Heroes season 4/volume 5 started off with a promise of a fresh new start for the characters that have been put through the wringer of the past four volumes. My main problem with this season was the obvious lack of support from NBC and show runner/creator Tim Kring. Many hold s1 as the Ultimate Season of the series, and the writers decided to keep pulling plots from there for no reason other than to assume some form of "continuity" or throwback where none was called for.
The current change in the viewing standards did not help, either, with more and more people preferring to watch shows on their own schedules, especially on a busy night like Monday, as well as the growth of internet viewing on torrents, both legal and illegal. Added to this was the "digital changeover" which was pushed back once, and still considered a disaster. I only kept my cable this past winter to watch Heroes, then immediately cancelled it once the season was over. Why pay $40+/month for maybe a dozen hours of TV viewing? I'd hate to be living outside an area with NO cable opportunities, currently, as there are several areas around me like that.
Back to Heroes, I enjoyed the first two seasons, even if the latter was cut short due to the Writers Strike. the main problem came when Kring decided to abandon several MAJOR s2 plots at the start of s3 assuming "people will have forgotten, anyway", causing much dissension in the fan ranks. Several characters were introduced in s2 that were promptly forgotten (actor contracts ended) or immediately written out (Molly/Caitlyn)/killed off (Adam/Maury) in early s3 with little to no justification other than to say "forget s2 existed!" um, NO.
Volume 3 was uneven at best, and ridiculous at worst. Promises of lots of action fell flat when the alleged Big Bads were immediately pushed aside for some nonsense about the "Super Formula". Major Credit to several of the actors who managed to pull off a decent performance here amongst the Writers' publicized infighting and idiotic turns with their characters. When your actors refuse to do a scene the way one hack belligerently wrote it, you might have a problem.
Volume 4 showed new promise, but was soon a rollercoaster ride of logic and nonsense, with several unnecessary diversions (Annapurna = Prop 8 propaganda) while other, more prominent plot points were glossed over, if not outright ignored. Again, several new characters were forced into the "Fugitives" arc, only to disappear before being written out, and a few were shown to be knocked off (Daphne). And let's not even get into the Big Finale Fight Scene which took place BEHIND CLOSED DOORS! It may have paid off in terms of story, but MANY fans were angered by the fact Kring admitted publicly he REFUSED to write such a scene because it would take too long to film and give everyone their proper due, even tho said scene involved FOUR PEOPLE.
Which brings us to season 4/volume 5: Redemption aka "The CLAIRE! Show! (...and friends)" with Hayden Panettierre taking center stage in almost every episode, even when there was absolutely NO REASON for her to be in certain scenes. Then there was the kerfluffle of her character "going gay" which was all of one surprise kiss from her college roommate a few episodes in and later on, they held hands and walked out of a scene. The only useful thing she really did this season was make her mother's new "boy friend" faint when she sliced open her arm at Thanksgiving.
Zach Quinto's Sylar was in most of the episodes as well, but that was more because of Sylar's situation of literally being in two places at once due to the previous season finale. Some of my favorite scenes this season were of Quinto and Greg Grunberg's Matt Parkman. These two should deserve an Emmy nod/nom for their work together this season.
On the other hand, the once bad ass Noah "HRG" Bennet (Jack Coleman) was reduced to "mid-life crisis dad" and given the run around. He was obviously supposed to partner with Ali Larter's Tracy Strauss this season, but her commitment to the Resident Evil movies prevented that (she disappeared halfway through the season, only to reappear in one scene for the finale), so she was essentially replaced with a retconned/never-before-seen "ex-Company coworker"/love interest for HRG. At least she wasn't degraded like Masi Oka's Hiro was -AGAIN- this season with his "brain damage" (at least we got closure on Hiro and Jayma Mays' Charley relationship from s1). luckily, Sendhil Ramamurthy's Mohinder Suresh got to sit out most of the nonsense due to his prior film commitments, as well, making a handful of appearances before literally saying "goodbye" after making a deus ex machina device that was never used.
This season started again with much potential and a tight storyline until the writer's realized they had 19 hours to fill with maybe 12 hours of story. the Nathan-as-Sylar (aka "Sathan/Nylar") arc was ended early and the season began floundering after the winter hiatus because of that, with several filler episodes and the sudden revelation of Robert Knepper's Samuel Sullivan reasoning that he's doing all of his bad deeds to impress his high school sweetheart he kidnaps (even tho it's made clear earlier he didn't even ATTEND any high school!), as well as scare the "normal" people into respecting the Specials, much like Magneto in X-Men.
When (a couple of) the Heroes -including a now-reformed Sylar- ultimately decide to stop lallygagging about and end Sullivan's plans to destroy Central Park on live TV, CLAIRE! goes ahead with part of his plan anyway and exposes them on live TV, which is where we leave off for the series in a throwback to her opening s1 scene where CLAIRE! injures herself for the cameras one last time. There was early talk of a "wrap up event" or mini-series, which was then downgraded into a two hour movie, but even that is now proving to be a mere pipe dream by the true fans. Even the last few online comics were delayed a few weeks then almost a month for the last chapter, despite Kring's wish they keep going, and Heroeswiki has essentially ceased, despite some recent "updates" on character bios obviously meant for the comics.
The idea for having a group of "Specials/outsiders/freaks hiding in plain sight" was a good one (if used before in comics and other media stories since Tod Browning's FREAKS), and even bringing in Knepper and Ray Park (on occasion) and bringing back s3's David H Lawrence (xvii)'s Doyle among others to flesh out these people should have worked, but once again, with no control/direction over the writers and a show runner who never planned more than one season, the show has been granted an early release into TV Land. Forget syndication. A shame, really, when they could have done so much more, but for the network and incompetence behind the scenes and the writers fanwanking to a few cast, ignoring others. No wonder ABC is already trying their stab at it for the 2010 season with "No Ordinary Family", a Fantastic Four/Incredibles riff (which has already had two cast jump ship???).
Farewell, Heroes, it was quite the journey. I'd just like to thank some of you for making it worthwhile. You know who you are.
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