Bashing 'Heroes' has become a sport, much like bashing 'Saturday Night Live' became a sport several years ago. "It's not as good as it was" and "it sucks" are the phrases you hear most often when former fans (or fans that are still watching the show but always on the edge of leaving) talk about it.
Tim Kring tells The Onion that he knows what fans are saying about the show, but he also wants fans to know that there are things going on behind the scenes that they might not be aware of. For example, the writers strike hurt the show. Two, it's actually a more consistent show when more writers write an episode than having just one writer on an episode. Three, the writers don't even think of the show as being in "seasons," it's really all one continuous plot.
We were told several weeks ago that a major character was going to be killed off of Heroes soon. Of course, Heroes has a way of killing off characters and then they come back in one way or another: didn't really die, saved by time travel, had a twin, another person takes over their body, etc, etc. But this major character's death is going to be permanent, and it happens in tonight's episode, "The Fifth Stage."
Looks like NBC is really trying to relaunchHeroes. They have a whole new plot and series of characters (a weird carnival), and these videos seem to want us to get involved with the show again, and get to know the characters we love.
The Sylar and Claire videos give a good background/recap of the characters, but the "Heroes in Love" one doesn't really make sense (some characters aren't even on the show anymore, and the Matt/Daphne thing didn't really happen), but they're good promos. (Here's the trailer for season four.)
Like a lot of Heroes fans, there's a lot I've liked about the show and a lot that has frustrated me. But damn if they don't have me coming back season after season.
Jason already told you about what's coming up in season 4 ("Redemption"), and now here's a trailer. Looks like a whole new group of people with powers will be introduced (a carnival, I believe), Claire is in college, Mrs. Petrelli is still being mysterious, Sylar looks like Nathan (except when others see him as Sylar), and (sigh) it still looks like Hiro is time-traveling. But they have me curious again.
Remember when Heroes was about ordinary people with extraordinary abilities? Well, after the last few seasons of time travel, daddy issues and government interference, Tim Kring and the team are taking Heroes back to basics. They'll have regular jobs an regular lives. In other words, they remembered why we liked the show in that first season, so they're trying to recapture lighting.
So you've got our cast trying to live regular lives after all the excitement they've been through. Add in a traveling carnival with an earth-moving leader luring other people with abilities into his troupe and you have the premise for at least the start of the season.
Oh, and that lesbian-esque relationship between Claire and her new college roommate we've been hearing about. Well, have to get buzz somehow, right? And make Claire interesting. Nothing else worked so let's try girl-on-girl action.
I'm eagerly anticipating Zachary Quinto's return to Heroes as Sylar after watching Star Trek. Now, producer Tim Kring is getting my hopes up for the show's fourth season, which he says will explore some classic and intriguing superhero themes.
Kring recently revealed some details about the show's upcoming plots and themes in his latest "Heroes All Access" newsletter. We have the scoop on what Claire, Peter, Nathan/Sylar and HRG will be up to when the show returns to NBC in the fall.
(S03E023) Hot damn, Tim Kring, you did it! The show's creator stepped up to the pen flying solo on the writing for this episode, and by golly, he made a Petrelli family episode interesting. Angela finally stopped abusing her kin by having them dig up skeletal remains, all the while refusing to tell them why they were doing it. She finally opened up a little bit and we got some flashbacks as to just what happened at Coyote Sands and what it has to do with the Petrellis and Mohinder's father.
And while it was interesting from beginning to end, primarily because it did answer some questions as to what happened in the past with Angela and, ultimately, with the genesis of what would become "The Company," it wasn't great. I did find the story of Angela and her sister Alice intriguing, but there were just as many questions left unanswered as there were answered, which I guess is a goal of a long-term series like this. What I do want to know is if Angela went back to Coyote Flats after she left that night to dance with a colored boy, not that anyone remembers that.
As if Heroes hasn't had enough bad press lately. Here comes another controversy to deal with.
The makes of the Icelandic film Astropia are demanding an injunction against the NBC show, saying it has violated copyright laws. Remember the scene in the most recent episode where cheerleader Claire went to the record store to interview for the job left vacant when Aquaboy went on the run? The producers of Astropia say that the scene is very similar to one that they had in their 2007 film. Both show girls going to a comic book store job interview.
This is the second time that the show has been accused of lifting material from another source. A lawsuit came up during the show's first season.
The two scenes are after the jump. The first clip is from Heroes, the second clip is from Astropia. You be the judge! Is Heroes just taking stuff from other sources or is this just a superficial similarity?
