episode, I came to a clearer understanding of why.
Peter is the Superman of the Heroes universe. And I don't mean that in some Nietzchian manner. I mean he's the Man of Steel, the Smallville slugger. He's the unassailable powerhouse with a strong moral center. It's that moral center that is what big-blue brings the DC universe. His powers, after all, are god-like and therefore largely uninteresting (except when they are taken away). The problem is that Peter fails us in both ways. That is, despite being insanely powerful, he acts like an impotent adolescent. When faced with any, and I do mean any problem, he has a repertoire of two reactions: (1) Mope, (2) Freak the fuck out. He literally has 0 reasoning ability. I understand he's lost his memory, blah blah blah. But it wasn't like he was any different before the memory loss. And even if we DO blame his memory loss for this behavior, it's bad writing. The writers want us to think X is important, and the way they try to convince us by having Peter, well, freak the fuck out. Every time. As to his moral center, well, he was a nice guy as a care-giver. That was groovy. But he's not that anymore. And his whole moral quest thing was basically to prevent millions of people from dying. Which, in all honesty, all non-insane people would do.
The lazy writing doesn't stop there. We're now faced with a SECOND vision of a desolate and broken NYC. Gosh, this sure feels surprising. And here, the writers have hamstrung themselves by having Peter, whose memory they killed, be the vehicle for the reveal. I could accept NYC being blasted yet again if the character who saw it actually voiced that same opinion. If Peter (or, ideally, someone else) showed up and went 'Oh COME ON, we STOPPED this shit already' then at least there's some versimilitude. Someone in the world has a sense that this is ridiculous. But no. We have Peter. And what does he do? Wait for it. Freak the fuck out. And mope.
Also, we had a season that was about ordinary people coming to terms with their extraordinary gifts and their new place in a world that was suddenly more mysterious than they realized. We don't need a second season of it. I don't need Parkman, who started off very nicely this season, having more whining fits about what he can and can't do. I don't need to see Peter go through his power-control arc a second time. It was the least interesting part of the first season. They should have nixed his powers, not his memory. And they should have left Sylar dead, so they didn't have to worry about doubling up the same story. Sylar and Peter, fully powered, are problem characters. They ferociously limit the number of challenges that can be realistically thrown at them. And Sylar was a one-trick pony, dramatically. He's crazy in a very adolescent way and, well, one of the fundamental themes of adolescence is outgrowing it - which he is not even remotely doing.
Anyway, I had to rant somewhere. I'm still watching Heroes and, like I said, I'm still enjoying the hell out of some of it. But the parts that suck are pissing me off!