Is Heroes Season 3 Awesome Or Ridiculous?
Oct 7, 2008 by Vic HoltremanFour episodes into season 3, is Heroes blowing you away or flailing for attention?
I was pretty excited by the Heroes Season 3 premiere and have been watching the show progress over the last few episodes. Saying that the pace has sped up compared to last season would be a wild understatement – things are happening at a rapid-fire pace.
But is it all light and no heat?
(BTW, there will be spoilers below.)
There have been so many revelations so far this season that it’ll make your head spin – it certainly keeps the “woah factor” up there (as in “woah, can you believe [insert crazy connection/item] just happened?!?!”), but has the pendulum swung too far in the opposite direction?
Last season the story moved very slowly, and due to the writers’ strike cutting the season short this ended up being a bad thing. Fans complained, the producers listened, and this season the opener was jam-packed with action and plot elements unfolding.
Since then, we’ve met yet more super-powered characters (despite creator Tim Kring stating there would be no new characters this season) including a female version of The Flash, a guy who gains super-strength from people’s fear, Nikki’s (Ali Larter) twin who has a freeze power. And of course we have Suresh (Sendhil Ramamurthy) turning into the TV version of David Cronenberg’s The Fly.
We also have two versions of Peter (well, we’re back down to one), Sylar (ok, Gabriel) partnered with HRG as well as discovering our skull-slicing pal is the brother of Peter (Milo Ventimiglia) and Nathan Petrelli (Adrian Pasdar). Then we have future Claire “saving me didn’t save the world” Bennet (Hayden Panettiere) all decked out in black leather and acting like a bad-ass assassin. Oh, and now Peter has Sylar’s power and slices skulls, too!
I’m actually not clear on what exact power Peter needed from Sylar since he (Peter) absorbs the super power of others just by being nearby.
Then there’s our friendly police officer Matt Parkman (Greg Grunberg) out in the African desert on a walkabout running into yet another guy who can paint the future. Of course Hiro and Ando are still flailing about like a couple of Keystone Cops.
Geez, have I missed anything? Oh, yeah – another nuclear explosion, this time in Costa Verde, California. And everyone in the future that can afford it has super-powers.
And this is in just 4 episodes so far this season.
So my question to you is this: Is Heroes just throwing everything it can into the mix in the hope it will engage viewers, or does this seem coherent and like it’s actually moving towards a destination to you?
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@ParrotSoup
I like this season as well but I can’t help but see these problems. I’m a huge Star Trek fan and I can point out many continuity problems with it (mostly because Braga and Berman were idiots). I’m hoping the writers are leading up to something. I also hope they somehow mature-up Hiro (he’s really getting annoying).
So far I really like season 3, although I do understand if some people haven’t like certain things about it.
Ever since I watched season 1, I have become a fierce fan of Heroes. It has become my favorite show. One thing that always worried me was that, after such a great first season, how could the show get much better? To me, season 2 wasn’t the best, but it was not bad at all. I agree that the action was a bit slow and that hurt the show when the season had to be cut short. Still, I considered it to be like a “pause and breathe” to get ready for what’s to come in season 3. (Too bad they didn’t get to do the whole virus story line, and all that followed. But it still works. And I don’t see anything wrong with Molly being taken care by Suresh and the cop. They both loved her, and she needed help, so whats the problem?)
Season 3 it’s really good so far. I like all the surprises, but I am, let’s say, “cautiosly excited” about the season right now. I am a bit concerned that, with so many twists and turns, the show could soon take a turn for the worse. I hope not. Right now, the biggest concern I have, in terms of the plot specifically, is what, exactly, was the future Peter’s role in terms of the future’s disaster. So far I think his involvement was in shooting Nathan, and indirectly allowing Syler to take Claire’s power. I say this in light of what Angela told him, that he had changed the future. Was she mainly talking about the villains that escaped? What role do they have in the future’s calamities? (By the way, I am not so fond of everyone saying that Claire cannot be killed.) Also, what was that dream that Angela had all about? (the one where she sees Claire’s head been cut off?) Also, I don’t know what to think of Nicki’s triplet storyline. I am not glad that Nicki died, but I like to see Ali back in the show. I just hope everything that is happening is going somewhere without the show contradicting itself at some point. That is just a concern, but not necessarily a belief of mine. We’ll just have to wait and see… Go Heroes!
