Remember the Time When...

NEWS FLASH!!!

The upcoming monthly eclipse (similar to last month's eclipse, but somehow different) will again be global. Forget what science and physics say about the relative sizes of the moon and the sun, this event will be as global as it was last season. Someone needs to update Wikipedia and let them know how plausible this is.

Not only that, but this eclipse is touted to also remove interest in super heroes and their stories.

Did you watch Smallville? I only suffered through a few episodes. It was long enough to realize how simplistic their formula was. It involved Lex lying to someone, Chloe or Lana being in some sort of trouble, kryptonite hidden in the mix somewhere and Clark saving the day. It caught my attention simply because I always wanted to see how it was for Superman to grow up. Unfortunately they ruined its potential by using kryptonite too much.

While this is only the second eclipse, two is too many. They usually only happen once, twice MAYBE three times in one year. The timeline of Heroes is either much faster than it seems, or they have eclipses more in their world of mutation. Not only that, but an eclipse is a localized event. It's not the kind of thing that happens in Kansas, New York, Toyko and who-knows-where-else at the same time.

The element they are using too often is the "lost powers" thing. They used it last season, and it didn't work very well. It ended up not mattering a hill of beans that Sylar got injected and lost his powers. That syrum seems to have been completely forgotten. Suresh is very scatterbrained, it seems. Now, in this season their powers are taken away by an eclipse? Seems like somebody is playing games with the nature of this show's reality and I think the effect is going to be a separation from its fans. We don't like being jerked around by storylines that end up making no sense or difference.

Consistancy is what everyone wants in a relationship. Consistantly bad isn't what this show has been. Let's hope that the little shake-up evens out and the plot doesn't suck this season down.

Heroes' Powers Slipping Away?

Was anyone else excited when Sylar told Claire that he couldn't even kill her if he wanted to? That scene changed a lot in this series. I was excited to see what that would mean for her character. I hypothesized that her power was different than Adam's when Adam died to Mr Petrelli. This line of thinking led me to the conclusion that everyone's power was as individual as they were. Like the
Flint & Meredith Gordon ciblings. One obviously burns oxygen and the other burns hydrogen. They also seem to control their powers differently. Woudn't it be satisfying if there really were an infinite level of nuiance in these abilities?

Obviously the new writers don't think so. Peter and Sylar may as well be identical twins for how unique their powers are becoming. It won't suprise me if they also make them capable of exactly reproducing what Mr Petrelli has done with his "power grab" ability. I was also hoping that things would become more interesting as the season progresses. It's not. This homonogination of powers is being followed up by one of the more confusing and silly things that I ignored from first season. The eclipse. Apparently they all "recieved" their powers during the eclipse. But they uesd them a LOT before then. Claire would have been dead if she didn't heal as a baby. Hiro saw the eclipse from the roof of his father's office building after he teleported himself there from the US. Nearly everyone saw the eclipse. I thought their weird pronouncement that their powers originated there was just symbolic. Turns out they meant it, or at least the writers for this season want it to have been literal.

Not only that, but we are back to "Save the cheerleader," with the twist that she's the one with the power to destroy the world this time. And why? Because somehow Hiro's dad "hid something" inside her? This is not interesting anymore. It's silly. Now they are all going to lose their powers because a vengeful eclipse is going to take them away? We want to believe that "ordinary" people can get powers like these. To tell us that they came from an eclipse and can be taken away by an eclipse is mythological. This is the first instance where the authors give this level of control to unexplained cosmic forces. It smells like x-files.

My only hope is that they somehow can make this make more sense. I doubt they can, but I'll wait for it.

The New Hiro in Heroes

Time travel is problematic for an episodic timeline. There is no doubting it's usefulness, but there's also danger. Most people are frustrated when they find out that an entire episode has only been a bad dream, or an undone timeline. That is, unless there is some important information or artifact gleaned from the now dormant timeline.

There are a number of uses for Hiro's gift (and therefore Peter's) that they are either too distracted to think of, or are afraid to use. One is that artifact thingie I mentioned a minute ago. For all intents and purposes Hiro could "borrow" anything he wanted from the future and then simply change something about that timeline's past (future to us) and never have to give the artifact back. He also has the power of the unlimited do-over. If something doesn't work out right all he has to do is go back before it happened and explain to himself what courses of action are unacceptable. He doesn't even have to waste daylight to do it. He's already talked to Peter (and I think even himself) in a single moment. Hiro has the potential to become a match for nearly anyone. All that would be required for him is preparation. He needs to prepare for every encounter. He can research what he will do in the future and map out the best course of action for each day. For the audience this would be less interesting to watch. We'd only really like to see the end result. That's all we'd really need to see. I'd buy that he had done the research if they simply said "I've gone there. I've seen which course works best." He has prophesy, it's about time he used it. (Pun intended.)

How the Mighty Have Fallen

Sylar (Gabriel), Peter, Nathan, Nikki (Jessica), Claire, Horn-Rimmed-Glasses Man, why have all these people become drastically weaker than they were?

