From Hero...To Zero

**Spoilerific**

I thought I'd rip open the ol' Heroes wound again, now that the season finale has aired. I give the show four out of five on the meh-o-meter. The show took a lot of time to accomplish exactly nothing. No characters were expanded in any significant way, none of the new characters did anything noteworthy, none of the various and sundry plot threads were engaging.

I never cared about Maya and Alejandro. Their deaths in the last episode had zero impact on me. Their story arch was easily the weakest of the season, never connecting to the main story at all.
For this same reason Sylar was rendered completely pointless. Were we supposed to be frightened that he was going to see Doctor Suresh when he no longer had his powers? I certainly wasn't. And since there is nothing in his character to identify with either, he is an impotent character. Sylar spends so much time laying down the creepy vibe it's a wonder no one around him ever suspects him of being dangerous. It just gets harder and harder to believe that people can trust a guy who consistently has this expression:

Come on, that guy is clearly a supervillain. At the very least, a date rapist.

As for Nikki's apparent death, I give another resounding "meh". Even if she is dead (don't believe it till you see a body), I never really connected to her character. The whole split personality thing was one of my least favorite aspects of season one, but that's really all the character had going for her. Take that away and you have another pointless character. So, let her be dead.

Nathan's death...hmmmm. Again, we never actually see him die. Remember, things didn't look so good for him at the end of season one, either. Besides, any death on this show is no longer meaningful as displayed by Noah Bennet's death and resurrection. As long as Claire is alive and full of sweet, delicious super-blood, no one has to die ever again. Hooray!

Claire's plot thread with flyboy Clark West was an unbearably mawkish, WB-infused affair. I was really hoping immediately after the character's introduction it would be revealed that West worked for The Company. Leave teenage super-romance to Smallville, and quit wasting my time.

It was so nice to see Noah and Claire united at the beginning of the season. I liked Noah's transformation throughout season one from sleazy bad guy to dedicated family man. But immediately in season two both Claire and Noah find reasons to start lying once again, and all the previous character development is for naught. However, Noah did get to have some genuinely cool scenes this time around, particularly when he's kicking Kristin Bell's ass. Although, did anyone else notice that after he neutralizes her with water, when it comes time for the hostage exchange she's completely dry and he's just holding her by the arm? I'm just saying.

Hero finally got back to the future (nyuck) and did some heroing. Peter tossed him around for a while (a bit too easily in my opinion), but he finally took care of Adam. Adam was never an interesting villain to me. He really only succeeded by using other people (first Mr. Nightmare, then Peter). Mr. Nightmare, I think, had much greater potential for super-villainy than Adam. The scene where he ensnared Parkman and Nathan in a nightmare and made them fight each other was one of the season's few great moments. Nothing Adam did ever got to that level. Sure, his plan to release a super-virus is diabolical, but not necessarily thrilling in execution or fun to watch.
I'll admit the scene where he and Peter are busting into the secret basement at Primatech was pretty awesome, but over too quickly. This series, in both seasons, has a rather annoying habit of skimping on the action. I'm thinking of Peter and Sylar's climactic showdown in the flash forward episode in the first season. Most of it happens off screen. This is a show about people with super powers. Where are the epic battles for crying out loud?

Here's my geekiest complaint about the season. It's concerning Peter's Irish girlfriend trapped in the virus apocalypse future. So, Peter keeps saying he needs to stop the virus from being released so he can save her from that fate. Well stop me if I'm wrong, but if he changes the future that she's stuck in, won't she vanish along with it? That's common time travel paradox knowledge.

I know the finale was changed and rushed because of the writer's strike, but I still figured it would be somewhat satisfying. Instead, they just crammed as many shocking moments in as they could. Give us something that turns the Heroes world on its ear, not just promises that next season will be more of the same. I had no reaction to Nathan's assassination attempt at all, because by that time I had completely switched off. By the end of the episode I was no longer interested in this world.

And the Volume 3 teaser? Ugh. Slyar injects himself, force grabs an empty spinach can, and says, "I'm back." It's so tired, and ripped straight from the final shot of X-Men 3.
You know what would have been better? Sylar injects himself, says, "I'm strong to the finish," force grabs the can, "'Cause I eats me spinach." The end.
If you're gonna make a Popeye reference for your big season ending cliff-hanger, then don't beat around the bush. At least I can laugh instead of just rolling my eyes so hard the retinas detach.

O How The Mighty Heroes Have Fallen

**SPOILER ALERT!!!**

Remember the simplicity of, "save the cheerleader, save the world?" Even though season one took off slowly, at least we quickly learned what was at stake. We knew there was a clear villain, a lot of potential good guys, and a terrible catastrophe that threatened them all. Sure it got a little convoluted, and the "save the cheerleader" bit turned out to be a bit of a red herring. But by the time we figured that out we were so engrossed it didn't matter.

What happened?

I find myself less and less interested in the characters I came to love. Even my favorite, Hiro, has been completely wasted in what turned out to be a long-winded origin story for a villain introduced much too late. All that build-up for Mr. Nightmare, only to find out he's just a pawn in the grand scheme of a 400-year-old British samurai? Really?
And the future virus outbreak seems like a pale shadow of the nuclear disaster in New York from last year. I guess more people stand to lose their lives, but I just don't feel the danger. Too much time spent on Peter's amnesia, Micah's foster family, and Sylar's road trip south of the border, have confused the story to the point of being tiresome.

Last week finally seemed to be turning things around. But they lost the momentum with a flashback episode this week, that managed to fill in some holes without adding anything new to the overall story.
The thread about D.L. not actually being dead just so he can die anyway was probably the most pointless thing to come out of this show yet. Even Niki's reaction to D.L. getting shot a second time was more of a shoulder shrug than a life-altering event. And couldn't D.L. have retained the dignity of dying at the hand of Linderman, rather than some greasy nightclub guy?

The only part of tonight's episode that gave me any thrill at all was the scene at the beginning when we saw the season one climax from Nathan and Peter's point-of-view. For a brief moment I remembered how good the show was at one time.

I gave the second season the benefit of the doubt. After all, the first season spun its wheels for a few weeks before becoming the show it did. Unfortunately, it's now clear that nothing in season two is going to reach that previous level. And with the season being cut short, due to the writer's strike, they only have three more episodes left.
It's just as well, since the writers seem to have gone on strike much earlier.