Here’s my theory on why future Peter didn’t revive:
Claire’s powers don’t work when whatever foreign object that killed her is still ‘embedded’ in her body. Same with Peter in the earlier seasons. Peter was very much dead, before Claire pulled out the large shard of glass lodged in the back of his head. He coughed and revived pretty much right after. Perhaps the bullets from Future Claire’s gun haven’t been removed? That might be why Future Peter is still dead. I still don’t know how to explain the scar issue though…^^”‘
Perhaps Peters scar is a mental one?
Ever since season 1 we have known about future Peter’s scar, so this is not a new concept. I think Peter somehow will lose the ability to regenerate at some point. That would also explain how he got killed when Claire shot him. Having the bullets in his body should not be an impediment if he could regenerate. Remember Sylar also got shot by Noah, and his body pushed the bullets out and Sylar revived…
Everyone is missing a critical piece on this “How can Peter Die” scene. The Haitian was 20 feet from him. In the scene, Past Peter stumbles over someone as he is running away and we get a quick shot of a surprised Haitian who was hiding behind the 2 Peters. The Haitian blocked all of the powers nearby thus not allowing Future Peter’s mimic ability to work. It’s like this, if a lamp (Peter) is plugged in and the light it emits is Peter’s powers then when you unplug it the light stops. If you break the bulb and then plug it back in does the light come back on? No. Same situation here. The scar is something I think that may have happened the same way, his powers were blocked and since he only mimics an ability and doesn’t truly have it, when he’s plugged back into his powers he can’t fix something that was broken during the power outage.
Regarding the past scene when he had the glass in his head, he never had his powers turned off so the active regen power was still there working; but couldn’t work around the glass to make him whole till it was removed. The power was still on so he could heal once the impediment was removed. Same thing when Sylar was shot, the power wasn’t turned off so it did it’s thing and he lived.
Why don’t people just wait and see if these anomalies are cleared up later in the series. For instance, we are waiting for appearances from Molly, Monica and West. Also do people think Adam will come back? Didn’t Sylar shoot Maya in season 2?
Is confusing but one thing is becoming clearer: the Haitian is central to everything.
Just seems silly for fans to criticise it for lack of overall coherence, I mean it is such a headf*ck of a programme that it will takes most of the season for things to fall into place, with loads of “Oh I get it now” moments.
Either that or it will blow massively
Dude WTF? Are you saying don’t have an opinion about anything until the entire show is done? People can form an opinion at any time they want during the season. That’s why the topic is asking what we think of Season 3 SO FAR AS IT IS.
This show is the poster child for how NOT to use time travel. That plus characters behaving stupidly and against their nature to fulfill plot points all show the writers do not understand the genre they are writing in.
Power without a price – a personal price that is – makes for uninvolving stories, which is exactly what has happened in the third season.
What a fall from grace this show has had.
Season 3 while still entertaining has become a disaster. As it’s been pointed out the characters are acting well out of character. They area also wearing out the everyone is connected thing way to much. The Twist with Sylar is just to much at this point. Next week we find out Parkman is really Peter’s dad lol.
@Leaf
We’ve already seen molly in the 4th episode when matt see’s the future.
Adam gets dug out of the coffin by Hiro and Ando at the end of ep 4
Sylar did shoot Maya but Mohinder gave her claire’s blood as proof to Sylar of the healing powers.
Otherewise I agree…how many people got season 1 untill the end of it?
I’m enjoying season 3…and I reckon things will fall into place eventually
And for everyone else…Future Peter didn’t heal because the Haitian was there..which is why Present Peter couldn’t simply fly away later.
I’m not sure about in the hospital later, but doesn’t it take a while to heal from injuries like that anyway?
Or if the formula is out, then could they have just freezed future Peter’s abilities…
Just a thought is all
xD
Seriously though, if you don’t like it why watch it, then bother coming to a site to read about it, just to moan….too much effort for something you don’t like surely?
