So last night Heroes‘ fifth volume (fourth season) “Redemption” had its two-hour premiere on NBC and I’m sure a lot of you have already voiced your opinion over at our Heroes discussion forum. My goal here is to review the show, and let you know (since you care) if I personally think that our favorite Heroes are truly on the road to Redemption.
“Redemption” picked up some six weeks after the finale of last season’s “Fugitives” storyline, with our Heroes all trying to return to normal lives NOT being on the run from government agents.
And is it just me, or has Mohinder (Sendhil Ramamurthy) fallen into a black hole and vanished?
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As the season opens Claire (Hayden Panettiere) is starting school; Parkman (Greg Grunberg) has reunited with his estranged wife and is raising his baby son; Peter (Milo Ventimiglia) has found purpose as a super-powered paramedic; Noah “HRG” Bennett (Jack Coleman) is reluctantly starting a new “Company” with help from Angela Petrelli (Cristine Rose); Hiro and Ando (Masi Oka and James Kyson Lee) are trying to start a hero business of their own; Nathan (Adrian Pasdar) isn’t feeling quite himself (because he’s not); and Sylar (Zachary Quinto) is still wreaking havoc as a “ghost.” Fun all around.
While our old favorites (and not-so-favorites) tried to get their grooves back, a new band of super powered individuals appeared on the scene, this time in the form of a traveling carnival led by mysterious “earth-mover” Samuel (Prison Break’s Robert Knepper). Samuel is a ringmaster of questionable allegiances, who operates with the help of his super-speedster henchman (Ray Park) and “magic tattoo canvas,” Lydia (Dawn Olivieri).
For a two-hour episode, I have to say very little happened: Hiro found out he’s dying and also that he can make select changes to the past if he’s not an idiot about it; Noah settled old beef between himself, government pit bull Emile Denko (Zeljko Ivanek) and ice (now water) queen, Tracy Strauss (Ali Larter); Peter then helped Noah track down a mysterious compass that Denko had kept hidden (which was promptly stolen by Samuel’s speedster henchman); Parkman kept freaking out an imaginary Sylar; Nathan was having an identity crisis (though nothing really happened with him); and Claire’s new over-achiever college roommate took a header out their dorm room window, and ended up street pizza (leading to Claire to inadvertently reveal her power to new BFF Gretchen (Madeline Zima).
And, in the “surprise twist” ending, [SPOILER ALERT!!!] We learned that Samuel thinks Claire, Hiro and Peter are fated to join the carnival. DUH, DUH, DUUUUUUHHHHHHHH…
Ok, so it was nice to catch up with our Heroes again – but was this premiere episode truly deserving of the label “Redemption?” Not quite yet, IMHO. We had one real moment of quality action (Peter vs. Ray Park) but other than that, meh….
It irks me that aside from Peter (and now Tracy Strauss), it still seems like none of these characters have come to terms with who they are, or how best to use their powers – that’s a four-season identity crisis!!! Also (and a lot of us have been saying this for awhile now), it’s time to definitely make some cuts. Show creator Tim Kring once revealed that originally, Heroes was suppossed to rotate characters and stories like seasonal cleaning – time to go back to that original plan. Parkman can definitely go (waste of a telepath), Nathan should STAY dead, Hiro is no longer needed and Mrs. Petrelli barely had any shining moments to begin with. I WOULD keep Ali Larter onboard (loving her new character and powers) and though I love him to death, I think Claire would have a lot more room to breath as a character if her daddy HRG bit the big one.
Strip those characters I just mentioned away and watch the show open up for Ando, Peter, Claire, and Tracy – enough of the old to keep the show familiar, with enough room (and budget) freed up to bring in some new blood. And we need a new villain, somebody to equal the maniacal brilliance of Zachary Quinto’s Sylar. Every new villain since Sylar has showed promise (Adam, Father Petrelli, Denko) only to be wasted. Quinto is obviously moving up in the world – time to let him go, Heroes.
As for “The Carnival?” Meh… We’ll see. Could be interesting, could turn out to be another Heroes storyline that starts strong but ultimately sputters out. Too early to tell. (What’s up with Robert Knepper’s oscillating accent?)
Finally, as I asked at the opening – has anybody seen Mohinder??? It occurred to me months ago, after I attended the Heroes panel at Comic Con, that in the midst of all the talk about upcoming storylines and preview clips, there wasn’t a single mention of Mohinder. And after the character was a no-show last night, I’m beginning to SERIOUSLY wonder. Small loss if he never comes back.
So that wraps my review of the Heroes: Redemption season premiere. What did you think?
