After a very long wait, and a somewhat disappointing second season, Heroes has finally returned for Season 3: Villains.
At the end of season 2, Sylar (Zachary Quinto) had just gotten his powers back, Noah Bennet aka “HRG” (Jack Coleman) had just gone back to work for “the company” in order to spare his family, and Nathan Petrelli (Adrian Pasdar) had been apparently fatally shot just as he was about to reveal his ability to fly to the world.
BTW, full-on spoilers in the review below.
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Heroes is run by folks (led by series creator Tim Kring) who actually listen to the fans, take their complaints to heart, and use that information to improve the show. This season there will be no slow, dragged out story arcs, and Kring says there will not be any new characters introduced (although this episode seems to contradict that). This season will also be comprised of two “volumes.” The first half of the season will be called “Villains,” but there is no title for the second half yet.
Enough of that… on to the season opener!
The episode opens with Claire (Hayden Panettiere, looking all “Matrixed” out in black leather) trying to kill Peter (Milo Ventimiglia), four years after Nathan’s announcement of his powers. Peter goes back in time to change the past, since it seems that things became very bad for super-powered beings after Nathan’s revelation.
So yes, the assassin is Peter Petrelli from the future.
Cut to Japan, where Hiro (Masi Oka) now owns his father’s corporation. He’s quite bored by the whole thing and yearning for a new quest. Of course, the show is happy to oblige. He watches a video left behind by his father stating that he needs to guard the contents of a safe (without ever opening it), the contents of which could lead to the end of the world. It is half of some sort of chemical formula.
Of course, he opens it.
A blonde girl who moves as fast as The Flash promptly steals it. And here lies the first thing that bugged me about this episode: Why didn’t Hiro just go back in time 60 seconds and put that piece of paper back in the damned safe?
Instead he goes to the future, sees his best friend Ando (James Kyson Lee) who is now super-powered kill him, and the destruction of Tokyo.
Nathan was dead for all of five seconds, but came back to life somehow - and claims to have seen God. I’m curious how they develop this and how it comes across to fans as he comes across downright born-again. Linderman is also back despite the fact that he seemed definitively dead during last season. Turns out he healed Nathan and has big plans for him.
Sylar finds Claire, intent on once again trying to take her healing power. He does the skull slice trick on her, sucks her powers… but surprisingly, leaves her alive after a very creepy scene in which he talks to her while he has the top of her skull off. Sylar tells Claire that she is not like the others - she is special and she can never die. And now, neither can he.
Suresh (Sendhil Ramamurthy) is with Maya (Dania Ramirez, who unfortunately is still on the show) and she still wants to be cured. He flashes on the idea that the abilities are not based in the blood but in the adrenal gland. Suddenly he shifts his research (and ridiculously quickly creates a serum) from curing super-powers to being able to give them to anyone via an injection.
(”Click here to continue reading Heroes Season 3 Premiere Review“)
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150 Comments
@thriller
“You would thing that he would grow some pair after leaving feudal Japan”
EXACTLY. I don’t recall the amount of time he was there, but it was quite a while, and the showed that he grew as a person and in maturity. Apparently that’s all gone and he’s back to “goofy Hiro.”
At least they DID explain why sometimes the “going back in time one minute” might not work.
Vic
thriller said,: “They really need to bring some badass comic book writers, those guys know what people want to see and can develop superhero characters.”
Fire the producer and bring this guy on board.. Been reading this rant since September, and the first time this has been suggested here, that I can find.
Hi !!!! I just hope that the screen director from heroes will take a look at this. I think that if he puts it on screen, that will help heroes !! hE SHOULD MAKE Daphne millbrook and Elle bishop be sisters. (bob bishop puts Daphne in an orphanege because he is scared of his daughter)Elle is born 2 years after, he keeps her because now he knows what are abilities, now that he is working for the company. Then Freddie Bishop is born (ability: meteorologique elements(tornados, storms ..+ electricity from his sister and superspeed).And finally, Nick bishop age 12, put into care because the agents at the company tell him to abandonne Nick
(ability:earthquaques)
That would be fantastic, im a huge fan !!
PLEASE DO IT, PLEASE !!!! With the special affects, they would be incredible ! Good luck !!
I thought Season 1 was amazing. Season 2 had a few good episodes but on the hole it was a rehash of season 1 but without the mystery and done in half the time. Season 3 is just wretched. There’s no continuity : what happened to Caitlin/Monica? Peter was missing presumed dead for the whole of series 2 but upon seeing him on the news, Claire just picks up her phone and calls him on his mobile. It took her a whole 11 episodes to think of that?
Characters swing from being bad to good and vice versa within minutes. Sylar/ Mohinder/Claire/Peter have all done u-turns on their characters but there is no progression detailing how they got there. Sylar is now Angela’s son so he is trying to be good. Peter got “The Hunger” (ugh) and is suddenly a psychopath. Mohinder is The Fly (a reference here and there would count as an homage to the Cronenberg movie, this is just an outright ripoff). If this was series 1, Peter’s descent into homicidal maniac would’ve taken 3 episodes at least. We got it in 10 minutes. It’s too fast. Plus “The Hunger” is just a massive backtrack of a retcon of a failed plot device. Sylar was just a puppet all along and he didn’t murder because of his obssession with being special?