Because they did like it and they hate to see it go downhill.
The twist with Sylar being Angela’s son actually did not bother me. Remember how they kept saying in Season 1 that the whole thing with the “bomb” exploding in New York was a plot, a plan engineered by some (in the company). It seems to me that everything had been planned for years, and that Angela, as well as Linderman and others, had been manipulating Peter, Nathan, and even Sylar and others. So, the fact that Syalr is related to Peter and Nathan actually makes me understand better how Angela, Linderman, and the company were able to manipulate, or almost, manipulate them to carry out their plan.
If the Haitian wanted to, he could conceivably do a complete erasure of Peter’s memory and Peter’s mimicking ability would have to start over.
I’d like to meet the Water guy that was mentioned when HRG went to Russia.
Sorry you people.
Tom = Matt
Tom = Matt
Tom = Matt
Matt = Boring
As much as I hate the timeline obsession, I wouldn’t mind if somehow Molly, Monica, Micah, Maya and West suddenly vanished in some sort of tachyon rift that removed them from our timeline.
SOy, I couldn’t agree with you more about the series becoming the 4400 (with super serum for EVERYONE!) When everyone has powers, no one is special. Worse yet, when everyone has powers, each character gets stranger and stranger powers. Worse yet, when everyone has powers, it’s frelling BO-RING!
I agree that the main problem with the show right now is continuity and contradiction. Another example of this is how Hiro has power over time, not just stopping it but pushing it forward and rolling it back as we see him doing in his office before Ando comes in. The only time Hiro can not fully control his time pausing ability is when he doubts it, like when he was getting the sword early on. This should not currently be a problem as he is fully manipulating time in his office just moments before “the formula” is stolen. So he doesn’t just slow time really slow he fully manipulates it.
One thing I hate about Peter is that he wouldnt have to run from anybody in the future except the Haitian. It shows that he has very precise teleportation abilities so he can go anywhere in the world at any time. Or he could even stop time like he did in the first episode of S3 when he took the gun from Claire. Hmm lets see what else, oh yeah he can turn invisible, read minds, control minds, fly, shapeshift(as in to past Peter w/out the scar), and basically do anything anyone else can do, even the Haitian because he has been around Peter not using his ability so Peter would have absorbed it too. Obviously future Peter has absorbed even more abilities so this running from anyone, especially Claire, doesn’t make sense.
I agree that future Peter is probably not dead just cant recover until the bullet is removed from his head, much like the glass or the shard or any number of things that the healers have done.
Sylar is the only thing saving this season right now for me, much like the Hiro/Adam Monroe story did for me in season 2.
Thanks Caz. You obviously didn’t use your superpowers to see that I’m in Britain and am, therefore, one episode behind.
However, thanks for telling me what happens in episode 4…
Adam Monroe is quality, as is Sylar. Still about the Haitian.
Oh and Dan, thanks for explaining what what SO FAR means. What a putz! I have an opinion, I love it. That is why I watch it, come on this website to see what other people make of it etc.
The show is becomming more and more ridiculous, gruesom, and salacious. The storyline seems more jumbled and incoherrent than ever. “Heroes” now makes about as much sense as a Spike-Lee screenplay. (Anyone who has seen Miracle at St Anna will know what I’m talking about)
Sorry Leaf…
I’m in Britain too thoughh
I just sort of watch ahead….
I forget that other people in Britain are behind…
As seen as I watch it like a day behind america xD (well half as some of america is like half a day behind us…or something a bit like that :S)
But I do agree with you
One of the whole points of heroes is
You’re not supposed to get it…
Well not yet
And I’m sorry to any genius’ reading this..