Peter has fallen the farthest, losing his powers so completely. Sylar has lost everything that made him Sylar. Nathan seems to have simply become Curious George, and is lost without his Man-in-the-Yellow-Hat political ideology. Nikki, I mean Jessica, I mean Tracy - it's hard to keep track of - used to be very interesting. Now I don't even care, since it seems that next season there's bound to be a version 4.0 of the character that will probably have the ability to become naked at will. "Save the cheerleader, save the world" was a winning mantra that polarized the first season. There were those that were for and against. This conflict has degraded to "save the cheerleader; shop at Kohls." Her angst about becoming numb to the whole world may as well affect her wardrobe and makeup. Her character has become a musky-smelling, black lipstick wearing, trenchcoat draped emo kid. If she dressed the part to match I'd respect her more, though I'd want to watch her less. As for Horn-Rimmed-Glasses; he used to be bad ass. Now he's just a vindictive western-style terrorist. I can see where he's come from now, so he's not as mysterious as he used to be. Instead of retaining my sympathy, along with Claire's, he's lost it completely and now seems consumed only by revenge against Gabriel (Sylar).

My hope for the series is at an all-time low. I thought that the second season was odd. This season has me feeling apathetic about what the next episode will bring. When an episode ended in the first season I was so excited to see the next episode that I'd take bets with my friends about what would happen. I'd call my family to see if they had any theories. I'd feel excited all through the work day, waiting for the episode to air that night.

Here's what I think should and could happen to save the waning interest: Mr. Petrelli's power needs to have a limited duration. Sure he can absorb powers. Great. He just can't keep them. Maybe the expiration depends on proximity. If someone gets too far away from him they start to regain their ability. It could be a time thing. He keeps the power for a week, then slowly loses it. Any way it goes, he needs to have a limitation.

Here's why: In any dramatic system there needs to be a balance, otherwise the conflict is over before it begins. In the first season they created the balance by having two nearly invincible players destined to battle. The battle would, in some unknown way, blast NYC to oblivion. Each player, in their own way, helped one side or the other. The dramatic action surrounded the two key players; Peter and Sylar. Now the conflict surrounds Pinehearst and "The Company" or Primatech. The problem with this is that both are bad. In the classic dramatic design there's a PROtagonist and an ANtagonist. Without some team or person for the audience to root for their support atrophies. Everyone, almost, likes Peter. His power was originally based on his feelings for others. He had the power of those he cared for. This was perfect, as his nemesis had the power of those he killed. Perfect dramatic structure. If this season is about Mr. Petrelli vs Mrs. Petrelli then it's over. It won't matter who wins because the audience doesn't care enough. Mr. Petrelli will need to either lose his power over time and need to stand back to let others move the action forward (making the story about them) or Mrs. Petrelli needs to finally die and make room for a protagonist of equal good to Mr. Petrelli's bad. If Peter doesn't get his power back then they will have to introduce a new protagonist who is also neigh-invincible. They already introduce characters too often, so that's not really the best idea at this point.

What the story needs, in summary, is a protagonist. Peter is powerless. Claire is too emo to accomplish anything but whine and fumble through simple problems. Gabriel's quest is to become Switzerland. Nathan has never really cared about anything but getting some, looking squeaky clean and having political power. The new Nikki/Jessica, Tracy, is the sidekick type. Mohinder... let's not go into what's wrong with what's happening to him. And nobody else is powerful enough for me to believe they are an equal match.

I think Peter and Gabriel should become an independent team. They now share the thirst for understanding (thereby power), which is what I believe Sylar's power to be. He needed to know how to interpret lots of factors to fix watches. He looked into Chandra Suresh's (Mohinder's Father's) research, discovered the factors and used many reference books to discover for himself how to dissect the brains of gifted people and extrapolate their ability. Once understood he could then imitate them. This was his original ability, the ability to extrapolate, interpret and then copy complex systems. He and Peter together make an unstoppable team that could be a powerful force for good and fill the role of protagonist while still retaining that gritty first-season style level of troubled truth. The two of them will always be at odds. They will always interpret things from a different perspective, and thereby will cancel eachother's effect were they to team up. It's the only way to make room for a new story. They are also both so impossibly more powerful than anyone else that they don't really belong answering to anyone but themselves anyway. Putting them on a team would isolate them from the rest of the conflict and allow for another protagonist to take the foreground and occasionally ask for their assistance. If the pair of them remain in play then the stage will never again be balanced. Their conflict ended in first season. It is time for a new story to be told. Rehashing that conflict has become tedious. It's even overshadowing the immenent danger of "the Formula" in this season. Truth be told, part of me just wishes that Sylar/Gabriel would just kill everyone, have that son and just let the entire story die in a blaze of "and they all lived happily ever after."

It's time for a real hero. My vote is currently with Hiro. While anything but invincible, he is certianly powerful. I'm dissapointed that all he's done this season is facilitate others' plots. For someone with as much potential as he has I really expect more of him.

NBC's Heroes Getting Rescued?

If you haven't heard: NBC's Heroes is in a bad way. Their ratings are low. Fans are frustrated. I am one of those fans that actually bought the first season as soon as it was available. The second season was not the same Heroes. Their powers were weakening, as were their ratings.

Fortunately they are re-introducing a powerful Hero from the first season. On par with their world-changing, powerful, yet down-to-Earth Heroes the one they are bringing back is said to have some amazing abilities. His powers include, but are not limited to; cohesive plot design, character arcs that actually make you care about them, and shows that end wish you wishing it was an actual two-hour special and not just an hour of narcissistic self-praise followed by a duo of mediocre episodes. Rumor has him named "Bryan Fuller." (For more information visit E! Online.)