oh, sweet Heroes Season 2 DVDs.

[terebi_me]

I had the box set in hand before noon on Tuesday - I am dedicated, yo. (Unfortunately my eagerness cost me yet again - I bought it at Borders, when I really should have bitten the bullet and taken the long trip out to Target, because yes, just like last time, there IS a special limited edition box set with a sketchbook booklet of Tim Sale art from

Comments

[terebi_me]

Personally speaking, I believe that their biggest mistake was dumbing down the show for people who hadn't seen it before - they repeat information incessantly, including repeating information from the episode we're currently in, as though every single act break was for someone who had JUST tuned into the show for the first time. The continuity errors, I feel branched out of that; if every act break is walking into the show for the first time, they figure the audience won't notice that it doesn't quite hang together. I'm not sure where they got that impression, but it's the kind of move of a writing staff who is frantically scripting against time, wrestling with a network who begs them to make the show stupider because audiences who'll watch a show about superheroes MUST be stupid, and running over budget so they have to keep changing scenes on the fly - without enough time to pay strict attention to continuity. They weren't prepared for a second season; all the odds were against the show surviving - it's about superheroes, it's incredibly smart, incredibly twisted, and morally gray. Shows like that tend not to last very long. Oops! Surprise! You're a giant hit! And here are a bunch of network suits who want to tell you how to make the show "better".

I actually don't think that any plotting decisions were a mistake, and I feel that even more strongly having just watched it straight through for the first time (though I do wish Peter hadn't had to go to Ireland, but it was a way to take him out of the action for a bit and force Nathan to do things on his own and stand up to Evil Angela. And as much as I hated it, "romance" is inevitable, because it's Peter, and he's a total slut). Sylar isn't the ubervillain in Season 2 - Adam is, or, more properly, The Company is. Sylar's just slow-burning his way back to Mohinder, and showing that his greatest power is really the ability to manipulate people. He got all the way from the Yucatan to NYC without any superpowers besides the ability to figure things out, and even that was impaired - but he's still very smart and completely amoral.

Poor Leonard. He's in a better place now. I am going to miss the hell out of him.

[terriblelynne]

Sylar isn't the ubervillain in Season 2 - Adam is, or, more properly, The Company is. Sylar's just slow-burning his way back to Mohinder, and showing that his greatest power is really the ability to manipulate people.

To me, though, THAT felt like building someone back up to being a major player who really should have already been done with his story arc. I LOVE Sylar, I LOVE Zachary Quinto and I was done with him at the end of Season 1, bottom line. Adam was still more lame than The Nightmare Man, sorry. I also felt that Claire was "reset" to where she was in Season 1...she had these incredibly adult-making experiences and then was a stupid kid whining about wanting to cheerlead and endangering her family over some boy. Uh, no.

a rebuttal

[terebi_me]

I am not trying to change your mind, only explain what I see. It's perfectly within your rights to respond with "Uh, no, it's stupid, you're wrong, and fuck this stupid show", so go for it. :)

To me, though, THAT felt like building someone back up to being a major player who really should have already been done with his story arc. I LOVE Sylar, I LOVE Zachary Quinto and I was done with him at the end of Season 1, bottom line.
I respectfully disagree. I wasn't done. I do wish that he had had a different path in Season 2, but I was far from done with his character.

Adam was still more lame than The Nightmare Man, sorry.
I respectfully disagree.

I also felt that Claire was "reset" to where she was in Season 1...she had these incredibly adult-making experiences and then was a stupid kid whining about wanting to cheerlead and endangering her family over some boy. Uh, no.
Claire is sixteen years old. Despite everything that happened, she's still only sixteen - and her family was forcing her to become "normal" again, which she just couldn't do - and "normal" for her is cheerleading, being a popular girl. She isn't allowed to do any of those things. I don't blame her for being frustrated. And West (as much of a tool as he is) was the only person her own age who she could talk to. Plus, cute boy. She *did* let herself be talked into making an idiotic mistake, but she's just a kid; everyone makes stupid mistakes when they're that age, and yeah, some of them can be life-threatening. The stakes for her are just a million times higher than anyone else in school.

In parallel there's Mr. Bennet, trying to be "normal", and he doesn't last long, either. They were all naive to think that they could just pick up stakes and move somewhere else and have things go back to the way they were; things will NEVER be the same as they were. But the Bennet parents had to try to give their kids a normal life. There really is no way around it; Claire needs to leave her family if they want to be safe. Noah can't protect her anymore, and he's going to have to figure out that fact to keep Sandra and Lyle safe. Unfortunately, she IS only 16... and has grown up very insulated and protected, so she has no idea how to take care of herself. It's a very ugly situation.

Very early on, Claire figures out that her dad is still lying to her and the family about what he's up to. and she wants her own life - and the only way for her to really do that is to lie, too. The Bennet household is actually uncomfortably realistic in that way; once your entire life has been so infused with lies, it's really difficult to stop lying. They just do it out of reflex now. Meanwhile Sandra and Lyle are just along for the ride, and never quite know what the fuck is going on (especially poor Lyle! Free Lyle!).

I'm sure it's frustrating, but I understood what was going on a lot better on a (third) viewing. I'm quite certain that almost nobody else in the world is going to give it another chance and that's a shame, but... there it is.

Re: a rebuttal

[terriblelynne]

One thing I agree with: "Free Lyle" Please. Poor kid...

I could have even tolerated not seeing hide nor hair of Sylar in 2, but bringing him back at the very end of 2, or at the beginning of 3. I think for me it's a case of "I can't miss you if you don't go away."

To me, Adam seems more like a petulant teenager than anything else. A couple of fan podcasts I listen to were wondering if the regenerative properties kept you emotionally stunted. And no, I don't expect Claire to suddenly be this adult, but I do feel like they don't have enough of her season 1 experiences affecting her Season 2 character, at least not in ways I was able to buy into as a viewer.

I'll give you that I've only watched the entire business once as it aired. If I were to sit down with both seasons on DVD, it's entirely possible I'd feel differently.

Re: a rebuttal

[terebi_me]

I don't want to insist that you watch it again, but it is very, very different if you watch it all as a piece. It makes a lot more sense that way (besides the sloppiness, which actually only starts to happen around episode 8) and it's easier to keep track of the storylines, which are relatively disjointed - season 1 was very tight in that it was all about "save the cheerleader etc" and then "who's the exploding man and can we stop him?" And I'm sure that's one of the reasons why Niki is semi-universally disliked in the Heroes fan community - she's mostly outside the action of the main story arc, and only dips in here and there with her connection to Linderman. There has to be ONE central conflict, with every individual character's arc branching off from it - and Season 2 bungles that kind of badly. And that's not entirely the writers' fault - they were structuring the early part of the season as though they had 22 episodes to bring it all home. Later they realized that they had to scramble to put something on screen.