Two-and-a-half months after that announcement, the show was worse than ever, leading me to make many suggestions on how to improve Heroes. Season 3 was a complete cluster, full of characters who were shells of their former selves. And then, five episodes ago, something happened. Things started happening for the better. The characters began to settle down. Plot lines began to cement. Story arcs were reduced or finished. Episode 19 and 20 marked some major transitions in the show. You may not have realized it at the time, but look at what happened: Sylar finally finds his dad and loses his annoying sidekick; Ali Larter’s character is killed off in stupendous fashion; Micah is brought back to the show in a very satisfying way; Hiro regains at least some of his powers; and Nathan and Danko finally break it off.

The last couple of episodes have further worked in the show’s favor as well, as it has focused on just a couple characters in a row. In the last episode, the show finally came full circle, as we get a glimpse at the formation of the original company, hence tying all of the “fugitive” arc into past events. It almost appears as though they quietly wrote the much-hated Mohinder off the show, at least temporarily, as he chooses to “stay behind” for all the dumb things he’s done.

Bottom line: the last four or five episodes of Heroes have been much better than the first 18 of the season. Why? Episode 19 marked the return of Bryan Fuller, and I can’t imagine it’s a coincidence that the show suddenly improved that same episode. If you’ve abandoned Heroes, you may want to give it another chance… it looks like things are finally back on track.

Heroes, as everyone who is actually reading this post knows, had an incredible first season that gave NBC a much-needed hit, made “Save the cheerleader” a household phrase and became internationally known. Then came season two. For a little while, it went fine – while not as good as the first season, it still developed its characters further and progressed the story at a reasonable pace.

Then… the writer’s strike. Facing a chapter without an ending, the Heroes writing staff made the massive mistake of accelerating their storyline – about a virus that ravages the world – toward a clumsy conclusion far earlier than was ever meant to happen. The result? Subplots were dropped, stories were accelerated to the point where nuts and bolts were flying off at the seams and fans were left with a bitter taste in their mouth.

As awkward as season two was, it did have some strong storylines:

• The introduction of the Nightmare Man – a man who, at the end of season one, was described as “worse than Sylar,” added another great villain to the mix.
• New “heroes” Maya and Alejandro had some of the most interesting and disturbing powers ever imagined.
• Hiro gets stuck in 17th century Japan, a seemingly goofy (but entertaining) storyline that ends up revealing yet another sinister villain, an immortal who is fine with killing everyone in the world off for good.
• Claire starts dating a flying boy – who is scared to death of “the man with horn-rimmed glasses,” i.e. her father.
• Peter discovers that the world will be destroyed by a horrible virus.
• Nathan is apparently assassinated on the verge of revealing to the media that some people have special powers.

It wasn’t perfect, though. There were some issues:

• The show continued to introduce new characters, not all of whom were good. The New Orleans girl who can learn how to do anything was not particularly interesting and added little to the overall plot.
• They leave Caitlin (Peter’s Irish girlfriend) stuck in the future and just drop her story.
• They kill off Ali Larter’s intriguing character… to save the stupid New Orleans girl.
• The last several episodes move way too quickly, forcing characters to do unexplained things that don’t fit their nature. The season finale is particularly painful as it is clear that the writers decided to cut the story short rather than just leave us hanging until the show’s return half a year later. Sometimes less is more.

Season3 has had its moments, but has suffered since the first episode and doesn’t show any signs of improving. In fact, there are a lot of things wrong with this season:

• Nathan has a “religious” experience and his character completely switches gears again. He becomes the most unbelievable flip-flopper in the history of fiction and non-fiction.
• Ali Larter is introduced as an entirely new character, whose power is that she can turn things to ice. She goes from having one of the most interesting powers to the dullest, and as such gets very little screen time. The writers cop-out big time by explaining that she and Nikki were a result of a medical experiment.
• Sylar temporarily becomes a good guy with mommy and daddy issues. One of the most cunning and creepy villains is manipulated beyond belief.
• Noah Bennett continues to switch sides and loyalties, but his argument that he’s just trying to protect Claire is starting to sound really old. The writers believe it, however.
• Peter becomes trapped inside a villain, while the villain gets his body. Oh, Jesus, are you serious?
• Noah Bennett runs around calling “bad guys” “villains” because that’s the name of the chapter and what bad guys are called in comic books.
• Matt develops the same painting-the-future bit that other characters have had, which was interesting the first time around but isn’t anymore. He and many other characters also have to deal with a stupid African prophet who is more annoying than anything else.
• Another horribly annoying character is introduced: Daphne. She’s killed, which is good… but wait, she isn’t actually dead, convincing us that the writers have no interest in permanently killing any character for good.
• The writers take us into the future, but this go-around the episode isn’t nearly as good as the excellent one from the first season. Penis envy persists.
• Matt becomes an increasingly annoying character.
• The writers give sidekick Ando special powers. Do not ever give regular people powers. It ruins the balance of the show. His powers also suck.
• The writers give Mohinder special powers, as if he wasn’t already annoying enough.
• Mohinder’s special powers turn him into a villain (did he murder Maya? I can’t remember. If not, what happened to her?). Unfortunately, the writers decide that he would annoy us better if he switched sides once again and became a good guy with super-strength but no barnacles. Cop-out.
• An eclipse takes away everyone’s powers. The eclipse lasts for multiple episodes, raising the question as to why no one is disturbed that the earth has stopped rotating and the moon has stopped orbiting. The earth would also be destroyed if this happen, and we would all die.
• One also wonders how an eclipse can take away powers. This is stupid.
• Peter goes from being a bad-ass who absorbs powers at will to only being able to use one power at a time. Suddenly, he is not the awesome anti-thesis to Sylar but just another boring hero.
• Sylar learns how to take people’s powers without cutting open their heads. What’s the fun in that.
• Hiro still doesn’t have his powers back. Hiro and Ando split up.
• Sylar gets a sidekick who has to be one of the most annoying people on the planet. Viewers wonder why Sylar doesn’t kill him immediately. If Sylar doesn’t do it soon, I will.
• The characters continue to return to the Mendez suite, as if everybody looking for heroes wouldn’t keep a constant eye on that place.
• Nathan commits his biggest flip-flop yet and, for no particular reason decides that it be best if he pit the government against all heroes – except for himself, his brother and his daughter, of course. Nathan is confused when this plan backfires on him, and we wonder how even a politician on a television show can be so stupid.