But I’m not smart enough to predict the future
I reckon they should bring West back
He would make an awesome villain
And I would like to see where that would leave Claire
(:
I for one am not dissapointed on the show, and really am enjoying Season 3. I agree that, just like with Season 1, we are supposed to feel confused. That’s part of what makes the show interesting. It’s good to shake things up a bit, instead of making it all too predictable. Again, though, my only fear is for the show to leave plot holes or contradict itself. Well, I should add a “too much” to that last sentence, since practiacally all series or movie sagas end up with some continuity problems and/or plotholes… To those of you who, like me, enjoy Season 3 so far, I am happy for you. If you don’t like Season 3, though, you can be patient to see if it gets better, or maybe just watch movie instead
Season 3 is disjointed and confusing. There is no plot or rather there are too many plots. I don’t understand why they added the character of speed girl. She does not add anything to the show. Mohinder is becoming some sort of whacked-out spiderman. I can’t make out why future Peter is dead and what is going on with the present Peter. They have ruined the relationship between Peter and Nathan, which is the crux of the show. And the future Sylar is a father making waffles for his son???!!!! This is horrible writing. Season 3 has so many tangents that it has lost the heart of the show. I was interested in the science of the genectics and hosw these abilities came about. This question has not been dealth with nor answered in Season 3. Hiro kills Ando???!!!! This is probably why the world is destroyed. Hiro thinks he must kill his innocent best friend to save the world. What kind of thinking is that????? Hiro has just sowed the seeds for world destruction. He has fallen into the self-fulfilling prophecy. I think Tim needs to stop the airing of Season 3 and rewrite the show. Season 3 is horrible!!!!!!
I give you the thing with Ando. I wasn’t happy at all that Hiro killed him, but I am actually hoping that things are not what they look like, as it is the case usually with this show.
To complete my idea posted above, I am thinking that maybe Hiro has a plan. It could be that, for instance, he thinks he can get ahold of the half of the formula that he lost. Once he does this, he can go to the past, give that half to himself and that way Ando doesn’t have to die. Something like that, maybe (I’m no writer). Maybe it was easier for Hiro to do something like this, since, apparently, he was pretty convinced already that Ando would kill him in the future anyway. (This doesn’t mean I am defending him for what he did.)
Thank you Princess! I thought I was going to have an anneurism because like 4 people kept referring to Parkman as Tom when his name is, in fact, Matt. Maybe the reason no one really knows his name is because no one cares. He’s a negligible character at best. The writers keep coming up with ways to tie him into the storyline, but its forced. He isn’t necessary to the grand scheme of things the way they’re writing it. And the whole deal with Sylar and Peter switching places-pisses me off. Its like, saying, “Oh, sorry for never developing the story lines we started and giving no closure to them whatsoever, so we’re gonna start something completely new to distract you and move on. But don’t worry, it’ll be full of save the future, everyone’s related somehow, morally ambigious twists. Are they heroes? Are they villains? God, its gotten so stupid. I have ten thousand questions, and I have a feeling they’ll never answer them. The why future Peter died question is simple. With the Haitian present, it rendered him powerless, and he died. That’s how he got the scar. That’s why when present day Peter returned, he still had the cuts that future Claire gave him. He can’t heal retroactively. Evil Claire is one of the few things I dig, because its not a stretch. She turns because of her father’s constant deception, and decides to create her own absolutes after he knocks off people who are just misunderstood to “protect his family.” Anyone else tired of hearing HRG backing up his terribly motivated morally depraved actions with, “I’m doing it for my family.” I loved at the end of season one, when he became real for a brief time. “Call me Noah,” and then season two’s like, “Uh, wait, no, he’s still not a good guy.” Uggghh!! Oh, and a great question, what happened to Micah, and Molly, and Monica, and Caitlin? All the others were mentioned, except that poor little Irish girl that got stuck in the future with the virus, and somehow Peter was in love with her yet forgot all about her. Oh, and why bring back Maury Parkman, and Linderman and Adam Monroe? I mean, Malcom MacDowell’s awesome, but that’s no reason to screw with continuity. I get that he’s a hallucination, but why pick that form? I mean, he could’ve used Peter to get to Nathan, or Claire. Jeez. Oh, and please, get rid of Claire’s fake mom somehow(she’s