Sylar - no more Mr Nice Guy... again

Although the first episode of this third season showed some promise (Nathan’s new found religious fervor, in particular, looked like it might just go somewhere), things have progressed since then seemingly on a “Wouldn’t it be cool if…” basis.  Yup, continuity and logic just can’t shout loud enough when the writing team are postulating, “Wouldn’t it be cool if: Sylar and Noah had to work together/Sylar was revealed as being Peter’s long lost brother/Mohinder got powers/Ando got powers/Everyone lost their powers…” and so on.

It’s resulted in a show constantly backing out of storyline cul-de-sacs (actually, Sylar isn’t a Petrelli; nor is he good; Mohinder’s cured of his powers etc etc) and dropping bits of the plot as it goes along (What happened to Linderman? Where did the Haitian suddenly nip to in the final episode?).

Season one casts a long shadow over the show, a firecracker run which impressed by blowing every trick in the stack – particularly with its various time-shifting episodes. No more can the show jaunt to an apocalyptic future, or take us back for a peek at how things began… it’s been done.

So what’s actually left? And is the show beyond hope? Here, humbly, are a few suggestions for a revived Heroes…

- Kill people! Obvious to say, but it does reveal a lack of confidence that the programme-makers have never yet offed anyone significant. And there are a few characters who’ve clearly passed their sell-by date: Parkman and Mohinder in particular.

- A new point-of-view. The fun of the time travel episodes had been (and notice I say that in the past tense) they offered a different point of view on events. Perhaps this could be achieved in new ways. For example, how about going down the Marvels (a comic book by Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross) route and showing us the heroes’ antics from the perspective of ostensibly a by-stander?

- Write out Sylar. The show’s bogey man now seems to be stalking the production team. In series two and three, new villains have been introduced (Kensei, Parkman’s dad, Old Man Petrelli), dressed up as the biggest and baddest threats ever… until suddenly there seems to be a crisis of confidence, and Sylar is hurriedly re-established as top dog. So get rid of him and go for broke with something new.

- Develop Hiro. There’s a pervasive fear in really moving the characters on (Claire and Noah always end up back home, hiding from The Company, for example) which has particularly stultified Hiro. Originally a refreshingly ‘innocent’ voice among the maelstrom, he’s now just unbearably twee. When the show cuts to him, it’s like we’re in a different programme altogether. It was telling that when he was ‘regressed’ to his childhood, he didn’t actually seem any different. How about letting him grow up? And let the show’s immature moral compass waver as he’s forced to make tough choices.

- Have fun with physics. Okay, in a programme where people can fly and spit fire, it seems pointless to nitpick. But that bit when Ando and Daphne used super speed to, not just go back in time, but turn up at exactly the right moment, and across the globe in Toyko, was just too hard to swallow. Reign back in the reality. Wouldn’t it be good if the impact on the human body of travelling at high speed was acknowledged? Or flight – once Nathan got above the clouds, couldn’t he just once panic as he realises he’s confused and no longer knows which way is down (plus, it’s bloody cold). Some exploration of the consequence of powers might just anchor the show a little more.

Anyway, that’s five ideas from me. Suggestions, anyone?

Zachary Quinto as Sylar

The morning after Heroes series three debuted in the US, the BBC screened the opener for journalists at the Curzon cinema, Soho.

Roly Keating, Controller of BBC2, introduced the preview: “Huge apologies for the short notice, as you may have gathered we didn’t know till the last minute if we were going to have the materials to do this screening, as what you’re about to see only broadcast in America in the small hours of last night. This is as close to an American premiere as you’re ever going to get.

“Normally when I do little intros like this,” he continued, “I’m very familiar with what we’re about to show you, and I’m full of little teasing hints about the narrative. I haven’t a clue what happens in this episode! Like you, I have not see a frame. So I am here as a fan.”

So how about that first 50 minutes? It’s attention-grabbing stuff, a mixture of the hokey (Mohinder’s scenes with Maya, and his own long-expected piece of character development) and the horrifying (Sylar’s torture of Claire – like a slow and painful metaphor for rape). Once more, Hiro is on a quest, no-one stays dead and – yup – the end of the world is nigh. But there is some admirably bold stuff too, chiefly about The Second Coming. And HRG is used in admirably restrained fashion.

Clearly, Heroes can’t recapture the sheer adrenalin of its first year, but on the basis of what I’ve seen, I’m along for the ride once more.

Heroes will air on BBC2 from Wednesday 1 October at 9pm, with the following episode appearing on BBC3 immediately after.

