HEROES Season 4

Tonight marked the start of the fourth season of Heroes. This volume –volume 5– titled “Redemption”, opened with a 2 hour premiere combining the first two episodes, Orientation and Jump, Push, Fall. I don’t intend to give away anything so feel free to read on without hesitation, unless my grammar is what  holds you back. In which case, be ye wary.

I want to preface what I’m about to say with I love the concept of Heroes. If you know me at all that is hardly a surprise. Like almost everyone else, the show went downhill after season one for me. But I stuck to it. Yeah, I pissed and moaned because the creators wasted essentially 40 out of the 45 minutes I’d devote to this show each week, saving the entire push of the episode for the remaining five minutes at the end, but I stuck with it.

With a preview of this new volume at the end of last season, however, I felt my heart sink and realized my one favorite show I made sure to watch each week was coming back next season with hopes of being as mundane as ever. I thereafter made the vow of giving it three episodes. Tonight’s double feature, I will count as one.

Orientation: Extraordinary People Doing Ordinary Stuff.

The show opens the way the trailer for the season did; at a funeral for a new character, or at least the new character’s brother. Robert Knepper (of Fox’s Prison Break) gives the speech from the trailer, and we’re given a montage of where our favorite heroes have been and where they are:

Ando and Hiro have opened a Hero for Hire business called DIAL A HERO. Peter –who seems to have all his powers or at least more than one finally–has become a paramedic, doing everyday hero work. Tracy is out to kill everyone that killed her. HRG is trying to get his life together. Nathan is still Sylar..or is that the other way around? And Claire is off to college. And that’s all.

Meanwhile Robert Knepper –we’ll just call him Sam because that’s his name– might be looking for redemption, but he’s intent on finding it through vengeance, which he’s doling out via Darth Maul (Ray Park for the learned reader), after his…we’ll say friend, gives him a dossier of the marks through the use of tattoos. (Not as awful as it sounds I must admit). 

EFF THE CHEERLEADER AND JUST SAVE THE WORLD. 

Orientation, if I’m honest, starts off well. The returning characters and their individual stories don’t anger me as much as I thought. They seem to be finding their own way and fitting into the world. Ando, Hiro and Peter all seem to be finding a way to gel their regular lives with their powers.  I’m unclear about the shoehorn job they’re attempting with Hiro and Sam, but I’ll let it slide for now.

Nathan/Sylar –who I’ll call Sythan– is having trouble being himself. Danko and HRG have a common goal/threat –that I’ll call a throal…no nevermind– with Tracy. Hell, even Tracy’s story seems to be going somewhere.

Then you get Claire. She’s at college now.  Just…at college. Living her normal everyday life. Dealing with crazy roommates and trying to fit in, not in any way using her powers. Not in a Peter Parker in Spiderman 2 kind of way either. Just being regular old Claire, the teenage angst machine. On a show about people with superpowers, she’s just a regular kid.  So naturally, we’ll be spending most of the narrative hanging out with her. Ok, not most, that’s unfair. But for a show about SUPERHUMANS, we sure do spend a lot of time hanging out with her and her normal college experience. I’m not even kidding, they spent two full minutes with her discussing and then playing Guitar Hero. How worthless is she? Oh but she’s Hayden Panera. And all the boys or someone love her. Did you see her movie this summer? OHEMGEEILOVEHERSHESHAWT!

UGH.

JUMP, PUSH, FALL

Episode 2 kicks off with some bad things happening.  I can’t say what because I promised not to spoil anything…yeah, ok, I’m going to say it, look away now.Claire’s roommate went out the window, most likely because she hates Claire as much as I do, and Parkman gets a visit from the disembodied body (what?) of Sylar. Chiller music, fade to commercial!  That’s all I’ll give out for the time being.

I’m having trouble reconciling a small family carnival touring the world with stops in Arizona and Japan, but the dynamic between Hiro and Sam could prove interesting.  The relationship they’ve decided to start between Ando and Hiro’s sister via 3 sentences in the previous episode I suppose I can handle since they need more for Ando to do. And seriously, Hiro’s  ”I DID IT!” thing is played out. 

Murder mystery aside, Claire still proves pointless to me. Taking up precious time that could be used on any number of other stories. Nathan doesn’t even show UP this go around and he’s on the verge of a breakdown…or out.  Hers remains the one storyline that won’t die. See what I did there?  It’s been said they’re wanting to make her a temporary lesbian. Yeah. Ok. Because if we should take direction from any show for this one, my mind goes first to the O.C.

Overall though, I have to admit, this show is working. Yeah, its got its problems, what show doesn’t? (Don’t you say Lost to me. Don’t you do it.)  It could still take a turn, and frankly that’s going to be my worry every week this season, but it seems to be going somewhere. Parkman is getting his mind effed by he of whom they do not speak, Peter is becoming the character we’ve been waiting for him to be since the end of season 1 and special effects aside, there’s already been a fight sequence. Things are actually happening and we’re only 2 episodes in. For most shows that might not mean much, but if you know Heroes, then you know that’s saying something.

I’m restarting my counter. Starting next week, the show has 3 episodes.