annoying, and plus, that could be the final thread tying Claire and HRG that turns her evil.) Please let Nathan and Tracy save Mohinder! He’s one of the few truly good people on the show. I mean, Matt’s a good guy, but he’s so boring nobody cares. Mohinder needs to be human again. He shouldn’t be a villain. When they said they were going to do a season 3 called villains, I thought that meant that the characters we’d seen all along in “heroes” were going to have to fight these mysterious other people with powers, that would use them to harm people. When they showed the level 5 rogues gallery, I was like, heck yeah, Peter and the gang are gonna have to lock them back up, and become real heroes! But no, no its all wrong! And enough of the “everybody’s-related to-everybody-else” crap. Its creepy. The Petrelli family might as well take credit for all superpowered people. I mean, maybe Maya is just the result of a fling Arthur had while he was chilling in south america. BTW that was one thing I really enjoyed about season 3 so far. Mohinder hit that, and he hit it good. So, maybe, they’ll fix it all somehow, but I doubt it, unless they make me a writer. It would be awesome if Sylar really is nathan’s brother, but he and Peter were switched at birth, so Peter isn’t a Petrelli at all. Angela just took him in because she knew he’d be more powerful than both her sons. And then, it won’t be totally creepy when him and Claire hook up(you know its gonna happen). As far as the speedy chick(whose name I haven’t bothered to learn yet) I like the idea of introducing her to make Parkman a real person again. The spirit-journey, kinda gay, but maybe necessary. Maybe this is him coming into his own, and he’ll be a real hero finally. Hiro and Ando? No complaints. These guys can do no wrong. They’re the light-hearted relief of the show, that eventually become the heartbreaking friends-turned-enemies. I don’t think Hiro really killed Ando. After all, dude can control time. He might have frozen time, said, “Hey Ando, look really hurt when I used this plastic sword to burst the ketchup packets I filled your shirt with” and then played it out so he could prove he was “very bad-ass.” God, that line killed me. (Seemingly not as much as it killed Ando) but it was hilarious.
Holy Wall of text, Batman!
No, Hiro didn’t kill Ando. I have a link that explains what happened if you guys want me to post it.
Dude, the wall is vast, but that’s the size of the problems season 3 has.
I thought Peter soaks up power when he is NEAR someone–it’s just when he is NOT NEAR someone that he has to think about how they make him feel. Hence, he was NEAR Claire when she shot him, so even if it was a fast death, he should’ve just healed because she was near!
What the show is missing is the connection between people emotionally. It’s all about powers. We don’t see the love between Claire and her uncle or dad(s), Matt is alone, Hiro and Ando are mistrustful of each other, no Nikki and Micah–there is no “human” element to the characters this season and I think that’s why it suffers.
I agree with you, Shelley, to some extent only. The mistrust Hiro feels towards Ando is already part of that human element you (and we all) look for. It feels like we are missing some of that “human element” that we had in Season 1.
On the other hand, not all of the human elements have to bee good. Aside from the Hiro and Ando relationship, we have Peter’s conflict with his mother and his brother, Sylar. He has to deal with the fact that future Sylar was a good guy but he still doesn’t trust him in the present (and hates him). In addition, Nathan’s own conflict with his mother. We also have Claire’s mixed emotions about her father and Sylar. I loved when she was forced to hold on to Sylar, the monster that tortured her. And also Claire’s realization that not everything they say about these “villains” is necessarily true, as was the case with the guy who creates vortexes. So, there is plenty of emotions around, in my opinion. It may be that there are so many things happening that it takes a while to digest it all.
if you ask me its become dry and lifeluss. no more creativatey than a tin of smart price beans. its like someone just piked a hat full of ideas they didnt create or understand and through them all in to one series. was a fan of some sorts. im kind of gutted i didnt suport series two now because this is just boring for me. i can get this feeling of mediocracy from the soaps i dont wach, and dont respect.
dissapointed
This latest episode AGAIN has continuity errors.
So Sylar who stole the power of super hearing from the rap listening grease monkey in season one…COULDN’T hear the conversation between Noah and the portal black guy at the end of the episode?
I mean he was less than 50 feet away.
Hiro kills ando? for no reason. Oh wait they mentioned a group Daphne was starting with absolutely no build up or establishing desire within Hiro?
I give this show one more episode and if they don’t fix these blatant errors…I’m done.