You could see their point for various reasons which will be become clear, but thankfully, the close of “Volume One” of Heroes was really not as bad as reports suggested, and provided enough gob-smacking moments in its final two chapters to continue stroking my fan gene.

Not that this has been a perfect series by any means. Although the dynamics of the development of super powers in the real world was an interesting idea, whole episodes would pass when the abilities of some of the characters would be talked about an awful lot yet not actually seen in action – undoubtedly for the same budgetary reasons David Banner could only become the Incredible Hulk once an episode. Too often the narrative would drop into a meander, with some stories – such as whatever was going on with Niki that week – dragging somewhat without a clear impression of how they fitted into the main arc of the series. Thankfully there were enough twists to keep things interesting as familial and professional relationships were revealed – Nathan is Claire’s real father! RGB works for Hiro’s Dad! That’s why Sylar kidnapped Molly!

So it’s been a series which has frustrated as much as excited, but these concluding two episodes repaid those viewers who’ve been paying close attention. From incidental pleasures such as seeing heroes who up until now have been living in their own little worlds, no longer isolated and gathering together at the poignantly named Kirby Plaza (a homage to legendary late comic artist Jack Kirby, following on from his collaborator Stan Lee’s cameo in an earlier episode), to the iconic moments expressed in the late artist Isaac Mendez’s paintings throughout the series transforming into film frames. But overall there was a new found fluidity to how the powers were portrayed, with the impression all of the characters have now come to terms with their abilities.

Significantly the much heralded destruction of half of New York did not happen, which is perhaps why some felt short-changed. This, though, is a series about hope, forever reminding its characters that the future is “not set in stone”. Unfortunately this puts fans of time travel fiction into a head-spin as they consider how Future Hiro could visit Peter Petrelli in the train car and warn him to save the cheerleader if said future no longer exists. How come Petrelli didn’t helpfully absorb his time travelling powers at this early stage (unless he did and wasn’t aware of it)? How could Contemporary Hiro visit futures that won’t happen in order to become motivated to change them? And, for that matter, how could the Hiro of the first episode call Ando and get the reaction he did if that Ando had gone through all of those experiences?

With so many of Isaac’s other predictions coming true, it’s entirely possible the holocaust is still to come, especially since Zachary Quinto’s Sylar, like all good villains, managed to slither away. From his initial appearance as late as episode nine, Quinto has been the breakaway star of the series, his sanguinary presence leading to the inevitable impression in most scenes a much-loved character is about to exit the series. Perhaps one of the disappointments some fans had with his vanquishing is that despite his many powers it seemed to come too easily. The smackdown with Peter should have been of Superman II or The Matrix proportions – two titans breaking up the place, and not simply the former nurse pummelling the former clock maker into the ground.

Series creator and writer of this closing episode, Tim Kring, has spent much of the show keeping these heroes hidden from the rest of the world, no doubt so their emergence into the wider public can be worked into a future storyline. Everything from murder to mind control have been used to keep their presence a secret, with sinister individuals and organisations such as the Company and Lindermann on hand to control and take advantage of the situation. Perhaps he’s been eyeing the X-Men film franchise and deciding he doesn’t want to deal with the Heroes version of mutant registration just yet (give it five years).

Nathan Petrelli’s Mika-aided political ascendancy in this closing episode continued the political thread which has run through the series. It seems entirely correct powerful people with actual real power encoded into their DNA would try and influence the decision makers in the country and so the course of humanity’s development. Nevertheless, Petrelli is the ultimate expression of “power corrupts”. One of the most heartbreaking moments of the series occurred when Hiro shouted, “You’re a villain!” at him – the exact opposite of his earlier realisation this was the “flying man”. Nathan seems to be a character who will forever be drifting back and forth from the dark side, his reptilian mother whispering in his ear.

Which isn’t to say these final two episodes weren’t without some eye-popping incidents, from Lindermann’s death by brain-hollowing (Malcolm MacDowell will be missed – this was his best performance in years) to Sylar’s predicted murder of exploding Ted (an amazing, if computer-aided, stunt featuring a rolling van). And those closing moments in which Hiro finally fulfilled his potential in saving the world only to then find himself lost in what looked like a Kurosawa movie was probably and rightly, the cliffhanger of the series hinting Future Hiro might not be the misnomer he at first appeared.

