Comment to me from my brother out in Perth re the Heroes finale, via email:
( spoiler for heroes season 3 finale )


Heh. More like the Monkey's Paw but I accept the basic point.

Well I guess in a strange way there's some symmetry in( spoilers )

Hmmn another so-so kind of episode. I suspect it is less dissatisfaction with the episode itself and more angsting about the inevitable season show down in two episodes time. Can’t I have JUST one season finale to look forward to where I’m not utterly convinced my favourite character is going to be killed? Yes, yes, such is the price I was and am still willing to pay when I did this particular deal with the devil and started watching this silly glorious show again but jeez! Have some PITY, Tim Kring! Still, overall I regret nothing so let's just get on with it.
( Review (spoilers for episode) )

Hmmn. After several eps straight out of the top drawer, this week's disappointed. It does seem that I have a fundamental problem in enjoying any episode that Jeannot Szwarc directs. I hate that flat, neutral pace he gives to the whole show - for me it just reduces everything to 'stuff happens...then more stuff'. Boring.
( Read more... )

Thoughts on Angela, Peter & Claire after rewatching.

( Spoilers for ep )

Review, screencaps and some thoughts about the character of Nathan follow below the cut. I'm going to have to come back to Angela and Peter because I want to do them justice. I have thoughts on Claire too for another day.
( Spoilers for ep, screencaps, reviews and reflections )

OMG OMG Heroes was so brilliant this week!  You wouldn't think it could be if Nathan and Peter aren't actually sharing the same scenes but you'd be so so wrong! EEE !!  *flails all around, lost in happy post ep daze*
Review may follow when I've come down a bit.

Thanks to 47_trek_47  I already knew this was a Nathanless episode but that it was going to be good anyway. And so it was. Still, rather like those cakes that taste very nice despite not being cooked with sugar, I decided it would have been even better with the missing ingredient put back in.

( Review - spoilers through S3 to ep 20 )


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Heroes' return to form continues on its merry way. Not sure if I thought it was the best episode ever but it was certainly a lot of fun and combined my twin loves of Heroes in equal measure -sighing happily at how great it is ...and (because I have a mean streak) then having a jolly good laugh at all the silly bits.  For the latter, I award the winner's rosette to Nathan who, once I rubbed my eyes to check I wasn't seeing things, was actually chewing on a toothpick to look tough this week. BLESS!! I think in later weeks he should tell people he can, like totally do Karate. Adrian seems to be relishing the role, play everything to the hilt :)
( spoilers for ep )

Very late on parade in reviewing this week's episode. In some ways this is because it was that good and I was happily floating around in a pink cloud about how exciting and delicious it all is.


( Heroes 3.18 - spoilers for episode )

You know, o gentle reader who-still-has-vague-interest-in-Heroes-land-but-no-longer-watches, I don't want to raise too much in the way of false hopes or anything, but that was a bloody great episode.  Intelligently written, tense, well acted, attention to character development and all smoothly directed and genuinely exciting. Many more of those and I'll stick my artistic judgement on the line and plead with you to start watching again.  Main lesson identified this week as if we needed reminding? Jack Coleman is awesome and if called upon to do something other than look contrite when Claire throws a tantrum, he can deliver in spades. Danko the Hunter continues to repay my fascination, Angela is the most magnificent of bitches and Nathan? well he looks very pretty in evening wear.
( Heroes 3.17 (spoilers and screencaps) )</div>( more )

There’s an old joke I’ve always been very fond of about two men who live in neighbouring apartments with very thin walls. One of the men works late shifts and has an ugly habit of removing his workboots when he returns home and hurling them at their adjoining wall before he goes to bed. The “Thump! Thump!” noise of each boot hitting the wall annoys his neighbour and ones day he knocks on the door to plead for him to stop. Next night, the worker takes off the first boot and, without thinking, throws it *thump* at the wall as usual before remembering the conversation and so he quietly puts the other boot under the bed instead. Three hours later, he’s awoken from his sleep by a knock at the front door. His neighbour is standing there wild eyed and begs him “Please, PLEASE throw the other boot so I can relax and go to sleep!”

As might be inferred, this is how I feel after watching the first episode of Heroes.

 

( Heroes 3.14 review - mild spoilers )

Finally, my sketching habit has once again atrophied but I bring you this sketch. I did one of Milo too but it was so bad, it looked like I'd assembled his features from a bunch of other faces via the medium of collage. so here's Nathan instead.

 

( Nathan drawing )

Even though I know it's a truly crummy idea (ranking up there with the idea I had about ironing my skirt whilst still wearing it), I nonetheless seem unable to resist watching Heroes. Yes, I'm an idiot. Yes, when I come crying to you about how bad it is, I will reflect that there are those of you out there who did their level best to talk me down from this idiocy and I shall  ruefully remember that the wisest of you quit long ago. Sadly, I never did find anything even close to taking Heroes place and believe me I looked. I found plenty of shows I looked forward to seeing the next episode of but only this show exerted a fannish hold and damn it,  it still lingers. If it were a person, this is the point where it would crow "well, well, well - look who's come crawling back".

