Chris’ Piss: Why Heroes has lost it’s way.

Watching this season of Heroes has only been more and more disappointing.  I found some tragic flaws and to me a lot of the magic has been lost. Can it recover? The ratings so far say no. Here’s my take on why it’s been so bad.

First of all, part of what made Heroes so exciting in the first place was the presence of a villain that was one step ahead of everyone.  They gave you crumbs about what the villain was up to and they built it up all season long. This season there is no main villain, unless you count future Peter. So who are we rooting for exactly? It’s hard to tell. There are a bunch of sub villains who all have weak powers in comparison.

Secondly, the main “save the world” plot has been done before, both in the first season and the last. It’s tired.  Try something new and original. So now they’re working on a Heroes serum that gives powers to anyone, but they’re highlighting this with a Cronenbergesque Fly transformation with Mohinder.  To me, this is a major flaw because the Fly did this and did it better. Stealing some plot points is one thing, but don’t rip off a whole movie.

Let’s get back to villains. Season 1 had Sylar, a bad assed serial killer who gained peoples powers. It ended with a somewhat anti-climactic battle in which Sylar appeared to have been killed, opening the window of opportunity for Sylar to be reborn. Season 2 had Sylar slowly building his powers up again, and the wonder twins. There was also Adam who does not age and could not be killed. What do they do with him? Bury him. This season has Future Sylar baking cookies and Hiro digging up Adam. WTF?!?!  This show really needs a good villain.  Arthur Petrelli cannot come soon enough.

The other flaw that I have found is that Time travel really doesn’t work for this show.  We all know about the Butterfly effect, there’s no need to show this here. If Hiro & Peter really had this time travelling power, they’d use it the right way, like in the first season where future Hiro warned Peter to “Save the Cheerleader, Save the World”.  Future Peter should have just gone back in time and said to Hiro “Leave the safe closed, don’t be a moron.” It seriously would have made more sense than shooting Nathan. And why can’t time travelling Hiro just go back in time in the first place and take the formula from Daphne? It boggles the mind how stupid Hiro is.

The last problem I see, is that there are just too many different Heroes now.  They all have their own storylines and they are not doing a good enough job weaving them into each other.  We don’t care enough about the characters and trying to give them all emotional range is crippling the core of what made them good to begin with.  Don’t make goody two shoes Claire go gritty and dark, and don’t have bad assed Sylar baking freaking cookies!!! What they need to do is bring the Heroes together Justice League style to fight off whatever greater bad there is.  Primatech is this pale shell of what Heroes working together should be. There’s no cohesion and letting Mommy Petrelli run everything just seems like letting Aquaman lead.

Bottom line, there needs to be a greater sense of purpose overall. Work towards uniting all the Heroes and this will make great television. Keep adding more lame powered villains and you’re on the fast track to a Smallville clone using the “monster of the week” formula.  Cut out the time travel and the super power by formula crap. Stick to the good heroes versus bad heroes.  And put Claire back in a cheerleader outfit, pronto!