Holy crap. How things can change in six months. The top-rated NBC action series Heroes, which was an instant hit two years ago, has been canceled after a 25% drop in viewership with the third season’s premiere. With advertisers dropping off left and right, NBC will air the remaining seven episodes that have already been filmed and, presumably, wrap things up with a quick season finale - if fans are lucky.

No doubt, fans like me are going to protest this like crazy, as Heroes is one of the most refreshing shows on television. It was a risky venture by NBC - after all, even with superheroes being as popular as ever after successful franchises like X-Men and Spider-man, TV audiences can be finicky, and the thought of a television show about “realistic” superheroes was pushing the acceptability factor of people. Nonetheless, it launched with a slam dunk and just went from there, delivering some of the best television we’ve seen in years (OK, not nearly as good as Lost or Battlestar Galactica).

Unfortunately, the second season was a bit weak at times, and the last several episodes were hurried by the writer’s strike, cutting short major season arcs and conveniently wrapping them up in overly ambitious ways. Season Two saw a ridiculously small amount of episodes, and apparently that was more than enough to kill it for audiences. Still, a 25% decrease is pretty shocking, and NBC must have passed the break-even point as I’m sure Heroes is quite pricey (despite having rather crappy special effects by today’s standards).

Anyway, while Heroes did experience a 25% drop with its season premiere, NBC of course is not really canceling one of its most popular shows. Did you really believe that? Did you?

Heroes: Season Three is almost here, which means Season Two is coming to DVD. The four-disc set contains the shortened, 11-episode season, complete with time traveling, viruses, wedding massacres and more. It’s no question that most Heroes fans will scoop this DVD set up despite what my Bible-like words say below, but what about those on the cusp? What about those poor, pathetic people who haven’t completely embraced the world of Heroes? What about starving African children?

Let’s all face it: Heroes: Season Two wasn’t as good as series one. Writer’s strike aside, it was still a tad rushed, a little weak in the writing department at times, and so on and so forth. Some characters were taken down some strange paths (Mohinder), and others were introduced that just weren’t very interesting (like the New Orleans girl who can learn anything). The writer’s strike made the last several episodes even more accelerated than the earlier ones, leading to rough transitions, undeveloped stories and a resolution to the season-wide story arc that should have come 13 episodes later. All that being said, Heroes is still one of the best shows on television.

But that’s not what I’m here to review. There are plenty of websites devoted to just how good (or bad) Heroes is, so I’m focusing the rest of this review on the bonus features. As is typical with TV releases these days, the bonus features are annoyingly spread across multiple discs, which is probably fine for most - except for when you’re trying to review the bonus features and have to swap the disc out every fifteen minutes, damn it.

Anyway, the highlight of the box set is the deleted scenes, of which there are plenty. Practically every episode has a couple of deleted scenes, some of which are quite revealing. As always, you won’t miss too much if you never see these, but as far as deleted scenes go, they’re pretty good. The highlight… of the highlights… is an alternate ending, which truly is an alternate ending. SPOILER ALERT. Whereas in the actual final episode of the season, Peter, Nathan and Hiro stop the virus from being unleashed - only to have Nathan get shot while attempting to announce that he has special powers. In the alternate ending, the writers take the darker approach by letting the virus get released, causing Odessa, Texas to go into quarantine. Ultimately, the actual ending is tighter and more effective, but it would have been pretty cool had Peter not caught the vial at the end of Season Two.

Beyond the alternate ending and deleted scenes, Heroes: Season Two comes with some pretty good “Genetics of a Scene” clips, which are pretty entertaining and slightly insightful. I’d recommend these. There are also some NBC featurettes, which I didn’t watch, and a series of “Untold Episodes,” which are pretty good. There are also audio commentaries for the episodes.

