NBC's _Heroes_

[stumpy]

Is the red-haired girl on the trailer for Epic Movie the same girl from the diner that Hiro was dating?

[USAgent]

Ya know, now that you mention it...................

[Camma]

According to IMDB it is the same girl.

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

Well, since we have a Heroes topic(of sorts) here:

Quite some interesting twists here.

[spoiler]
Nathan as Claire's father.  Interesting.  I has guessed some relation between her and Peter and was thinking she might be his half-sister, but that didn't make since as her father was mentioned as being alive.  So I got somewhat close.

Peter can hold onto powers.  Nifty.  He also seems to not be able to handle using more than one at a time.  This makes him just about match for Sylar.  While Sylar can apparently use more than one power at a time, Peter can gather them more easily.

Nice to see Isaac able to use his powers at will now.
[/spoiler]

[BentonGrey]

Yeah, cool episode, I deffinetly didn't see the twist with Claire coming.

[Conduit]

I liked this a lot better than last episode.  It was enjoyable in its own right while still making you want to see the next episode.  Hopefully the next episode will do same.

[spoiler]
Nathan is Claire's daddy.  Who knew?  Okay, everyone who doesn't avoid spoilers like the plague knew, but it's still a big twist.

Claude is so incredibly awesome.  "If I hadn't regenerated, I would have died!"  "You could have flown."  :lol:  But, I find Peter's whining a little annoying.  You're the one that seeked him out, Pete, remember?

Did anyone notice that the license plate on Hiro's dad's car read NCC-1701?  Google it if you don't know what that means.

I heard about Mrs. Bennet's "I always knew him as-get away from that shoe, Mr. Muggles!" line a while ago, but it was still dissapointed.  I'm glad we got to see her mindwipe.  To think that happens to her all the time...  It made me dislike HRG a lot more.
[/spoiler]

[Agent]

I missed this myself, but did any one notice the license plate on Hiro's dad's limo?  I heard it was NCC 1701.  :D

Anyway great episode. 

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

Yes, Conduit mentioned that in his spoilers.  Wish I had seen that.

[AquaSurfer]

hey guys could u guys tell me what happen on today's ne episode?
i fell asleep and forgot about it :banghead:

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

It should be available to watch on nbc.com/heroes in a couple of hours.

If you don't have access to high-speed internet, let me know and I'll give you a basic recap.

[Gremlin]

We're forbidden from discussing episode details here, but head to the Wikipedia article; they always have a synopsis for each episode.

[spoiler]I liked Peter here.  I was wondering what Claude meant when he said Peter was an empath; empathy is emotion reading, Peter has power mimicry.  But now that he can recall it, it ties more closely into his emotions.  I like that.  I want to see in the Sylar battle his sheer, unadulterated rage allowing him to pull Sylar's powers; I figure before then he'll only be able to pull the clockwork vision.  Ooh, this is COOL!

Another note: I've noticed an interesting trichotomy between Sylar, Peter and Degauss.  Sylar takes powers from people, stealing them; this process has driven him insane.  Peter copies them out of his ability to connect with others.  Degauss simply cancels them out.  Sylar defies nature, he is abberative, evil, wrong.  Peter is noble, good and just, and ultimately compassionate.  Deguass is in the middle.  We don't know where his true loyalties lie, but I believe he is perfectly neutral, out for himself alone; it balances out the others so well.  Three Powers-manipulators, each with a different take on it.  I hope we see this parallel played out a lot more.[/spoiler]

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

I do know the Sylar-Peter parallel was done no purpose.  The writers and producers have mentioned it more than once.   Hadn't thought of the other, though.  Interesting.

[stumpy]

Pfeh!

Finally got a chance to watch last night's ep and I wasn't impressed, except by the license plate number.

[spoiler]
Once again, the Niksica storyline is just treading water. I guess there's no reason to be surprised at that by now.

Claude is a jerk, but at least Peter isn't taken in by it. There is still zero reason for Peter to have believed Claude could help him. I like Peter getting some control over his powers, but it's important that he doesn't become too uber.

