Jumped the Shark?

It's been fashionable since season two to dump on Heroes (for that matter, some folks started their griping as soon as the first season finale aired), and, of course, with that comes the inevitable (and cliched) question, has Heroes jumped the shark? While I don't think it's that bad, I do feel like something's missing from the show. After a promising start this season, the show has gotten bogged down in too many characters and too many of those characters making strange or stupid decisions. Entertainment Weekly has an article this week titled "'Heroes': Five Ways to Fix a Series in Crisis" detailing what the writer thinks should be done to return Heroes to form. Some suggestions I agree with, some I don't. Taking them point by point:

1. "Retire Some Capes"
Agreed. The cast as is, is too big. C'mon, they killed off Nikki last season, that was a good start as it both thinned the main cast as helped show that there are life or death stakes here. Unfortunately, the writers decided to bring the actress back as a new character, so it's all ended up as a wash. For my money, Tracy and Nathan are the easy picks for dead-weight. I've always kind of liked Suresh, but I think, with this season's story, his story is at an end. I do disagree with the article's suggestion to eliminate Parkman. I see Jeff Jenson's (the article's writer) point, the shows writers really don't seem to know what to do with the guy, and so he would logically be a good candidate to be cut, but I just really like the character so I'm going to ignore logic here. The indispensible core, I think, remains Peter, HRG, Hiro and Ando, and, maybe, Claire, though with Claire I think we again have a character that the writers aren't sure what to do with. As for Sylar, I've got mixed feelings. He's a great villain, but if he's to remain a villain, then maybe it's time to draw his story to a close. On the other hand, they seem to be trying to redeem him this season, which, if they'll commit to going down that road could make for an interesting turn. I've got a soft spot for redemption stories, so I hope this is where they're going with him. If he flips again, things could start to get repetitive, as every season seems to end up boiling down to "we've got to stop Sylar."

2. "Make the Heroes Smarter"
Yeah, agreed. One of the big problems with this season has been characters making inexplicably stupid decisions. The article hits the highlights.

3. "Get Back to the Heroes' Roots"
This one, I hadn't really thought about on my own, but now that I do I think there is some truth to it. When the show started it was about ordinary people coping with extraordinary abilities. Now it's about extraordinary people coping with shadowy conspiracies. Maybe it's time to give the Heroes a clean victory, end all the big, scary organizations, and return to real life. The motivating question then becomes, what now? That could be an interesting story arc.

4. "Get a New Bag of Tricks"
Fair enough. Let's have a moritorium on bleak futures for a bit, eh? And as much as I love the art of Tim Sale, maybe the next time we need a precognitive character they can manifest their ability in some way other than painting.

5. "Find a Big Vision - and Set an End Date"
This point I disagree with. The argument is to create a long term plan for the show mapping out a path to a definite conclusion, citing "Lost" as an example of this. There's a segment of genre fandom that tends to push this idea as being universally the way to go. I don't think so. Certainly some shows are suited to this type of long-term planning; I don't watch "Lost", but I would offer "Battlestar Galactica" as an example of a show that fits this model, as it's a show with a single question embeded in the premise. Therefore, the overall thrust of the show needs to be about answering that question. That's not true of "Heroes". "Heroes", I think, would be better served following the "Buffy" model of plotting out arcs by the season rather than trying to clearly map the series as a whole. This is sort of what they've been doing, they just need to up their game a bit.

So, with a few minor quibles, I'm generally in agreement with the article. That said, I'm still with "Heroes", I haven't contemplated jumping ship yet. Let's just hope things start to get better.

Re: Heroes Season 3 Premiere

Wow. And I thought the X-Men had bleak potential futures.

It seems like no matter what the characters do on Heroes, everything is destined to turn to shit at some point in the future. Season one there was a devastating explosion wiping out most of Manhattan followed by an immensely powerful psychopath becoming president (and so far that seems to be the best of the bunch). Season two we had a glimpse of a world devastated by some kind of super-virus (was it a virus, it's been so long and the season was so short, I've sort of forgotten). This season, in the first episode alone we get a peek at what I think are two different possibles. First we get Dark Peter's future, which seems to be shades of "Days of Future Past" (X-Men reference for my non-geek readers), then we get Hiro's visit to a future with some sort of massive disaster that looks to be wiping out Tokyo, if not the whole world. I'd ask why even bother trying anymore, but then I guess that's why the show's called Heroes.

Other thoughts: Yay, a speedster! And I hope we get to see more of her and Hiro interacting; they're powers are a great match-up. Yay, Kristen Bell's back! I didn't pay close enough attention to the credits to see if she's a regular or not, but hopefully she shows up in a good number of episodes. Yay, Malcolm McDowell's back! Hopefully we'll get to see a good bit of him this season as well, because he's all kinds of awesome. The season's off to a good start, and I'm looking forward to the rest of it.