Normally, the announcement of a fourth season of a popular television series would be grounds for celebrations, but one has to wonder how many fans are saying enough is enough already.

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. (more…)

The new movie trailer for The Incredible Hulk, starring Ed Norton and Liv Tyler, was released today, and, much like the last trailer, it doesn’t win me over. The first trailer’s action sequences and visual effects were questionable, to say the least, and I was really hoping that a new trailer would prove me wrong. But, no! The Incredible Hulk movie trailer just reaffirms my suspicions: it’s going to have to have one hell of a screenplay to be good.

The action just looks cheesy, the visuals questionable. The Hulk seems to be captured in slow motion half the time, and that’s not a good thing.

Only time will tell, but with a lot of really cool comic book movies coming to theaters this summer, The Incredible Hulk could easily wind up in the gutter. Here’s the movie trailer:

Somehow, despite stints in a mental facility, her “ownership” being transferred to her father, an odd British accent, a bitter custodial battle and more, Britney Spears has managed to release a new music video. This music video is animated, and features Britney Spears as a superhero who fights bad guys, flies through the air and more. Too bad the music video sucks.

Don’t get me wrong: I have nothing against Britney Spears. I love comebacks, and I hope she gets to do one of those one of these days. At first, her self destructive behavior was a bit entertaining, but once we found out she has some more serious issues, it became more troubling than anything else. I think even the biggest Spears haters are hoping that she stops makes a fool for herself and at least lands on even footing, though feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.

Regardless, this new Britney Spears music video, called “Break the Ice,” does not spell comeback in any way or form. Here are five reasons why:

• The song is terrible. Like most Britney Spears songs, the techno mix is over-the-top, cheesy and manufactured. If her real voice is in there somewhere, it’s hard to tell. The song sounds like countless other forgettable pop songs before it, and doesn’t have the quality to be a big radio hit or the beat to succeed at dance clubs. Unfortunately, the song sounds like a Britney Spears song, which means it might have been successful five years ago.
• The music video has nothing to do with the song. If the lyrics have something to do with what’s happening visually, I didn’t pick up on it. The song begins and the music video begins, but rarely do the two seem synced or even related. The video doesn’t feature a singing superhero, and when it does show Britney’s lips, they don’t match up to the words we’re hearing. It seems as though the animators were told to make a three-minute superhero cartoon, but were never given the song to work off.
• The animation isn’t very good. Aside from the fact that the music video has nothing to do with the Britney Spears song, the animation isn’t intriguing enough to make us watch for watching’s sake. Had everything matched up, it wouldn’t be that big of a deal, but as is, it seems as though this music video needed to look really, really cool and really edgy to overcome its deficiencies, but alas, that is not the case. The animation is basic at best, and not worth even a minute of your time.
• Britney Spears isn’t in the music video. I’ve never liked Britney Spears’ songs. Over the course of her up-and-down history, there are probably two or three songs that I’ve tolerated enough to listen to. However, that hasn’t stopped me from looking at her. Even now, after everything, she’s pretty good looking, and the only reason I’d even consider watching her old music videos were to see her strutting her stuff in some sexy outfit. Unfortunately, this “Break the Ice” video does not show even a second of the real Britney Spears, which begs the question: “What’s the point?”

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!