The romance between Isaac and Simone was sort of well done, although I can't bring myself to find any real interest in it. I know that at some point the Peter-Simone-Isaac triangle will play a role, because writers never weary of re-treading that tire, but I'd rather not see it.

The interaction between Hiro and Sulu was okay, but I am mostly glad that they got the strict-businessman-father-is-disappointed-in-his-undisciplined-son's-lack-of-career-focus storyline out of the way in just one episode. Let's face it, there is no way that Sulu would believe any of what Hiro is telling him without some demonstration, which Hiro cannot provide. Without that, we are supposed to accept that Sulu is - in his mind - leaving his wayward son, who likely needs psychotherapy, alone with some goof cube-dweller, en route to committing a felony in a foreign country. Yeah.

Yes, I know I am Mr. Negative here, but even the segment I liked the most was only okay. It was fine that Claire tracked down her biological mother and that at least indirectly involved the Sylar storyline which I was glad to see. But parts of even that little segment didn't hang together. For instance, Claire has been curious about her biological parents for a long time now but, when she finally meets her mother, she doesn't remember to ask about her father (who was the only one of her bio parents she had previously thought was alive) until she was leaving. And, then, she didn't even ask the burning question, "Is he, ya know, like us?" (Not that the Marlboro Woman would necessarily have known anyway, since we don't know how long Nathan has known about his powers. It was sort of implied that he was surprised by their presence at his wife's car crash, but Mrs. Zippo popped out the phrase "some family" almost as if Claire's revelation is one she's used to.)

Also, I know that Mrs. Bennet was made to forget the Sylar encounter, but there is sort of a lot over coving up to do there. There is the broken hutch, a denter refrigerator, probably some bullet holes in the kitchen, etc.

BTW, are we supposed to conclude that Sylar has some sort healing power anyway or invulnerability, since it looks like he took at least one (and probably two) shots when HRG stormed in, yet he managed to escape. We have seen this before when Agent Hanson shot him, and there was some speculation that he might be defending himself with his TK, but I don't think it's ever been really clear what's going on there.

I would like to see more of Mohinder, although that is in the works, if we are putting stock in the previews.
[/spoiler]

Anyway, I guess those are detail issues, but overall, the pacing is really starting to bug. I would like to see the central plot advance more than a token amount each episode.

[detourne_me]

i actually like the bendislike plot pacing.  although i agree with you about the treading water point, its because the water and the issues are so deep that you can do some serious water treading in them. 
control over powers, reactions from normal people, possible psychosis.   these are all quite realistic issues, and need time to develop and explore.  i don't want to see this show devolve into a freak-of-the-week driven show (just like what happened to Jericho)

[Nymph]

I thought the last apisode was actually quite saisfying and kinda funny with Claude! :P

Going back to the season premiere did anyone see the promo with Ted and Wireless?

[spoiler]I love Wireless, her abilities are awesome! Id love to have those! HEHEHE *Sylar-ish*[/spoiler]

[starlock]

all around a good episode, we have some revalations and some good character development. i am dissapointed with peter and his quest to controll his powers but i will not get to into it here

[stumpy]

I can't quite agree here. Treading water is rarely good and this wasn't an exception. That is not to say there isn't a need for strong character development - I like strong character development - but most of what we got wasn't even that good as character development. Some examples:

[spoiler]
First, look at Hiro's arc. Hiro is probably my favorite character on the show and I like knowing more about his background. But all we really got out of it was that he has a sister and his father runs the company where he worked. Of course, his father doesn't approve of his son running off on some fantasy goose chase, but we pretty much would have assumed that even if we never met his father. Meanwhile, a whole episode went by and we really didn't get anything from Hiro's segment about him or much that will enrich the plot. (Of course, we don't know that for sure, since he seemed to think he had a plan to get that sword, so maybe something from his encounter with his father and sister will come into play there...) Add that to the plot hole I mentioned before and I don't think the arc earns very good marks.