The Heroes writers can still turn this ship around, and they’ll have to if they want a season five. It’s going to be hard, but not impossible. They’re going to need to be disciplined and create some rules for themselves that cannot be broken. My suggested solution is at the bottom of the post, but here are some general ideas/rules that the writers should implement to improve Heroes:

• Bring back Molly, the little girl that could find anyone, anywhere. She was an interesting character that has been crucial at times.
• Kill off Mohinder. Make fans happy. Destroy him.
• Give Matt some Zanax. He has way too much anxiety and becomes annoying as a result.
• Make it a rule that no character’s power can change for the sake of changing. They can evolve, but not completely change.
• That being said, give Peter back his kick-ass powers.
• Keep Sylar a bad guy, and if you want to make him temporarily good, offer a common villain. Don’t allow him to be so easily manipulated.
• Make it a rule that no character can lose their powers unless another character (like Mr. Petrelli) has the ability to do so. Silly things like the moon moving in front of the sun should have no effect on what is a genetic trait.
• Keep the stories grounded in reality… only with superheroes. This stems from the eclipse thing. Do all the crazy stuff that comes along with people having powers, but otherwise don’t give in to cheesy comic book gimmicks.
• Slow things down. Stuff is happening way too quickly. Progress the stories slowly, add some mystery to things that span entire seasons, and allow time for your characters to progress and develop. If you want to make Nathan a bad guy who starts hunting down all heroes, develop this transition over 20 episodes – not one.
• Don’t allow characters to switch sides multiple times in a season. If a good guy becomes bad or a bad guy becomes good, make their transition a series-long one.
• Plan your show out more than five episodes at a time. Don’t switch gears on a minute’s notice, unless it’s an intentional twist that makes sense.
• Bring back Ali Larter’s original character.

I’m sure there are more, but those could start moving Heroes back in the right direction. But, the writers shouldn’t waste several episodes trying to do this. All of this could be accomplished in one or two episodes, and I strongly believe that, if done right, this could solve the problems of the show:

Hiro is not the only time traveler. There is another time traveler, a bad one, who goes back in time to do some really bad things. Everything changes in the future, but Hiro, who partially exists outside of the time-space continuum, is the only one who isn’t affected. He goes back in time, back to either the end of season one or even the end of season two. He fights with the evil time traveler, and past Hiro is killed. Future Hiro takes his place amongst a group of characters that haven’t been affected by the Villains or Fugitives storylines. Peter still has all his powers, Nikki is still alive somehow, and all of the horrible character development that we’ve witnessed areerased. And things continue on as if nothing happened.

Typically, I’m not a fan of doing something like this, but considering that Heroes does involve a lot of time travel, wouldn’t the easiest solution be to just return to a part of the story where fans generally agree that the ship was still on course. If the writers could work the virus storyline back into the fold, that’d be awesome, but if not, just go back to the end of season one and go from there.

What do you think?

However, good news arose on Friday following the news that former writer Bryan Fuller is returning to the show following the cancellation of his once-great Pushing Daisies. Fuller was apart of the hugely successful first season, though it’s not his presence alone that strikes confidence… it’s his words:

It became too dense and fell into certain sci-fi trappings. For instance, in the “Villains” arc, when you talk about formulas and catalysts, it takes the face off the drama. And I think the goal for everybody is to put a face back on the drama. You have to save something with a face; otherwise you don’t understand what you’re caring about. I thought the “Villains” arc started out very interestingly, and then became sort of muddy and dense and I couldn’t get my hooks into the characters to understand their motivations. I also started to feel confused about what people’s abilities were.

It’s always refreshing to hear when people who actually have influence on the show admit that there are problems and they echo your concerns. Fuller will return for Episode 19, and claims that the episodes leading up to the start of a new chapter called “Fugitives” (begins February 2, 2009) will help get Heroes back in the right direction. Sure, he’s going to add marketing spin to the show that is paying him money, but his claims that Heroes will return to simpler times, with Claire looking for college, Peter back as a nurse, and the return of Matt’s wife Janice.

This sounds good to me, as I feel the show had moved away from its roots a little too quickly. After last season, the writers seemed to scramble and accelerate their storytelling even further, which was the wrong approach. The transition to where the characters are today seemed absolutely rushed, and we haven’t been allowed to grow and change with them. Furthermore, I hate stories about fate, destiny and magic, and the whole African mystic dude storyline just seemed wasteful. Furthermore, the whole eclipse segment was terrible.

You can read more about what is to come with Heroes over at EW.com, which features the original interview with Fuller.

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?

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.

• 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.

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!