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2007-2008 Season Post-Mortem Part 5: "Heroes" |
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Tuesday, 27 May 2008 |
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By John Keegan
Visit Critical Myth for an archive of John's TV Review archives, with more than 1100 entries.
| This season, I’ll be summing up this unusual 2007-2008 season with a post-mortem on the majority of the shows I’ve reviewed during the year, ranking from the very worst to the very best. In some cases, the term “post-mortem” is all too applicable. This is Part 5 of this 11-step journey, focusing on the second season of “Heroes”.
The first season of “Heroes” was the darling of the 2006-2007 season, offering the only post-“Lost” genre series to survive with similar popularity. As derivative as the first season might have been, mining some of the more interesting comic book concepts for the television format, the pacing was more acceptable to viewers who found “Lost” too ponderous for their liking. (For the record, both shows cater to a different audience, and trash-talking is unnecessary.)
The burden on “Heroes’ was substantial. The first season built tension almost perfectly over the course of nearly two dozen episodes, and then the writers delivered a weak and disappointing season finale. The mandate was simple: come back with a stronger second season and deliver on the potential that was momentarily squandered. Having started on a high note, the challenge was already a substantial one.
All things being equal, the second season of “Heroes” was a well-intentioned failure. First and foremost, it must be noted that the original plans for the second season were blown out of the water by the writers’ strike. As heavily serialized as “Heroes” is, any interruption can be fatal. Losing an entire second half of a season is beyond lethal. The writers were constantly attempting to balance the possibility of a full season against the growing reality of a shorter run.
That said, the writers conceive of each new plot arc as a “volume” of the overall series, and the second volume (“Generations”) wasn’t necessarily meant to last longer than the 11 episodes that made it to air. That makes the slow and overly methodical pacing of the second season seem unnecessary in retrospect. And, with so much repetition of elements from the first season, it’s hard not to wonder if the writers have already run out of ideas. “Heroes” wouldn’t be the first series to expend the best of its potential on a successful first season, only to degrade slowly but surely over the subsequent years.
The repetition was not entirely surprising, because the theme of the season arc was all about the sins of the previous generation. Since the first season introduced many of the mysteries surrounding the Twelve and their connection to Linderman’s crusade, it only made sense that it would eventually be explored. And one might also consider that such explorations tend to reveal that certain mistakes and choices are repeated in absence of new influences.
Even so, the second season introduced a slew of new characters, most of which were a disappointment. Elle, played by the gorgeous Kristen Bell, was never written well enough to exploit the actress’ talent. The same applied to the characters of Yaeko and Monica, who were introduced as strong women but never seemed to gel. In fact, the women of “Heroes” seemed to fare very badly in the second season of “Heroes” (a perennial problem for the series).
Nothing, however, can compare to the absolutely frustrating addition of Maya and Alejandro. The two characters were tied to Sylar early in the arc and were consequently outside of the main plot for the majority of the season. Sylar’s entire plot thread was developed as a lead-in to the third volume, intended for the second half of the season, so the writers’ strike made a bad writing decision worse. Maya and Alejandro, deserved or not, became the scapegoats of the mistakes made in the second season.
The net effect of the challenges and missteps were clear in the Critical Myth average rating for the second season of “Heroes”, which came to a 7.3. This is nearly a half-point drop from the 7.7 achieved for the first season. Had the season not been crippled by the writers’ strike, the third volume (“Villains”) might have redeemed the season as a whole. As it stands, one can only hope that the third volume will be improved by the long hiatus and a chance to consider what went off-course in the fall. |
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