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40 Comments
Peter didn’t get his power back, he had to inject himself in order to get a version of his power back. Baby Parkman gave Hiro his power back, so unless Maya got injected or hung out with the Parkman’s lately, she is still powerless. I do agree her power was pretty bad ass though. She could probably top Sylar with her power. you can’t compare her to HRG or Mohinder. She doesn’t have HRG’s balls (pardon the pun) or Mohinder’s brains, just deadly PMS.
you’re a guy, right? So what could you know about pms? Can be a pretty bad ass thing, too!
im a dude. i just deal with my girlfriends’ PMS. not bad ass
To jordi’s comment (http://screenrant.com/heroes-redemption-season-4-volume-5-premiere-review-kofi-27026/comment-page-2/#comment-134656)
Bad writing looks like it screws up a lot of powers. Worst of all are those three guys because it is hard to mess them up for real.
But I think that’s the bad writing that’s messing with Hiro. Nobody said he needs to be abused by all the villains per season as a weakness. I actually liking the dying thing. I thought Mohinder said that last season.
I think Maya can get her power back some other way. They bad write a lot of stuff to get people their powers back or take them away.
Mohinder will be back, don’t worry.
On the “Nothing really happened”, I think we’ve had more character development in those episodes than in 89% of S3, which says a lot.
There are pro and cons, but I personnally prefer it that way. I don’t watch Heroes to see things explodes or action-packed storylines (see V3…). I watched 30 minutes of Transformers and that was enough for me. No redemption yet but unless they screw it up, it could be on the way.
Personally, I felt things happened slowly in S1 too. The difference is that we were learning about the characters and had the “new” factor, thing that has of course vanished since then.
On the good, I’ll put Peter, HRG, the carnivale, and eventually Tracy depending on where it goes.
On the “waiting to see” : Sylathan + Angela + Matt (because Sylathan itself was stupid but they deal with it pretty nicely), Claire because she is not as annoying as she used to be for a season and a half. Mohinder will be back, and frankly, I prefer them to use him less and well than to give him a stupid storyline (SpiderMohinder!).
On the bad : 90% of Hiro/Ando, because it’s time for Hiro to grow up (and I never liked Ando but it’s just me).
I was dreading the premiere but now I’m actually looking forward to where they’re going. Not exctasicly, but they gave me good reasons to stay on board for the moment.
For things not happening quickly enough I have two things to say. First two episodes, and S1 started slowly as well. Although I like to disagree that nothing happened. There was more character development than most of S3, and they made me curious about this new Carny villains thing. I want to know more, and I haven’t been this excited in along time.
As for the Matt/Sylar thing, it seems that people didn’t get the fact that Sylar made Matt use his power against the water delivery guy. Why wouldn’t he be freaking out. He’s not imagining Sylar (I thought they made this clear), he’s got Sylar’s consciousness stuck in his head.
I also like Clair’s new friend. She’ll be useful since Claire seems to be a walking death magnate.
I liked the opening of Season 4. I heard somewhere that they have the original writer back so we might get to see the awesomeness season 1 was. Sometimes, it’s good to start off slow and work into something bigger and cooler. Peter is my favorite character, along with Matt, Mohinder, Sylar and often H.R.G. Peter should not be killed off, and as much as i hate it, Nathan should stay dead, and Peter should find out. We know Sylar is gonna be Sylar again, but since he’s invaded Matt’s mind, maybe he can end up turning him somewhat evil like Maury Parkman. H.R.G. should get his own storyline, seperate from Claire, dealing with the little life he has left. I loveee Mohinder and he needs to come back. As for the carnival, Samuel and the rest of them look awesome. I think it should boil down to a battle between The Carnival and the newly reformed Company.
hmm, the premiere was ok. wasn’t great but wasn’t bad. we’ll see how the show progresses through the year. if it doesn’t do well, they’ll probably cancel it cause theyve been thinking of cancel since last year’s season which was a letdown.
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While I agree that Parkman has been focused on quite a bit, I think its time to bring the evil side of him out and who better than sylar?
This is what I would like to see. When he quashed sylars mind and imprinted a new personality he has kept a record of sylars mind in his head, what if he could imprint sylars mind not just into sylar but several other people as well. Sylar could go from being one man with several powers to several people. Put himself into a few key areas of the white house and voila, he has virtual control. Parkman can turn from telepath to puppet master.
What if Parkman with the use of sylar can learn mental abilities? Perfect memory recall, faster learning, I mean all he has to do is ream the minds of several very clever people and he would have all their knowledge in his head right?
Ultimately have a showdown between Nathan who is really just a brain washed Sylar end up facing his evil mental projection.
Still despite all of our lamenting about the show, its far superior to most others right?
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