Heroes - Season Four ("Redemption")

And strangely enough, Knepper's old show is the other one I watched out of habit after season 1 or 2. 

As long as they have a definitive yes or no on a renewal when they write the season (or series) finale, I don't really mind the show getting cancelled.

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I'm the opposite. These were the worst three episodes of all four seasons. I think I'm done with Heroes for good. I loved S1, enjoyed S2, and suffered with good humor S3. But S4...I was with it to start, but it's fallen off a cliff. I'm suffering the shards of stories from previous seasons. There are no good guys or bad guys. No driving theme.

Sylar's back; it's got a pointless carnival; and Claire kissed a girl. Good grief.
I'll quote from elsewhere

My wife can't quit a show mid-season. So I may end seeing more through passive watching. But, wow, such a decline from S1.

But maybe Hiro will save another little girl's stuck cat. That could energize things.

That's a complaint that I agree with. There's no conflict that they seem to heading towards and I assume that there's only three episodes left in the volume. I don't mind a slow build up to something but even if they're building to something, it'll be over too fast for the audience to care.

I wonder if Hiro will sacrifice himself to save Charlie?  Could this be the big shocker?

I would honestly rather have them kill Hiro than Peter, Nathan, Matt or especially H.R.G. His storyline wrapped up when he saved NYC from Peter, and the writers haven't found anything decent to do with him since. H.R.G. is probably more interesting jobless and directionless than he was when he was the uber-man in black. I think Peter's character is really working now that they've stuck with a consistent direction for him for most of a season. And I enjoy the Nathan/Sylar/Matt triangle too much.

When is this big shocker supposed to happen?  This week, or do we wait?

Only three episodes left in this volume?  Is that all she wrote, or does it go into another volume to fill out the season?

I'm only guessing that there's three more episodes left in this volume and I'm guessing that there's two volumes this year (though that seems likely based on S2 and S3). As far as I know, they're doing 19 episodes for the entire year so it makes sense that each volume this year will have 9 chapters (the season premiere was two episodes but they only counted it as one chapter).

Why do you assume that? Everything I've read indicates that Volume Five will play out over the whole 19 episodes.

I assumed that solely because S2 was planned to have two volumes and S3 had two volumes. So I figured that NBC wanted a story that ran over the episodes in the fall and then another story that ran over the episodes in the spring.

If I'm wrong (and I guess I am), I'm more than happy because this story seems like it needs more than 3 more episodes to build up to something that has any importance.

I liked tonight's episode at times, but at the same time it felt like desperation.  "People only liked season 1, so how can we fix the show?" "I know, let's time travel back to season 1!"

I thought it was generally excellent. It's the first time Hiro's character has been taken seriously in a long, long time. The ending also hinted why we haven't seen some long time cast members. I also felt like the production quality really stepped it up for the Season 1-era Odessa scenes, because they had that technicolor, hyper real feel that the show hasn't really had since the first season. Since we know Hiro's never going to end up permanently dead, his brain tumor storyline didn't heighten the stakes properly. With the carnival master keeping her locked away in some unknown place and time, it gives Hiro clearer motivation than any other character right now.

I wasn't a huge fan of the shoehorned in back story between H.R.G. and his previously unrevealed partner. Given what we know about his character, I wouldn't have really bought him have an affair. The pair didn't have much in the way of chemistry, either. I hope this isn't to serve as an introduction so that she can be brought back in the present for a post-Sandra romantic subplot. The only scene I really liked with H.R.G. in the past was his conversation with Claire outside the soda fountain about wanting to be a high school English teacher when he was a kid. It's the kind of information that expands the dimensions of the character rather than contracts them like the Comany woman did.

My favorite moment came after Sylar saved Charlie's life. I thought Hiro was just going to teleport out with Charlie, but he didn't. He told Sylar the truth as far along as he knew it, and then told Sylar that he'd die alone. He didn't see Sylar die alone; he's not even sure Sylar can die. But he knows when the end finally comes -- when another power sucker like Papa Petrelli comes along, or the sun goes supernova or a comet destroys the earth, perhaps -- Sylar will die alone because that's the type of person Sylar is. And then he expresses pity. Hiro, who has less to fear from Sylar than just about anybody except Claire, has a completely different understanding of the most terrifying character on the show.

Episodes like this one and the superior "Company Man" from the first season make me wonder if the show shouldn't change its format to focus on a single character each week and unfurl the chunk of story and other characters from that character's vantage point. It'd be a great way to flesh out such a large (and loosely characterized) cast of characters.

The circus mystery is definitely the most compelling since the mushroom cloud over New York City. The new ringleader, played by Robert Knepper, has been the season's most valuable player. His opaque motives and actions have anchored the season and kept it driving towards something unknown but singular.

Agreed about the scene with Claire and her father working and nothing else with him doing anything at all.

It wasn't really the execution of it that bothered me, just the idea that they'd go back to season 1 like that just felt like blatant desperation to me.

Rohm-bot: she give me wood, the wrong kind of wood.

Good episode, and I generally agree with Adam's post.  I didn't like the retcon, but I am glad they didn't have him go through with the affair.  The rest of it did feel like Company Man.

"Since we know Hiro's never going to end up permanently dead, his brain tumor storyline didn't heighten the stakes properly."


Warning Spoiler! Click to show

I thought this was the best episode of the season. Although I guess I have to assume that Ando feared destroying the space time continuum so he never mentioned meeting future Hiro to current Hiro.