Unfortunately, the rest of the bonus features aren’t all that good. There’s a ridiculously cheesy “documentary” about Takezo Kensei, which is so bad I could only watch a minute of it. I mean, it’s about as bad as faux documentaries can get. A “news reel” about Richard Drucker is also quite terrible, and rather pointless unless I completely missed something. The “Season 2: A New Beginning” featurette is just a promotional, “you’re going to see things you’ve never seen before” kind of featurette, and the Season 3 preview is, as expected, nothing special.

Heroes: Season Two is worth the purchase because, yes, it contains all of the episodes from season 2. The deleted scenes, alternate endings and “Genetics of a Scene” bonus features are well worth it; at the same time, NBC would have done well to save themselves some money and not include their “original” bonus features, as they are downright terrible and just a waste of money. Still, recommended for the overall value of the show.

Yesterday, I posted 8 Reasons Why Heroes: Season Two Was a Disappointment, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t think it was a good season. It just wasn’t nearly as good as the first season, and not just due to higher expectations. Here are some aspects of Heroes: Season Two that I did like quite a bit (DO NOT READ THESE UNTIL AFTER YOU WATCH THE SEASON):

• Maya. Not only is she scorching hot, but she has a killer ability - literally.
• Hiro’s journey back to 17th century Japan. While it seems like some random story at first, as we later find out, it’s all setting the stage for what is to come (or what would have come had the writer’s strike not rushed things). This is the one true storyline that feels very developed.
• Any episodes alluding to the Nightmare Man as worse than Sylar. Too bad he turned out to be no such thing.
• The episode where Claire fakes her death to discredit the head cheerleader.
• The scene where Sylar talks to Maya’s brother Alejandro and tells him that he is going to kill both he and his sister; too bad Alejandro doesn’t speak English.
• Peter goes into the future. Too bad the storyline ends up going nowhere.
• The scene where flying boy West reveals to his girlfriend Claire that he was abducted when he was younger by a man with horn-rimmed glasses. Does it sound like Claire’s dad? Does it?
• The revelation that Takezo Kensei may not be as pleasant as he first appeared, and that he didn’t actually die in 17th century Japan.
• The episode “Four Months Ago”. While it rushed a lot of back story, it did treat us to a pleasant sequence where Maya kills her brother’s wife and everyone else at the wedding. Peter’s back story is also quite interesting.
• The moment where the mastermind killer of the season is none other than Adam Monroe.
• The scene where Bob and Suresh go up against HRG and West to fight over Claire.
• The scene where we learn of Kristen Bell’s weakness: put her in water and she’ll electrify herself.
• Maya learns how to control her powers and Sylar makes his move. There’s nothing sweeter than Sylar making out with Maya while her brother lay stabbed to death just a few feet away. This was a great moment in the series.
• The part where Molly tells Maya that she can’t find her brother anywhere, which means he’s one dead duck.
• Claire threatens to go public.
• Hiro attempts to kill Adam and must go up against Peter in the process.
• Adam Monroe stuck in a coffin. Does this fit within Hiro’s personality, though?
• The assassination of Nathan Petrelli. We saw it coming, but this was another great moment of the series. If I were Peter, I would have froze time right there, right? Oh, and was that Claire’s dad who pulled the trigger?
• The moment where Sylar regains his power, setting the stage for Volume III. However, in all seriousness, I wouldn’t have had Sylar experiment on a can. It would have been much more effective had he done some work on a cat, and while the explosion is off screen, we see blood splatter across Sylar’s smiling face.

While not a great season, Heroes: Season Two was still better than most of the television out there. It’s a shame the writer’s strike cut it short, as they did have some good storylines going. I hope they figure out a way to bring back the biological disaster, as they set too much of the stage to just throw it away.

Heroes: Season Two has come and gone, thanks to the writer’s strike that cut the show short. Even before the writer’s strike was inevitable, however, Heroes: Season Two seemed rushed at times.

First off, let me say that the first Heroes season was a spectacular piece of filmmaking. It was original, entertaining, increasingly dark with humor and lighthearted moments thrown in along the way. It was the most refreshing thing we’ve seen on TV since Lost, and, amazingly, it somehow became a hit. I almost didn’t get into the show but my roommate forced me to watch the season premiere, and instantly, I was hooked.

