Lower Decks

The following review contains spoilers for Heroes through the current episode, “The Eclipse (1),” originally broadcast November 24th, 2008.

Oh Heroes.  It doesn’t have to be this way.  Do you think I like saying these things about you?  That you’re confusing? Or frustrating?  Or, God forbid, disappointing?  No.  I don’t.  What we shared during your first season was special.  I’ll always cherish it.  But you’ve changed.  Some days I feel I don’t recognize you at all.  Where did we go wrong?

Personally, I don’t know where Heroes went wrong.  I’ve mentioned before I think the Season One finale was the first misstep and I’ve spoken about my issues with Sylar ad nauseam. It’s easy to watch Heroes and pick it apart, pointing out continuity errors and characters acting decidedly out of character. It’s another thing entirely to ascertain where Heroes first stumbled and even harder to come up with ways the show can turn itself around.

I was excited about Season Three.  And initially I was impressed with Volume 3: Villains.  I thought it was much better than Season Two (a.k.a. Volume 2: Generations). But these past few weeks it seems as if every episode has gotten progressively worse and the story has become increasingly muddled and incomprehensible. Has anything happened — anything at all — these past few episodes?  Any momentum the series has left was halted by the awful flashback episode “Villains.” It’s almost as if the writers could only come up with a half dozen scripts and then stretched those scripts over thirteen episodes.

I’ve read that there are those within Heroes fandom who think all this negativity is nothing more than a passing fade, that those same media outlets and fans who were so enamored with the series during its first season have quickly turned on it simply because its the thing to do these days. I don’t agree. It’s perfectly valid to point out Heroes’ flaws. And I’m the first to admit that even Season One had its flaws. But they were easy to ignore or accept because the characters and the story that first year were so fantastic and so much fun. Not this year.

Anyway, I spent the bulk of “The Eclipse (1)” wishing and hoping that one simple thing would be addressed: the fact that there were plenty of people with abilities prior to the eclipse. Forget for a moment that in all the potential future timelines we’ve been shown, everyone had their abilities, so obviously this can’t be permanent. Forget that eclipses aren’t seen the world over. It never made any sense that an eclipse was responsible for giving so many characters their abilities at the start of the first season but at the time, it didn’t really matter. It was just something that happened and it was neat and that was that. But now it has taken on greater significance and, unfortunately, that has led to a lot of frustration on my part as I try to figure out just what is going on.

The eclipse took place during the very first episode, “Genesis.” It was noticed and looked at by a variety of characters. But although we didn’t know it at the time, there were already a lot of folks with abilities.  Adam, for example, and all the others in Level 5. Angela Petrelli and Arthur Petrelli. The Haitian. Sylar. Elle. Linderman. Meredith and Flint. The list goes on. Yes, the “heroes” we came to know and love during the first season — Peter, Claire, Hiro, Nathan, Niki, Isaac, Matt — developed their abilities around the time the eclipse was happening.

And now, several years later, there is another eclipse. And it has taken away the abilities of everyone, not just Peter and Claire and Hiro, not just those who were born with an ability or those who were given one. Everyone is powerless. All because of an eclipse? Really? Should we expect this to make sense at some point or is it just another one of those things we have to accept and then conveniently ignore?

I don’t have much more to say about this episode because Nothing. Happened. I don’t even want to talk about how the character of Elle no longer makes sense (is she naughty, is she nice) or her disturbing new relationship with Sylar (do they now remember everything we saw in flashbacks during “Villains” because of the eclipse or are they only now talking about it?). And Daphne has polio now? That’s her big secret? The Haitian has an evil brother? Flint really wants his ability back because its the only thing that gives him meaning? Ugh.

This didn’t need to be two episodes. It probably didn’t need to be one episode. We’re ten episodes into Volume 3: Villains and yet I don’t think we’ve been given more than two or three episodes worth of story. Everything else is filler, meandering and character assassination.