Heroes

This show started with an incredible premise. Everyday people starts to have superpowers. Each one discover their power and try to deal with it. There is also serial killer Sylar who discovers a way to kill these special people and take their powers.

Like the brightest of stars, they burn hottest but don't last. This show fizzled as the story got more and more complicated. The vast number of characters with unique superpowers gets out of hand. There are too many to maintain. Like a truck overloaded, it just couldn't continue and rolled over. By the 2nd or 3rd season, this show gets increasingly convoluted and becoming almost unwatchable. They try to reboot the 4th season by adding a whole new set of people and a circus. Of course, it didn't work and the show was canceled. The first season is a 9 or even 10 but it's a long slide into 4 territory at the end.

Nice premise, modern-family oriented with just enough edge to keep it interesting. For prime-time network its an ambitious undertaking and very entertaining. For a while..... Sure, the premise is pure fantasy and whimsical, but after a while, it become commonplace so they had to stretch it beyond acceptance.

We get so many back stories and flashbacks, time-jumping with endless new characters thrown in, it gets muddy fast.

Everything that needed to be said should have ended by season-2, but you know the story, NBC enjoys its ad-revenues so they beat this one to death, heavily over-played and labored."Save the Cheerleader, Save the World" was great premise and it was all this series needed.

In season-3 things start to get darker and mean-spirited, the characters become more unlikable, and if I have to hear Claire's father say one more time" I was doing it to protect the family" I was going to throw a brick into my set. Everybody betrays each others trust, yet they constantly say: "trust me." In equal annoyance was the character Hiro. His wimpish-ways were cute for a little while, but they started to get on my nerves, and the music Wendy and Lisa (of Prince fame) composed/implemented was kind of cliche'd Japanese soundbites that played every time Hiro and Ando had a scene (until season 4). The writer(s) made Hiro's character one big Asian cliche. By the end of the 4th season I was just waiting to see who would be killed(written)-off to put me out my misery. Recap: 1st-2 seasons YES, seasons 3 &4- NO! The series gets yanked before the story resolves,so be warned, before you invest all of this time.

I am writing after a mere 4 episodes in season one and I probably have nothing to say that has not been said by others in terms of praise and admiration. Still, writing this review 13 or so years after it ended, I am aware of the various doom and gloom disappointments in the show as it progressed. And I am here to either defend this or to heap additional blame. For years if not decades, the Hollywood habit has been to destroy beauty. I am not talking about sucking franchises dry with woke agendae, although that certainly is one of the symptoms. I am talking about the deliberate or accidental process of adding needless complexity, darkness, conflict, and unhappiness of all kinds. This even happens, remarkably, with sitcoms. It happens in every genre. But Heroes was destined for this destruction from its inception, because Hollywood hates virtue. What is most interesting about this process is that Hollywood will actually break its own craftsmanship rules, ie, continuity, in order to pursue the goal. Whether this is laziness, stupidity, or contempt for the consumer probably doesn't matter. From Young Sheldon to Game of Thrones, from New Girl to House to House of Cards to Cheers to Friends, this mechanism runs from fairly subtle to brutally obvious. I don't know when this started but I don't think, for instance, that Bonanza pulled this crap. In more recent times, Big Bang may have actually reversed the formula, moving from sad selfish characters to radically improved versions of themselves.

Anyway, most say that Heroes started well and couldn't maintain. Some say it pulled out of the nosedive in later seasons.

I shall see.

I was awestruck watching the way it took off. One character at a time, it kept developing. The fantasy was top-notch, plot like never before. It gave the traditional save-the-world genre, a new look. Season 1 was magnificent. Few characters, mostly Hiro, were impeccable. It did look stretched in the second half. The first 4-5 episodes of season 1 were exceptional. Soon, it started slowing down. Episode 10 was the greatest of them. However, yet again, it started slowing the pace and awesomeness. Only the last couple of them were magnificent after the 10th. The climax was stunning. I enjoyed the complete season 1 and it was a package full of fantasy, emotions, creativity and wonderful characters.

Season 2 never looked the same. It couldn, even for once, keep up to the level of the first.

I eneded in the middle of season 2 until things started making no sense whatsoever. Hiro wasn't hiro either.

Well as we all know Season 1 is by far the best because of its simple yet effective premise and endearing characters. There is indeed a noticeable drop in quality in the following Seasons but that doesn't make them bad. I honestly don't understand why the show was cancelled, it still had potential.

I remember hating Season 4 when I first saw it but I watched it again and it's not that bad. It's a very mixed bag and kind of all over the place, it should have been shorter like Season 2 and more focused on Samuel (who is an interesting villain and very well played) so the writers did screw up by having too many things going on at the same time and therefore losing track of the main story. Still I feel the last episode was satisfying.