Robert Knepper is the best thing on the show. Killing Mohinder made me an even bigger fan.

Regarding Gregh_S_H's spoiler...


Warning Spoiler! Click to show
As for my feelings on the episode, What Adam Said. I was watching the episode with trepidation just waiting for it to suck (a terrible way to go into any art, but there you go). I realized 15 minutes in that I'd just had a very enjoyable 15 minutes of Heroes.
 
In fact, the only thing that really bothered me in the whole episode was Hiro continuously turning his back on Sylar while talking to, comforting, etc. Charlie. You don't turn your back on Sylar, I don't care if he's made a deal. Does anybody here doubt Sylar would back out of a deal to serve his own purposes. Maybe Hiro turns his back and Sylar simply cuts his head open anyway and takes his power. It's completely within Sylar's character to say, "I don't care what happens then, I care what happens now." Or maybe, "I'll just take your power and go see for myself." I can think of any number of reasons Sylar would back out. That bit was sloppy, but the rest was good.

It was nice to see Charlie again after seeing her on Glee. I didn't realize they were the same actress until this episode. Turns out she also played Hiro's love interest in Bruce & Lloyd:Out of Control (Get Smart).

Is Robert Knepper's character supposed to be Irish or British?  He slips into the accent every once and a while.  I checked and he was born in Ohio so it's not a slip from an americanized accent to his own.

Mikah,


Warning Spoiler! Click to show I think that's just how he sounds.  He sounds like T-Bag!  Heh heh.

Hiro has always been my favorite character on the show, and they're finally treating him properly after a long period of him being comic relief. 

But I'm wondering if we're about to see serious consequences from all this mucking about with the space-time continuum. 

And I agree Knepper is helping the show a lot.  You know he's up to something bad, but we still don't know what it is. 

I'd have been tempted to walk up to Bennett and say, "The guy you're looking for is at the table in the front."  Use extreme caution, etc. etc.

When Charlie started going on uncontrollably about China facts, did anyone else go, "What has search overload done to us?  *BING*!"

I don't know if I have seen a full episode this Season, I have to fast forward through some/lots of them.  Now they are just replaying the same episodes with a different viewpoint and imo, just a complete waste of time.

Had to search to see who the blonde was, drove me crazy and I couldn't figure it was Serena.

Yes!
So let me recap: you probably haven't seen a single complete episode this season, mainly because you lack the patience to sit through them at normal speed. But based on one episode, you are ready to declare that the show is only reworking old episodes. All of which begs the question: if you aren't willing to give the season a try, why bother watching at all? Wouldn't you be happy if you just let the show go?

Obviously I have tried to give the season a try, and iirc, I did like the first 2 episodes(not sure if I liked more).  I FF through most of the Claire crap, it's just a waste, I FF through most of the Hiro crap, it's just nonsense.  It's not just 1 episode, they almost all are a waste of time and then they have a recap episode to top it off.  I am starting to let the show go, it took me till Friday night to watch it, I have never gone longer then I think Tuesday.

H.R.G. was back in fine form tonight. Parkman actually acted somewhat intelligently for a change. The invisible sorority sister's sadistic streak is explained. Peter and the Deaf woman help each other deal with the other's baggage. I look forward to watching "Heroes" again, and that is a very good thing.

P.S. I wonder if H.R.G. used the TAZER to bag Christopher Eccleston's Claude the first time.

The Claire and Sue Thomas storylines just aren't working for me.  The Claire scenes are every bit as bad as season one Niki.  I can only hope Gretchen is gone for good which might help things, but not much.  The rest was alright, including Peter saving lives before he hooked up with Sue.

Im not sure why theres so much dislike for season2. They introduces us to alot of characters - many who shouldnt have been killed off, and I was pretty interested in what was going on.

Take away Sylar, and Im finding S4 to be pretty dull. The Carnival appeal has begun to wear off because they havent done anything with it.

At least on this forum, most of the dislike for s2 stems from the characters of Maya and Alejandro, two characters who seem to be universally hated.  Personally, I enjoyed s2, but definitely disliked the twins.

Ultimately, Maya was only kept around so the audience could stare at her breasts, which were quite nice, I guess.

I wasn't fond of the twins, but they weren't enough to make me hate the entire season.  The season has largely faded from my memory, but I didn't like that they went to the "New York is destroyed in a future vision and we must stop it" well once again.  They lost me right at that moment, though there were, of course, episodes or sequences that were decent.  Some people hated the past Japanese setting and thought they spent too long on it.  I liked that part.  And, this is where my memory gets fuzzy, but I think it was a problem that they split all of the characters up again and had them all off doing their own thing.  Amnesiac Peter was one of my least favorites, and I was disappointed to find out that I'm more of a Veronica Mars fan than a Kristen Bell fan.  I didn't like her here and haven't liked her in anything else I've seen her in since.  If this was the season where Mohinder injected himself (see, it's all starting to get lumped together in my mind), there was a lot of outcry over that.

The season actually plays a little better in my memory.  The escapees had interesting powers and Claire was actually doing something interesting, like taking down the puppetmaster and training with her mom.  Jon, I think you are the one catching up on DVD, right?  I'm sure the whole franchise looks different when you don't have a break between episodes.  I haven't seen any of it since the first run, since I tend to not buy current shows on DVD.