Incidental characters such as Christopher Eccleston’s invisible Claude and Missy Peregrym’s misdirecting Candice were welcome distractions (in more ways than one), but apart from Sylar, Hiro and Ando have been the most compulsively interesting characters. Indeed, Masi Oka and James Kyson Lee’s double act has been one of the joys of the series, and actually it’s those episodes in which they didn’t appear or had little to do which have dragged the most. Predictably Hayden Panettiere did find her feet making Claire Bennet deeply watchable, but who would have thought Jack Colman’s RGB would be so useful? A tragic anti-hero willing to murder a small child to save his adopted daughter.

Of the other regulars it’s a pity Milo Ventimiglia wasn’t allowed to inject more of the dark charisma we saw in Future Peter into the rest of his performance, which generally consisted of mild panic. Similarly, it’s regrettable Jessica appears to have gone since Ali Larter was clearly having much more fun with her deviousness than the rather wet Niki. Mohinder (or as Pete calls him MO-HIN-DAAAH) failed to live up to his potential simply because by design he’s been rather dull, generally buffeted about by the three main sources of villainy, and only really coming out of his shell in the moments he’s been awestruck by the abilities of others – such as discovering the ease with which Molly can find her own kind. However, it’s Greg Grunberg who seems hardest done-by – always exuberant and charismatic during spin-off documentary Heroes Unmasked, his character Matt was too often seen being told what to do by someone, or else standing with a stoop trying to read a mind.

It’s difficult to know what to make of Tim Kring’s public apology for the quality of the second series of the show already reaching its abbreviated run on US TV (made shorter because of the current writers’ strike). Certainly reports haven’t been good, suggesting the narrative meander which infected the first series continues into the second, with a fair few reset levers having been pulled despite the events of this closing episode.

Nonetheless, the short discussion between Claire and Peter in which she favoured going on patrol with her powers, and he said spandex isn’t for him suggests Kring isn’t interested in taking the series in the direction of Sunnydale or Smallville, and has a grander, more realistic, narrative in mind. He just has to be careful not to contract repetitive Lost syndrome, asking too many questions and not providing enough answers, hoping all of the shiny things will distract the viewer from an underlying lack of imagination. Heroes needs to keep moving forward, but reports suggest this might not be the case.

Although, not to the point I won’t actually be tuning in for the rest of “Volume Two” …

Well, we’re eight or nine episodes in now, and following a terrible false start (read more about that, here) I’m glad to say it’s been worth my while sticking with the show. I won’t go into details, but this week’s episode was fantastic – rehabilitating the likes of Bennet, Parkman and Suresh, all of whom had been terribly served by recent storylines (the latter two in particular, becoming Molly’s “gay dads”). I love the fact that Bennet – who has no super powers (at least for the timebeing) – is back to being the most formidable, feared character in the whole show.

That said, I think I’m still more excited by series two of Dexter which has done just incredible things in terms of progressing characterisation and plot. That’s despite Jaime Murray off of Hustle turning in a rather gummy performance.

Monday’s opener – which we got round to watching last night – was terribly disappointing. Not inept, not awful, just oh-so dreary. I won’t go into lots of detail and spoil things for viewers still following the first run on BBC2, suffice to say characters were planted into new(ish) situations, but already it’s clear that – just as Jack Bauer would be back working for CTU by 20 minutes past the hour – the new lives adopted by certain individuals are quickly unraveling as the old order pushes its way through. And that’s a bit boring.

Although that’s not the case with Hiro, whose storyline chronologically, physically and figuratively finds him far removed from everyone else, pursuing his own plot bubble. I’m guessing his actions will eventually have some impact on the show’s main thread, but right now it’s hard to care about what’s happening to him.

Oh, and some of the British accents on show are very odd indeed.

I won’t go on. When a good show turns in a disappointing episode, it’s too tempting to bang on about it forever. I’ll be watching next week and I’ll still be hopeful. Hopeful the unusual, offbeat, pretentious drama I enjoyed earlier in the year will find its feet once more. It’s got two episodes to play with…

Anyway, if you’ve watched the Heroes season two opener, please do leave a comment and let me know what you thought. And, let’s not worry about spoilers for British viewers there either. They can choose not to click…

The event was presided over by Roly Keating, who’s clearly a huge fan of the show. Answering questions from the assembled journos such as – get this – “What super power would you like in real life?” and “What do you make of English men” were Dennis Hammer (Executive Producer and The Love Boat alumnus), Hayden Panettiere (Claire Bennet), Jack Coleman (Mr Bennet), Adrian Pasdar (Nathan Petrelli) and Milo Ventimiglia (Peter Petrelli). Pasdar rounded the whole thing off by declaring if US politicians could be blessed with an attribute, it would be “a brain”. The cast also mentioned they’re meeting up with Christopher Eccleston tonight for dinner. Ahhh.

