Attention, Heroes writers. You used Adam's blood to restore Nathan to perfect health after he got nuked at the end of season 1. You used Claire's blood to bring Noah back from the dead after he was shot in the eye and killed in season 2. And somehow nobody in the Petrelli/Bennet clan thinks to use Claire's blood to resurrect Nathan?
This is the difference between you and gifted practitioners of the writing craft. A Joss Whedon or a J. Michael Straczynski, after establishing the power of Claire's blood earlier in the series, would bring that thread back at such a critical moment. If that plot point became inconvenient, prior to the finale they'd illustrate why Claire's blood would not be a viable solution so that when the fateful event happened, the outcome would feel logical and tragic. What a good writer would not do is pretend that Claire's blood of Lazarus does not exist, while balancing on one foot and waving his hands madly through the air in the hope that the audience wouldn't notice.
I complain because I love. The show had such promise, once. It had wonder, and fun, and mystery. It had characters with motivations that made sense. It had the audacity to put a character named Hiro on the hero's journey. Then it developed an ability. The ability to defy logic, defy credulity, defy established characterization. The ability to go completely off the rails.
I should break the cycle of disappointment and leave the show, but I'm still in love with what it used to be. And deep inside, it has the potential to become that thing again. So I beg you. Find your characters again. Rediscover who these people were, and why viewers tuned in to watch them.
Otherwise, I might finally develop the ability to change the channel.
Posted by Peter at May 4, 2009 4:57 PMI think you've nailed my own feelings as well. It shouldn't be up to me, as the viewer, to find excuses why Claire's blood would be bad for her father, or the wrong type (which never mattered before), or anything else. It shouldn't be up to me to infer what level of hysteria would make Angela Petrelli suggest substituting her son's killer to impersonate her son. And let's not forget that Claire could probably heal Hiro too.
What ever happened to Peter's Irish girlfriend? Or Micah's cousin? This show used to rely on viewers remembering things and connecting the dots; now it's relying on them forgetting things that were inconveniently dropped. Insulting my intelligence is not the way to make friends and influence viewers.
Posted by: DutchUncle on May 4, 2009 5:57 PMI think you're both conveniently forgetting that this has been the way all along. I watched (and mostly enjoyed) the first season, but I gave up a short while into the second because I couldn't stand it. They just weren't putting the work into the plot/backstory that's required of a show whose core audience consists mainly of Simpsons-like Comic Book Guys. I don't expect every sci-fi TV show to have Roddenberry-level cohesion, but this show's just ridiculous. Freakin' Sliders makes more sense.
Example: Early on we saw Sylar has frozen a victim, then we learned he steals his powers. Cool! I can't wait to see the freezing power because then the death will have been foreshadowed and... nothing. And maybe the future Hiro appearance paid off sometime after I stopped watching the second season, but it sure didn't in the first.
Finally, the whole linking of the powers with "evolution" drives me insane. A show that got basic historical facts completely wrong (ie made Napolean German, say, or had Socrates living during the Rennaissance) would be laughed off the air. But a show that makes a complete hash of very basic evolutionary theory is okay? I have no problem with someone who is able to walk through walls or bend time. But don't try to tell me it's because he's the next step in human evolution, okay?
Posted by: Dug on May 4, 2009 6:27 PM