For many, the s season of this shoo-in NBC arrive at was hampered by many things: expectations from the first authoritative story spark, a writer's strike that seemed to sap all the life out of the media momentum, a familiarity with the characters and the concept, all of which made a sophomore slump all the more likely. Cut down to 11 episodes, and without the planned Origins prequel serial to back up its premise, many believed that their favorite superhero express was waver before it could altogether catch on. Such assessments were definitely premature.
When last we left the everyday avengers and their evil antagonists, New York City was saved from a cataclysmic event. Four months later, the authoritarian Company continues its investigation and control over the superhumans, focusing specifically on a new disease that could wipe out their limited abilities -- as well as a large part of the population. In the interim, Hiro (Masi Oka) is transported back to feudal Japan, where he discovers something very interesting roughly the legendary Takezo Kensei (David Anders). Elsewhere, fugitives Maya (Dania Ramirez) and Alejandro Herrera (Shalim Ortiz) make their way from Honduras to the United States. Along the way, they suffer up with a now-powerless Sylar (Zachary Quinto). Finally, amnesiac Peter (Milo Ventimiglia) remembers world Health Organization he is, while the cheerleader Claire (Hayden Panettiere) moves to California with her family and tries to have a normal life.
Subtitled "Generations," season deuce of Heroes is really quite gratifying. It does what whatever pop culture phenom attempts to do when granted the go ahead: broaden its approach without abandoning its core audience. For the most part, it does. And unlike other examples of said contrivance -- Twin Peaks, Lost -- creator Tim Kring acknowledges that he and his originative staff weren't always successful. It didn't help that the far more epic scope of this season was shuttered by events both within and outdoor of its control, simply Heroes is already hampered by a viscous bike story arc -- unless the bad guys are going to be allowed to win, good seems predestined to defeat, and therefore marginalise, anyone evil.
Still, Heroes attempts to keep things nail-biting, introducing the new threat known as the Shanti virus and exploring its devastating effects on characters like Niki (Ali Larter) and Sylar. Of course, with the oppressive Company involved, our champions are required to once once more find unwashed ground to defeat a common menace. But with almost a half time of year missing, we end up with something akin to Peaks' "Who Killed Laura Palmer?" quandary. Once we discover the truth, and its implications on the rest of the cast, we grow tired to having taken this untimely stunted plot path. Indeed, Heroes industrial plant best when it uses the smaller issues betwixt the superhumans as a way of preparing for a much larger friction -- and something like that inevitably time to take root and prosper.
Sure, one could argue that Hiro's feudal Japan plot line goes on for far too long, or that new characters like Maya and Alejandro seem tossed in arbitrarily for freshness purposes only. Both subplots sap necessary energy from the main thread, and yet they argue for a series willing to explore the human chemical element of its characters at the cost of nonstop narrative drive. Of course of study, that doesn't mean we need zany family reunions, chemistry-free romances, or the occasional backslide into monetary standard TV plot line stereotypes.
But as an case of boundary-pushing television, of a cinematic conceit victimized to make the dope tube less geared toward the last-place common dominator, Heroes in truth excels. True, this up-to-the-minute season doesn't contain the bang that was the first's expositional setup and nuclear terror, but inside this shortened space, the best of the series still shines through.
Thursday, 28 August 2008
Heroes: Season Two
Friday, 8 August 2008
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