Afterwards, drinks and music at the top of the world, or so it felt. Although we were cautioned to respect the fact the thesps were now off duty, they mingled, posed for pictures and – in Coleman’s case – stood and patiently listened while I explained why “Company Man” is the best ever episode. He agreed: “54 scenes,” he said, “and I was in 50 of them”. Meanwhile, Jon Culshaw stalked the room, presumably looking for an “in” to do his Tom Baker, or something …

That, plus a trailer for series two, featuring Claire cutting her toe off and – SPOILER! – a bearded Nathan.

UPDATE: Digital Spy have slung a video of the press conference online.

Superhero fantasies have had a chequered history on television, with straight comic book adaptations either throwing out the mythology that inspired the character or misjudging it to the point of irrelevancy. Those series, like Heroes, laying their own path often misunderstand the ingredients fans of these things are looking for, bringing special powers and big explosions to the fore rather than characterisation. For every Smallville or Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, there’s been Superboy or Mutant X … and let’s not even get me started on the ’60s Batman which like many of these series decided costumes means camp and comedy, and how can any of this stuff be taken seriously? About the only show which didn’t featured teenagers but got everything completely correct is the little known version of The Flash which ran through the schedules for one series in the ’90s.

Luckily, Heroes doesn’t fall into these any of these traps because, as the pre-publicity highlighted, the spandex and outrageous powers are dropped in favour of running the concept of humans developing special powers within the real world (or the version of it that appears on US television). Some of the characters introduced across these opening episodes – such as an indestructible cheerleader who saves a worker from fire – find themselves wanting to do good from the off, while others are rendered impotent and bewildered by their power to the point we’re not even sure if they’re going to be a force for good. The pointed non inclusion of the word “super” from the title of the series indicates these characters are not meant to be paragons.

Only a very broad idea of where the story will be heading was presented in these episode which rightly spent their time introducing the characters and concepts, not falling into the other nefarious trap of also shoe-horning in a representative plot. In these opening stages, all of the characters are living in their own little words, each discovering their new powers in separate ways and – as far they’re concerned – in isolation.

As well as the aforementioned cheerleader Claire , there’s Nathan a politician who can fly, Isaac an artist with drug induced premonitions, Matt a telepathic cop, Hiro a Japanese office worker who can bend space and time and Niki a stripper with a split personality.

Series creator and writer of these opening two episodes Tim Kring (whose previous credits include Knight Rider and Crossing Jordon) relies on a sheer sense of wonder that such amazing things are possible – the look that Peter Parker gives in Sam Raimi’s first Spider-Man film when he realises he can climb walls rendered across whole episodes. And for every tragic moment such as the brutal solution to the mob problems of the stripper, are those of utter joy , as Hiro transports himself from a subway carriage in Tokyo to Times Square in New York before discovering a bookstore selling a comic book which describes his life right up to that instant.

Cleverly, most of these powers can be rendered on screen with fairly minimal special effects and never in a gratuitous fashion. Telepathy is conveyed by voices on the soundtrack, transportation created by a screen wipe or transition (which is why they were so popular on Star Trek), the stripper’s apparent Hyde appears in her reflection with the invincibility created through the ingenious use of prosthetics and CGI, and the flying scenes (as far as I could tell) a mix of wire work and minimal green screen.

Also in these early stages, Kring imports the quirks of such recent hyperlink dramas as Syriana, Love Actually and Fast Food Nation by slowly revealing these characters scattered across the US nation and further afield are tangentially linked, with Claire’s father potentially being the brain-sucking villain of the piece tailing Mohinder – the son of a geneticist – who’s visiting New York to investigate his father’s death and, who in one scene, taxis a nurse (Nathan’s brother) … who it turns out may also be able to fly (although there’s a hint his power might be far more expansive than that).

Slowly, as the heroes are drawn together, such surprise links may become less important, but Kring is already layering in signs and portents – or as the BBC2 announcer beforehand gamely described “apocalyptic visions”. As is customary in these series, not everything can be taken at face value and – as if the many new characters and situations weren’t enough – we were presented with a gob-smacking finale, in which one of those visions comes true. That naturally makes us question what has gone before and shows the series will not be averse to experimenting with the language of television drama, at least in terms of direction and editing.