As far as character development goes, I agree that there was some, but I much preferred Hiro's arc with Charlie. There, we got a good portrait of Hiro's character; we saw him grow both in terms of maturity (realizing there are problems he cannot fix) and in nice details such as how he is picking up so much English; more personal motivation was added for him to be interested in stopping Sylar; a whole little story played out with an interesting new character and a touching romance; and the main plotline was impacted (e.g. with the knowledge of how little control he has over his time-travelling, etc.).

But the weak Hiro arc in this last episode is nothing compared to the Niksica arc. With Hiro, there was something we could file under character development - not great character development, but at least something. The Niksica arc in this ep and the last one was complete dead air. We learned almost nothing about the characters and there was no plot advancement or any progress on getting DL, Micah and Niksica closer to the other specials. I mean, in what way was the whole arc of her being in prison not a waste? She goes to jail and she gets out. What did we learn from it? That Linderman has an interest in her? We already knew that. That Micah has some sort of techno-control power? We knew that, too. I guess now DL knows about Micah's power, but they didn't do much with it and they could have revealed that at any time. I'm sorry, but I really think that the last two episodes spent a lot of time going nowhere with those three, both in terms of plot advancement and character development.

BTW, an example of some nice character development was the arc a few episodes ago where Mohinder, with the help of the Dream Kid, learned about his sister and the reason for his father's passion about his research. That was well-done, it gave interesting background, it added motivation to important characters, and it even moved the plot forward.
[/spoiler]

Anyway, I didn't dislike the episode overall, but it was disappointing. As I've said before, if too much time is spent like this, the writers risk a mad dash for the finish as the season winds down, leaving less time for adding interesting branches to the plot and leaving loose ends that will never be tied up.

[Conduit]

[spoiler]Re: How was Niksica's prison arc not a waste?

Well, Niki and Jessica fought for control, and Jessica ended up winning complete control, at least for now.  That's pretty major character development.  Though I suppose they could have done that any number of ways.[/spoiler]

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

But that's not a change.  That's exactly how things were before the prison arc.  I too am disapointed in it.  I had hoped that Niki would come out of it in countrol.

[Revenant]

Also there's the issue with how she got a "Get out of Jail Free" card... look's like she may also be drafted along with DL...

[Talavar]

Yeah, her prison time was wasted.  So Niki's not in control.  Not much new there.  We learned she could bust out of hand-cuffs?  I guess that's something.

[Revenant]

Well whoever got her out of prison must be able to pull some serious strings.  They got somebody to confess to the murders, and sent that agent to pick her up.  Seems like someone is putting together their own team.

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

We already know who was behind it.  You should have recognized that guy that came to here cell as Linderman's agent.

[stumpy]

[spoiler]And Linderman was actually mentioned in that scene. But, I think Revenant might have meant that we were shown how deep Linderman's influence goes. E.g., bribing district attorneys, planting DNA evidence, etc.

BTW, aside from announcing that Niksica was sprung (from prison), it didn't seem like Linderman's agent had any immediate plans for her. When she asks what Linderman is up to, he tells her that isn't yet an issue. Linderman will want her to do something, but we don't really know if he knows about the specials at all (though I would guess that he does); he might have just been imprerssed by her previous jobs (theft and wet work) and have something like that for her to do again.[/spoiler]

[bredon7777]

Ok, I've got to admit I find complaints about pacing surprising, given that Heroes is rocket propelled compared to most other things on the air *coughLOSTcough*.  I think, as comic book junkies, we are spoiled by the amount of action we get in our comics, and I feel it is highly unrealistic to expect the same amount of action from a televison show.

More comments in spoilers - and there will be MAJOR SPOILERS, both confirmed and my speculations:

[spoiler]

Hiro - Actually, stumpster we had a great deal of things we suspected about Hiro confirmed; he's loyal, quick thinking, generous, good-hearted, and has a long history - dating back to childhood - of being a geek like us.  Not much happened in terms of plot, there, true - but they have to walk a very fine line, because there really isn't all that much that Hiro at full power can't handle.  So, they're slightly dragging out him getting to Linderman and getting the sword.

