Rewatching Heroes, season 1

[Brian G Turner]

So we decided our eldest was old enough to watch Heroes, though we only plan to watch season 1.

I'm quickly reminded how fantastic this series was for all sorts of reasons - a couple of points that stand out for me now are:

- how the connections between the characters are constantly, and cleverly, underlined
- how morally questionable they all are, in one way or another

Loving how much the tension and reveal builds up, and the cliffhangers for each episode.

 

[Cat's Cradle]

I loved season 1 too, Brian...I was thrilled to be watching a show about super-powered heroes on NBC; these shows just didn't exist in the US at the time (2006), except as cartoons on cable networks (some of which were very good--but it's a different experience watching living characters versus animated ones; and this was before superhero movies really exploded...before it seemed that the only profitable movies being made had to have Marvel characters in them..not that that's a bad thing, at all! ).

Another wonderful and creepy element of the first season was Sylar; he was one of the spookiest characters I'd experienced on the tube since Bob in Twin Peaks. A really unique character, and terrifically acted by Quinto--I think Sylar was a big part of the success of the show when it first aired. There were a lot of rewards for the viewer in that first season...it's a shame what happened afterwards.

 

[Parson]

Isn't that the truth!! Heroes was the best thing on the television for one year, kinda okay the second, and then.....

 

[DisapprovingOwl]

Season 1 was definitely amazing, and though a couple of threads are left hanging at the end it still just about works as a pretty-much self-contained season.

I'm convinced Season 2 would have been a lot better had they not hurriedly botched an ending onto it rather than using the orginally-planned mid-season cliffhanger as the ending and developing the plot as originally intended from there. The whole build-up of the virus etc. seems pointless when it's dealt with so quickly, Peter relationship is just swept under the carpet as he rewrites the future while his girlfriend is still trapped there, and the girl with the power to mimic anything she's observed is completely forgotten about. All of these threads could have gone somewhere interesting had they stuck to their guns rather than just dropping them all when the writer's strike hit.

Season 3 definitely felt like a step down and I didn't even bother to tune in for Season 4. From what I remember, didn't the network offer to give them 13 further episodes for them to wrap it up, only to rescind the offer when the show's creators publically announced it before it was actually finalised?

Hopefully any new Heroes will either be a reboot, or will run with the creators' original plan for seasons past the first before they decided to keep the focus on the cast from the first series (i.e. a new set of characters in a different locaiton, with maybe Mohinder turning up in each and acting as a linking point due to travelling around researching people with powers).

 

[Narkalui]

I agree with you Owl, that there were a lot of abandoned loose threads in series 2, I think the gathering of pace due to the writer's strike was excellent. It made the last third/quarter of the series really exciting.

I felt series 3 statistically well. The opening 3 - 4 episodes were very engaging, but then it did get quite crazy after that. Series 4.... Sorry, second half of series 3, was just as crazy. Series 4: I only caught the opening handful of episodes but it seemed very different...

 

[kythe]

I just finished watching season 1 on Netflix and was very impressed with the complexity of the characters and storyline. I know people say it goes downhill from there, but I'm starting season 2 anyway to see where it goes. So far so good, I think.

This series really excells in character development and how they relate to one another. I like that they feel like real people, not just comic book-type characters. They come from varied backgrounds and have real human weaknesses, like a desire to impress, being a bit gullible or not knowing who to trust, some are quite ambitious. Most characters weren't really "heroes" and "villians", even if they wanted to be. They were just people with powers thrust upon them, who were trying to manage life.