I am hopeful that my new even lowered set of expectations might mean actual enjoyment is possible. After all, I no longer expect the plots to be coherent for more than, say two eps at a time. I no longer expect the characters to stay like I've come to know them over the 2.5 seasons we've known them. Hell, I no longer expect even for them to be like their revised versions for more than 2-3 eps at a time, or even in extreme cases, within ONE episode. I no longer expect Bennet to get any storyline ever except to be a target for Claire to roll her eyes at.  I am resigned to seeing Sylar stinking up my screen forever. I am comfortable with seeing a bunch of people being hugged as they stare stony faced over the shoulder of the person hugging them.  Sadly, I no longer even expect Nathan and Peter to quasi make out on screen any more (although it would be nice, show). Most painfully, I am resigned that with Nathan going around locking people up in camps, my favourite character is probably ruined. Just simply because it is very difficult to produce IC reactions from an action so OOC. Still, revisiting that one won't help so I'm just hoping for the best but expecting the worst on that one. Oh and I'm presuming they'll kill him off for the end of S3 and I can probably then rest for real.

So in conclusion, What I DO expect from Heroes: Adrian Pasdar to look hot each week. Everything else will be considered a bonus.

Oh I'm so tempted to start watching Heroes again - I knew this would happen if I got hold of last week's episode to get screencaps to draw from. Adrian Pasdar looks crazily hot and from what I can tell, seems to have got over whatever was bugging him before the break and making him turn in his lines as if working to rule. (As I was just after screencaps, I only watched bits of the show so can't make any comment as to whether it seemed better overall) It's not like I now reckon it will have got significantly better but look! look at the pretty! and lets face it, in spite of active searching I've found nothing else to fill the void. Hmnnn.  But it WILL drive me crazy and I will get all pointlessly upset, I know it. Especially if AP's cryptic yet ominous comments about forthcoming stuff on screen are reliable.
Feel free to talk me down from the insanity and slap sense into me. Or, if you've been curious as to how it has been looking but can't bring yourself to sit through the crap, egg me on.
In case it helps the decision, just look at the screencaps. How are they so hot? How?( miniature screencap picspam from heroes 3.14 )

I see Heroes is back. And thus retains its spooky air of being like a romantic relationship that in this case has crashed and burned horribly and now lives on in the form of being told by your friends that said ex has moved back into your neighbourhood and thus there exists the chance to be told all what is happening in their life and even maybe to try for a reconciliation. As I was saying to  sparky77 , frankly I don't even know what I want to hear. If people start telling me things are good, that there's been change, does it simply set me up for fresh heartbreak? And then fresh, pointless angry ranting to an audience that did the right thing and moved on (for the most part) months ago? Just like last season when I was promised change? At least with being told that things are as bad as they ever were, I get to reassure myself I am missing nothing. So, nah - won't be watching - but I'll be asking with affected nonchalance how the show is, paying careful attention to what they are doing to Nathan and Peter whilst all the while trying not to let it wound me.

Huh. To think at the beginning of this season I had hopes it would be a triumphant return to form.  Instead, I now look back at S2 as being not that bad after all. Still riddled with pacing problems and unsatisfying new characters trapped in dull plotlines but at least I recognised the characters I liked - I just rarely got to see them. Anyway, now the (half) season is over and  ( Read more - spoilers for 3.13 )

Revealing questions but not in the way it was intended, from Aron Coleite and Joe Pokaski in Behind The Eclipse (spoilers within for 3.12) this week:

“Given that Lindermann was merely inserted into Nathan's mind by Maury, and not actually un-dead, it's still a mystery as to how Nathan became un-dead himself. Will we soon find out how he survived the shooting at the beginning of the season?”

I think, in Episode 301, that Peter talks about how Nathan survived. He just got lucky. People can survive shootings all the time. It happens. It was Arthur and Maury who used this incident to start manipulating Nathan.

That's IT?? That's what we GET?
Considering he was shot twice in chest at point blank range, was declared dead on the operating table and then left there for long minutes, I'd say the fact he then sat up, none the worse for the experience except feeling a bit under the weather is more than "lucky". I'd call it literally unbelievable.
Seriously, are they for real? They really ooze contempt for this show and they people who watch it.

( Read more (spoiler for 3.12) )

Oh dear, it comes to something when I find I'm disappointed there's still one more episode next week -  like it was some chore I thought done with. On the other hand, I regard Heroes pretty much as Salzella does the opera in Maskerade - how ever much It drives me crazy, I can't truly contemplate life without it.

( Heroes 3.12 (spoilers) )