My Heroes Wish List

[the_other_sandy]

I feel like I should just post last year's list again, since I didn't get anything on it. Instead, I'll try to focus on the upcoming season.

Things I would like to see on Heroes in season 3:

1. The show making the most of its cast chemistry

In season 1, Hiro and Ando were adorable as two close friends and fanboys trying to save the world. In season 2, Hiro spent most of the season in Ancient Japan, and he and Ando only had a few minutes of screen time together at the end of the season. In season 1, the Petrellis were the most fascinating dysfunctional family TV had seen in a long time. In season 2, all three Petrellis were separated for most of the season and all three were never together at the same time. Breaking up the most interesting character interactions from season 1 made season 2 feel very flat to me. I'd like to see the focus get back to those relationships.

2. More interaction between the various ongoing stories

Tim Kring is really set on world building with his Heroes universe and showing that these leaps in evolution are occurring all over the world, not just in one place. It's an ambitious goal, but a lot of times it leaves me feeling like I'm watching six TV shows at once because there's very little interaction between the different plots. I'd like to see some more crossovers, like Nathan working with Matt or Peter working with Hiro to link the various stories into one cohesive whole.

3. The return of Claude Rains

Yeah, I know, but hope springs eternal.

4. An increase in pace

Heroes has always taken its time building its stories, mostly to good effect, but last season went too far. The entire season, truncated as it was by the WGA strike, only covered the events of seven days. I'll just say that again. They dragged out seven days for eleven episodes. The end result was that Maya and Alejandro spent the entire season traveling to New York, most of that in the car with Sylar. The plot failed to advance for weeks at a time. It was excruciating. I don't agree with Tim Kring that the audience wants a rocket ride full of explosions every week, but there has to be a happy medium between that and the total plot stagnation of last season.

5. An exploration of Peter's powers and how they work

A lot of people think Peter is too much of a Mary Sue because his ability to collect powers means he's basically the most powerful character. However, if his powers work the way I think they do, there are built in checks and balances that come with his abilities. For one, because his powers work by changing his chameleonic DNA to match that of whoever's power he's trying to use, he should only be able to use one power at a time (no using telekinesis while invisible, for instance). For another, it seems like his body can only manage to cope with so many powers at once. We've already seen him collapse two or three times (and in a coma for two weeks) because his body just couldn't handle the strain. I'd like to see if I'm right about how his powers work, but mostly I'd just like to watch Peter faint some more.

Comments

[jade-kadir.livejournal.com]

What I'd really like to know out of all of this is how the characters got their powers to begin with and why now. Tim didn't go the X-Men route and say they come with puberty, but there has to have been some catalizing event to make all of this come about. I know that there were previous generations that had powers, but what makes them come out in a person? I don't think they've really addressed that. Perhaps they will in this season with the whole Mohinder/Maya thread.

[the-other-sandy.livejournal.com]

I've been curious about the same thing. A whole bunch of people seemed to manifest powers at roughly the same time, but they ranged in age from elementary school (Molly) to mid-thirties or so (Nathan). Elle manifested her powers by the time she was 8, but Peter and Hiro were in their mid-twenties or thereabouts. It's also clearly not a recent development because the previous generation (the parents) have abilities, but also Kensei manifested his way back in feudal Japan.

I'd say it was some kind of trauma that caused powers to manifest after Mohinder's breakthrough regarding adrenaline (Nathan first manifested his powers to save himself from a car accident), but Hiro was just sitting at his desk in his office drone job concentrating on his clock when he first managed to affect time, so that can't be it.

I think this is one of those cases where the writers set up a world as already existing and have no idea how it came to be that way.

[jade-kadir.livejournal.com]

I think this is one of those cases where the writers set up a world as already existing and have no idea how it came to be that way.

Dude, that's so incredibly frustrating. *Le Sigh*

[the-other-sandy.livejournal.com]

I'd love to be proved wrong on this and have it turn out that the writers put more thought into the universe than we've been privy to so far. I just don't have as much faith in the writers as I used to after last season.

[jade-kadir.livejournal.com]

I think that's the thing about such a collaborative process. Sometimes we get awesome stuff, but sometimes it's not so hot and it's not the fault of one particular person or set of people because so many people have their fingers in one particular pie. Ya know?

[the-other-sandy.livejournal.com]

Too many cooks spoil the broth? Yeah, there's probably some of that. I also think that when something becomes really popular, whoever created it becomes more concerned with being popular by giving the fans what the fans want than with following their own creative vision. If the creator understands why the show is popular, then all is well and good. But if the creator doesn't understand why the show is popular and caters to what he thinks the fans want rather than what they really want, you wind up with season 2 of Heroes.