The second season is still good, but when expectations are high, there are bound to be disappointments. Heroes: Season Two just felt flat at times, with rushed storylines, poor character development and the introduction of new heroes who really aren’t that interesting. A lot of decisions were made with the characters that just didn’t make that much sense.

What, exactly, bothered me? Let me list them, as much as I can remember:

• Mohinder Suresh is just plain stupid this season
  The writers come up with the great idea of having Mohinder go undercover in the company, but then turn him into an idiot by making him become a quasi bad guy. This is all fine and good, but the transition and reasons for doing so just don’t make a lick of sense. Basically, Mohinder acts like a fool, and I’ve really grown to not like the character (when I liked him quite a bit in the previous season). Kill him off already.
• Bringing the dad, Noah (Jack Coleman), back to life
  In one of the better episodes of the season, the dad seemingly gets killed, and it’s a pretty sure thing: he gets a bullet through the eye. At the end of the episode, he is brought back to life. I have three problems with this: one, with his daughter’s blood in him, does that make him a “hero” permanently? If so, aren’t there enough already? Two, the show needs to learn how to keep characters dead. The drama is much more powerful that way. And three, if you are going to bring him back to life, wait a couple episodes and have it be a surprise. If there’s one thing that Heroes is not good at, it’s leading us down one path and then revealing that we were wrong all along. Even comic books do this.
• Niki Sanders (Ali Larter) is just plain stupid
  Having one of the more intriguing powers (and still not fully explained) of the group, I’ve always found Niki’s character interesting, but this season does away with all that. She subjects herself to getting rid of her powers, helps the Company and just does all kinds of weird things. Her behavior is almost understandable, but there’s just something that doesn’t click about the way her character develops. The writers missed a few beats here.
• Peter Petrelli is just plain stupid
  Here’s another character whose motivations almost seem right, only they don’t. The writers messed up here as well, doing the kiss-of-death amnesia storyline and turning Peter into an overly gullible (from just gullible in Season One) idiot who falls into allegiance with a mass killer and doesn’t listen even when Hiro goes out of his way to try to kill Adam. One sight of Hiro, who warned him about impending doom last season, should have been enough to convince Peter that he was on the wrong side.
• Monica isn’t a very interesting hero
  Sure, Monica (the cousin of Micah) has some interesting powers, but her character always seemed a bit forced and was never very interesting. Also, her realizations that she is something special seemed a year out of date, as all of the other characters found out LAST season. Basically, there was no reason to introduce her into the mix when there are so many good characters already.
• Kristen Bell’s character not as dark as she should have been
  They hinted at Bell’s electricity villain being rather nuts (in sequences where she’s with Peter in the prison cell), but then the writer shied away from doing anything really cool with the character. In the end, they make her almost good and try to get the audience to sympathize with her, when in reality it would have been much better to let her play a hot but psychotic “girl” with some very dangerous powers.
• Rushing storylines
  There are just a lot of things that went a little too quickly this season, even before the strike. Peter’s memories coming back to him in a split second seemed like a get-out-of-jail-free card. Peter’s visit to the future feels rushed, too. I can’t think of other specific examples, but the whole season just felt off kilter, as if the writers were afraid to develop things and let them “drag” a little.
• Cutting the season short
  OK, it sucks that the writers went on strike, but I think it was a poor choice to wrap things up with a nice little bow (somewhat). Destroying the virus was not a very good ending. They should have left it open, either with Adam escaping with the virus in hand or something along those lines. We should have been left with a sense of dread and destruction at the end of the final episode. Killing Niki also seemed rather sudden and out of nowhere. I would have much rather them chopped the season in half and end with a few big cliffhangers rather than wrap up stories prematurely.

All in all, this was still pretty good television, but the second season was a noticeable step down from the valiant first season. That being said, read what we liked specifically about the second season!