Well, the unimaginable has happened: "Heroes" got even worse. For those who have never had the pleasure of seeing NBC's silliest "X-Men" meets "The Young and the Restless" superhero drama, don't bother starting now.
In a mere two hours, the writers of "Heroes" have managed to completely destroy what little credibility they had left over from season one. Some questions are answered, but after the conclusion, countless more arise, not the least of which is, "Where did it all go wrong?" "Heroes" started out as an interesting, mysterious action-drama that played out like a comic book. Sure, some of the characters were pretty shallow, the acting quite stale and the plots over-the-top, but that's the way comics are. Before, these shortcomings could be overlooked.
Season two took those faults and exaggerated them in every way by adding the same kind of boring characters and the exact same "oh-my-God-the-future-has-been-destroyed-Peter-save-us" storyline. People blamed it on the writers' strike. In season three, the strike wasn't to blame; it was the writers.
Season three, entitled "Villains," kicks off with a bang. The future, once again, has become a cesspool of destruction, and it's up to Peter Petrelli (played by Milo Ventimiglia), everyone's favorite invincible protagonist, to change the past to save the future. Back in the present, Sylar (Zachary Quinto) makes his grand appearance at the home of a certain Texan cheerleader (Hayden Panettiere). After a painfully drawn-out game of cat and mouse in which Sylar seems to forget his superhuman abilities, he eventually has his way with Claire's brain.
Seeing as how season one was all about preventing this from happening, the writers have decided to completely disregard all sense of proportion. Knowing that basically everyone's immortal really takes the punch out of scenes in which Sylar gets pummeled with bullets or Claire stands in front of a train. "Heroes" has a beautiful knack for bringing characters back to life every chance it gets, and season three is no different.
Nathan Petrelli (Adrian Pasdar), after being shot in the season two finale, miraculously comes back to life. What's most miraculous about the incident is future Peter's total lapse in judgment. Sure, he could teleport or fly his brother away to stop the speech, but shooting him in the chest works just fine, too.
What else has writer Tim Kring decided to do with everyone's favorite nerdy scientist? Why not make Mohinder (Sendhil Ramamurthy) Spider-Man, complete with super strength, super wall-crawling and super shirt-ripping sex appeal? Despite these kinds of blatant out-of-character sequences, the show is still entertaining to watch. There's a good deal of action riddled with lightning, telekinesis and fireballs. If only Kring would just focus on the action and superpowers. No one actually cares about the convoluted, repetitive story anymore.
As in season two, "Villains" starts off with Peter losing his powers once again after his future self traps him in the body of some fat criminal, who of course has a superpower of his own. Sylar, on the other hand, despite suffering a similar no-power phase throughout the entirety of season two, has regained his abilities fully. As mentioned above, however, Kring seems to be making up for his lack of abilities last season by making him even more unbeatable this season. But isn't that what "Heroes" is all about, fighting the same insane, disproportionately mighty villain before the world blows up in some slightly more heinous way than it was going to last season?
Season three manages to set the stage for an even more unfocused plot. The protagonists are all divided up, and a whole new slew of evil super-powered jailbreaks have been added to the roster. The only thing that saves the two-hour premiere is the fact that Kristen Bell now has guest-star status. While one can be almost certain that a dead character is not actually dead, billing as a guest star is hopefully more concrete proof that Bell won't be around much longer. In the convoluted, repetitive, campy world that is "Heroes," less is always more, a formula currently lost on the writers. They assume more characters, subplots and sappy father-daughter moments will fix what is wrong with the show. Unfortunately, the season three premiere begs the question, "What's not wrong with ‘Heroes'?"