Remember when Angela said Matt would be just like his father if he forced the name of that company woman out of her? What happened to him turning villain and abusing his ability? Instead we get a “spirit walk” in Africa with another precognitive painter.
The show seems to be about ability theft now. Sylar/Peter/Arthur all do this in some form or another. It’s just about who can get the most abilites. Having Arthur steal all of Peter’s powers was one of the biggest mistakes the writers ever made. Remember how stupid they had to make Peter look in order to carry on the storyline? Like how he had a gun pointed at him and a child whose life was at risk but he wouldn’t stop time and save him? That’s just one example. Arthur should be unstoppable now but I;m sure he’ll end up dead due to not using the most obvious ability at the right time. All this time travel BS has to end aswell.
@ Fadian,
I couldn’t have said it any better… yet there’s so much more that’s gone rotten in this show that, it’s amazing to see people who actually thinks this is as good as last season. Somehow those people just didn’t get the point of the first season or they’re just able to really pay attention to quality and will watch anything with eye candy.
Having said that I did in fact give up on Heroes, I did that after 5 episodes into season 3. I gave them a full season and 5 episodes to justify why I should keep watching after knowing that season 2 was one horrible mess that simply couldn’t get better even if they pumped it up with adrenalin.
Either way, we’re looking at a show that’s going to be talked about, referenced to and probably laughed at for years to come. The truth about Heroes and Tim Kring or whatever he’s called, will be on E faster than you can find an episode with substance in season 2-3 and 4 if they ever get that long.
Ultimately this show called HEROES, is nothing but LOOSERS and for me is one EPIC FAIL in the history of over confident PR on a show like this.
RIP Heroes.
Fadian,
Great post! This could have been a very dark year for heroes, with some closeups on how powers can be abused and the thirst for power can corrupt. The issue with Peter’s power-rape of Sylar was an example. Also excellent irony: Peter already displayed “hunger” when he ripped this out of Sylar. (And in the ensuing episodes, did he use this power to “fix” time? Wasn’t that the premise of snagging the ability of “knowing how things work”?)
The Peter-turned Sylar is something I imagined from season one, where I thought the twist was that Peter would absorb Sylar’s power (we did hear the “Sylar voice” out of him once or twice) and that it would in fact be Peter, not Sylar, who killed Isaac in Hiro’s future.
Too bad the Dark Peter lasted shorter this year than it did in season 2. I’m assuming his “hunger” is gone into his dad. But because the road to obtain these powers again would be long, I’m sure that Kring’s favorite plot device–the Reset Button–will be called into play and Peter will be just as we knew him, minus The Hunger.
>>Remember when Angela said Matt would be just like his father if he forced the name of that company woman out of her? What happened to him turning villain and abusing his ability?<<
I agree, Fadian. This too would have been a great natural Hero-to-Villian change, but I think Kring is playing to the High School Musical fanbase that doesn’t want anything “really” bad to happen to anyone. Don’t “really” change Peter, don’t “really” change Mohinder. Don’t “really” kill Nikki.
Thanks Ergo Proxy, jc. I’ve seen up to episode 7 and it looks like it’s going to continue screwing up the series. The way it’s going now it seems like they HAVE pumped it full of adrenaline. It’s gone hyper. It’s out of control. There’s just too much happening in each episode. In series 1 you would get a cliffhanger at the end of each episode; series 3 you’re getting cliffhangers every 15 minutes, new characters appearing and being killed off or ‘dealt’ with in the space of a single episode and regular trips to the future to see an event or timeline that has to be stopped. It’s like the show developed ADD and took a sugar overdose at Disneyland.
I really wonder what people saw in the first series that they think they are now seeing in series 3.
“This could have been a very dark year for heroes, with some closeups on how powers can be abused and the thirst for power can corrupt.”
Agreed. Instead they gave us characters doing 180’s on themselves with no hesitation and constant whining about being indestructible and superpowered. Peter and Sylar should’ve slowly changed over the series, perhaps with the two of them facing off at the end, Peter turning villain and Sylar trying to stop him. A reversal of series 1.
As it happens, Kring just needed Peter to lose his powers and the only way he could think of doing that, presumably, was by giving him Sylar’s so he would run headlong into Pinehearst and get vamp’d by his dad. Similarly the only way he could think of making Sylar turn good was by making his murderous tendencies a part of his ability that he could not control. Which is just a cop out, in my opinion.
The show now seems to favour the people with the more flashy abilities. The ones that look good in action sequences. Micah had a really interesting ability which could’ve been used in some great storylines. Monica aswell. But the writers want people that can fly at light speed and shoot lasers out of their eyes. It’s all “INCREDIBLE POWER!!!” and “UNIMAGINABLE DESTRUCTION!!!” as HRG said.
The action is much more exciting when there is something to lose and the main characters in series 3 are just too powerful.
“I think Kring is playing to the High School Musical fanbase that doesn’t want anything “really” bad to happen to anyone. Don’t “really” change Peter, don’t “really” change Mohinder. Don’t “really” kill Nikki.”
Again, I agree, unfortunately. Who honestly thought for a second that Hiro had killed Ando? Was Matt really stupid enough to not use his mind controlling ability on Knox and let him tear out his heart?
Don’t “really” kill anyone. Don’t “really” do something unexpected. Don’t “really” think up an original storyline. Don’t “really” write an interesting script.
Cheers
I am looking forward to fourth season.
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