Heroes is still resolutely of comic books and fantasy though; with the exception of Doctor Who, it’s been a while since a show has seemingly been specifically designed to stir the inner geek. It’s obviously created by someone who’s consumed cult media and has the an obvious love for it. Where other series have shied away from inserting in-jokes which only a small proportion of the audience might understand, Heroes confronts them head on, referencing everything from Star Trek to a particular issue of The X-Men, to the surnames of characters from The Matrix. Elements such as the episode titles as captions which slip through the very opening of each instalment and a portentous philosophical voiceover from source unknown also give the impression of a comic, without going the whole hog as seen in Ang Lee’s film version of Hulk which actually had frames and thought bubbles appearing on screen.

All of this would be for naught were it not for the characters, and for once there’s not a single principle you’re not happy to spend time with. Of the multitude, Hiro is the stand-out, exuberantly played by Masi Oka, his bursts of excitement being some of the best moments on television this year. A more intriguing figure is the Time Lord-esque Mohinder, whose real power we’re yet to see – but actor Sendhil Ramamurthy is carrying the burden of explaining what might be causing these abilities to emerge with aplomb. If Hayden Panettiere’s cheerleader stands a little too much in a certain vampire slayer’s shadow for now, there’s Alias and Lost creator JJ Abrams stalwart Greg Grunberg playing another sturdy but reliable figure in Matt.

While I agree with some commentators that the first episode is a bit sluggish, something which is inherent in the nature of all of these things – there aren’t many opening episodes which work completely simply because of everything they have to do – taken together this marks one of the most promising television launches of the year, combining fun, intrigue and suspense. BBC2 obviously has enough confidence that they’ve paid through the nose to buy the second series – which means it’ll have plenty of time to bed in before Sky inevitably steals the license.

About the only gatecrasher to spoil the party was their presentation of the episodes. Repeating the experiment which greeted the opening instalments of Torchwood last year, the credits of the pilot were clipped and replaced with a reminder that episode two was to follow (over a specially designed ident) and a bunch of trailers for the channel’s opening line-up spoiling the effect of the cliffhanger somewhat as the viewer had Louis Theroux’s incredulous face glaring at them while they considered the implications of the nurse’s jump from the building – surely a voiceover the first set of credits would have been enough.

More damaging was the introduction of the BBC’s long term policy of clipping out the fades in and out of US imports. More than ever, the lead in to advertising has become a punctuation to the action, with a series of mini-cliffhangers throughout the episode, which in Heroes, at least in these early stages with the action criss-crossing across stories, creates a pacing which helps to orientate the viewer. Losing them in this case left the episodes looking a bit disjointed.

But, not to the point that I won’t be tuning in for episode three …

Okay. It’s sheer petulance on my part, but I remain baffled by US scheduling, where shows come along for a solid run, then stutter through subsequent weeks – sometimes they’re on air, sometimes they’re not. Who, though, am I to moan? Here’s me, following Heroes by stealth, greedily downloading episodes when I can get them. I should learn to be patient.

So, let’s talk instead about how brilliant the series currently is. Last week’s episode, “Company Man”, was as good as anything I’ve watched. A superbly crafted hour, which brought together about a million plot strands in a million different satisfying ways, while also blowing the bottom out the show in an exhilarating way. This week’s effort, “Parasite”, could never quite match that, and instead oozed a kind of creeping menace, ending on – yes, another – killer cliff-hanger.

I’m gushing and it’s embarrassing. Heroes is, when it comes to it, X-Men in civvies. How can it be any good?

April 23. That’s when the show returns. If I was Hiro, I’d squeeze my eyes and get there now.

However, Heroes is worth tuning in for. Having watched the first six episodes, this is a series that combines the breath-taking turning-your-world-upside-down cliffhangers of the kind found in the aforementioned Lost, without that series’ horrendous tendency for slowing the plot down to a crawl for weeks on end. In fact five out of the first six eps of Heroesend on really belting twists or reveals and right now I can’t think of a brand new drama series I’ve enjoyed this much in ages.

Of course Heroes‘ central premise is pretty familiar to those with a working knowledge of American comic books. But it has to be said the show handles the whole concept of “what would it be like if superheroes actually existed in the real world” with a refreshing originality that sidesteps most of the preoccupations of the so-called “mature readers” graphic novel market.

Admittedly it probably helps that I grew up on a diet of Spider-Man and, later Watchman comics, but before Heroes I had presumed that any such interest I once nursed had died out at the end of my teenage years.

I’m not sure, then, if that’s an endorsement for Heroes or rather an acknowledgement that man’s struggle to realise that with great power comes great responsibility is an enduring fascination for those of us who once made theirs Marvel. Anyway, be sure to find out for yourselves, but be warned there’s every chance Heroes will sneak onto UK screens rather than herald its arrival through billboard posters.