Lower Decks

The following review contains spoilers for Heroes through the current episode, “Villains,” originally broadcast November 10th, 2008.

As much as I hate to say it, this may well have been the single worst episode of Heroes ever. And that includes the disappointing first season finale (“How to Stop an Exploding Man”) and the entire subpar second season. Despite including storylines involving two of my favorite actresses, Kristen Bell and Jessalyn Gilsig, as two of my favorite characters, Elle and Meredith, it’s impossible to reconcile their appearances with the otherwise disappointing nature of this episode*.

For an episode made up entirely of flashbacks, presumably intended to fill in gaps in the back story of the series, “Villains” left me more confused than ever and, more importantly, less than impressed with some of the revelations. I’ve become very tired of the constant trips to the future or the past. Initially, this was an interesting way to share important information with viewers. It quickly became a clutch the series fell to when it couldn’t move the story forward any other way. Quick, send Hiro to the future! Or Future Peter to the present! That’ll be great!

It isn’t. I’m not interested, for the most part, in what happened in the past or what might happen in the future. I want to see plots unfold in the here and now. During the first season, when Heroes was new and the every episode was building towards a final confrontation with Sylar, the occasional trip to the future was exciting. It was something different. In “Five Years Gone,” it was wonderful seeing what the future might hold for our merry band of characters. But then different became the norm and Heroes went to the future (or the past) too many times. Time travel is an inherently tricky thing to pull off. Unfortunately, Heroes has never done it well.

If someone like me, a casual fan who tunes in every week, can notice the blatant continuity conflicts depicted in this episode, how are hardcore fans going to react? “Villains” seemed to contradict everything we learned in Season One and screwed with the timeline. The thing that stuck out at me the most was the scene in which Noah walks away from Elle and gets into a cab with Mohinder. Recall that in the premiere episode, we learned that Mohinder came to the United States after his father was killed (by Sylar). But only moments before he got in the cab, Noah had been talking to Elle about the successful way they maneuvered Sylar into killing and (according to Elle) turned him into a monster. When exactly did Sylar have the chance to go out and kill Chandra Suresh?

There were other problems, of course. I had always been of the understanding that Peter and Nathan’s father, Arthur Petrelli, had died several months before the events depicted in the series premiere of Heroes. But in “Villains,” his death seemed to coincide with the death of Chandra Suresh which, as mentioned earlier, occurred roughly around the time of the premiere episode. In other words, I no longer have any clue when certain milestones actually took place.

Most disappointing about “Villains” was the fact that it didn’t move the plot forward at all. Hiro spent the entire episode on a “spirit walk” and when he awoke the only thing he wanted to do was warn Angela that her supposedly deceased husband is very much alive. Something Angela already knows, along with Peter, Nathan, Sylar and quite a few other characters. So, just how much help is Hiro going to be? I suppose he could go back in time and take Arthur off life support in the hospital. Or go back just far enough to keep Peter from losing his powers. Oh, wait, Hiro doesn’t believe in traveling back in time. His father taught him that the future is destined to happen. Or something. It was a convenient way to circumvent the problematic issue of time travel.

Suffice it to say, despite being impressed with the first few episodes of this season, I’m concerned that Heroes is getting bogged down once again in back story and non-linear storytelling rather than simply moving things forward. And, with the show’s Nielsen ratings in freefall and much-needed changes resulting from the firing of two high-profile writer/producers unlikely to be seen before May (according to this New York Times article), it may be necessary to write off the rest of Season Three as another muddled attempt to recapture the brilliance of Season One. On the other hand, Volume 3: Villains is slated to wrap up with the thirteenth episode of the season. Perhaps Season Four will be better.

*If Heroes would just add Sprague Grayden to the cast, along with Kristen Bell and Jessalyn Gilsig, I’m confident things would improve drastically.