It's an intriguing idea. If they were to say thatHeroes was going to end, let's say, after the 6th season, then the writers and producers could actually start planning the story in a certain way and give it a real ending. I also think that if the show were to have a definite end date, fans and former fans would watch the show, knowing that it is actually going somewhere. James Hibberd makes a good case, saying that scarcity increases demand, that it will probably increase ratings, and the show is, well, a goner anyway.
Of course, this could probably be said about a lot of shows on TV, that giving them an end date would make the stories better and get fans interested. Except for According To Jim of course. ABC just renewed that the sitcom through the 2021-22 season.
As Bob wrote the other day, NBC has assured fans that Heroes will be back next season. Isn't that great? Well, no, not to me. I would like to assure NBC that I have had it with Heroes. I'm exhausted and fed up. Do you feel like me? Do you have Heroes fatigue?
The changes have been detrimental to the original premise, ruining what was once the most exciting new TV show on the air since Lost. Quite simply, I don't like the new "book"; I don't like the characters that have been mangled beyond recognition; I don't like all the story lines that were dropped in favor of this new paradigm that has the government hunting down Matt and Peter and the other familiar heroes and treating them like terrorists. At the end of the last episode, I just felt bad about Heroes. What have they done to my show?
(S01E18) Now that's how you do it. Heroes was founded on the idea of this multifarious cast running all over the place and getting into trouble. We skipped all around, checking in on everyone and the hours just seemed to fly by. After what was a slower outing last week, the adrenaline kicked back into high gear. Rebel made a return appearance, if by appearance I mean more text on various computer screens ... and that is what I mean? Is it Ma Petrelli? Nathan asked her that point blank tonight.
And poor Nathan. You kind of knew the Hunter was going to be a bit much for Nathan to control. After all, Nathan is wanting to round up those with abilities for their own good as well as for the good of mankind. He wants to protect them and the world at large. In a sense, he's doing a "good" thing, if only from his perspective. The Hunter, on the other hand, sees them as a threat that needs to be eliminated. They're dangerous, and after his close encounter last week he's gone and made it personal.
(S03E15) The second chapter of the newest volume of Heroes wasn't quite as strong as the first one, but it kept things moving in a positive direction. I guess the writers were wanting to keep the fugitive heroes as weak in power base as possible, based on the casualty we experienced in this episode. In a way, I can say I knew it was coming, but was hopeful that it wouldn't. While I agree that the cast had gotten a little sprawling and out of control at times thorughout the series progression, I never thought this character was a problem.
I'm sure that many of us could go round and round over the quality of the episodes in this latest chapter of Heroes. If you're following along with the weekly reviews, you've no doubt seen it play out in the comments. The thing that is a little harder to argue is the ratings. Over these last few months, the one time flagship NBC drama has seen its numbers drop to drastic levels. Put another way, if Heroes was a space ship, and dropping ratings signified an increase in speed, the show has gone plaid.
(S03E13) Man, they did it again. Set up a potentially solid climactic final chapter to a "Volume" and then just kind of fizzled out. Sylar's antics bordered a bit on the ridiculous, and I don't at all buy Nathan's character path over the past three seasons as plausible. I was pleased with the continuation and ultimate resolution of Hiro's story as it involved also Ando, Matt and Daphne. As it turns out, while these are by no means the central figures in the plots for this Volume, their story was the best.
Maybe it's because there was a minimum of whining (Peter) or pouting (Claire), and quite frankly there's only so much of that crap you can take. With the end of "Volume Three" tonight, as we've done in the past, we got a sneak peek at "Volume Four: Fugitives." And as has been the case in the past, the few minutes we got on a preview of the next volume was much more compelling than the finale of this current volume. Just like real comic books, you usually get a great build up in these big stories, ultimately leading to disappointment.
Brett already told you earlier today about the casting of John Glover as Sylar's father on Heroes. But there are many more changes coming to the NBC show.
Pushing Daisies creator/producer Bryan Fuller is back at the show. He worked on the show in the first season, and now he's coming back to work on it again starting with episode 19, a few episodes into the "Fugitives" chapter. In this interview over at Entertainment Weekly, Fuller acknowledges that the show has had several problems the past year. He's well aware of them, and he has some ideas on how to fix it.
Bashing 'Heroes' has become a sport, much like bashing 'Saturday Night Live' became a sport several years ago. "It's not as good as it was" and "it sucks" are the phrases you hear most often when former fans (or fans that are still watching the show but always on the edge of leaving) talk about it.
Warning! Spoiler ahead!
Remember when Heroes was about ordinary people with extraordinary abilities? Well, after the last few seasons of time travel, daddy issues and government interference, 
I'm eagerly anticipating Zachary Quinto's return to 
As if 
Interesting story over at The Hollywood Reporter: 
As 
Brett already told you earlier today about the casting of 
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