Speaking of- Linderman seems to be deliberatley arraning things so he has a great many Heroes in his debt- DL, Niki/Jessica, Nathan, Hiro.  Any one else get the feeling he's trying for an army?.

Oh and that scene at the museum?  Total Fake out.  Thanks to Proto, I have the T-Rex painting as my wallpaper, and a) Hiro's clothes are defeinitley being blown by T-Rex breath and b) He actually has the sword, not just the scabbard.

Nikisca- Yes, I'm tired of this storyline too.  I was really hoping that the upcoming Hero death on March 5 was going to be Jessica (it's been confirmed that its a female, and that it was someone we saw in the first 10 minutes of the pilot) - but with the annoucment that its going to be a "good" Hero, I'm pretty sure it's Claire.

Which, since Hiro won't have met Claire, his timeline wont include her death, and he should be able to back and undo it.

But I digress. Yes, the sole purpose of this arc (well, other than the "Linderman's gathering an army" motif) seems to be to establish that a) Niki has the Super Strength too and b) At least for now, Jessica's got total control of the body.  Yawn.

Still, Heroes has a long way to go before losing me as a viewer. I'm willing to put up with the occasional slow arc as long as the payoff is good.

Claire- Love, Love, Love Claire's mom.  The scene where the two of them demonstrate their abilities? Kick. Butt.  And I can totally buy Claire not asking about her real dad to the end- lying psycopath or no, she still feels an incredible bond with HRG, considering him in effect her "real" dad.

Her mom being a total space case (and Im sure the interfernce with her brain by the Haitan Sensation doesn't help) the bond is not as strong so she's far more curious about her real mother.

Sylar- He needs to die.  I get that they're setting him up for a final showdown with Peter (and does anyone have a list of all the powers Peter currently has- even though he can't access them all yet?) But he's getting irritating.  It needs to be established for certain that he has powers other than telekinesis, and exactly what he does do with the brains.

And after all, wouldn't Claire's ability zip her head shut just as fast as Sylar zipped it open?

Simone/Issac/Peter/Claude- Um, I'm not gonna shed any tears over Simone if she dies *hint hint NBC*.  I have zero interest in the triangle you are trying to set up.

Issac voluntarily works with HRG now, Hm?  Intersting- and "It means an old friend isn't as dead as we thought"- chilling line, perfectly delivered.

Claude - Rapidly becoming my second favorite male character on the show. I've been a fan of Eccelstons since his days as The Doctor and he turns in just as powerful a performance here.

The scene where Peter is about to go nuclear (which, how? He never met Ted) and Calude decks him with a single punch?  Priceless.

Next week, Mohinder and Sylar team up?  WTH?  Did someone not get the memo about the brain-eating and the general psychoticness?

[/spoiler]

[kkhohoho]

Next week, Mohinder and Sylar team up?  WTH?  Did someone not get the memo about the brain-eating and the general psychoticness?

I'm thinking that Mohinder doen'st know what Sylar looks like.  He can only recognize him as a guy with a jacket and a baseball cap, -thanks to the dream he had- and, in the preview, Sylar is not wearing a jacket or baseball cap, and is instead wearing a black T-shirt.  Thus, Mohinder probally thinks that Sylar, when he meets him next ep., is just another "special person".

[Conduit]

[spoiler]

Nikisca- Yes, I'm tired of this storyline too.  I was really hoping that the upcoming Hero death on March 5 was going to be Jessica (it's been confirmed that its a female, and that it was someone we saw in the first 10 minutes of the pilot) - but with the annoucment that its going to be a "good" Hero, I'm pretty sure it's Claire.

It's never been confirmed as a person with powers.  Indeed, Tim Kring specifically referred to the person simply as a regular in a recent TV Guide article (the interviewer asked if that was a clue, and he said that he never used the term "hero").  If it's a "good" female, it might be Simone, since, though she's been in fewer episodes than several supporting characters, she's technically a regular.  She was also in the first 10 minutes of the pilot (indeed, she was the second regular seen).

And after all, wouldn't Claire's ability zip her head shut just as fast as Sylar zipped it open?

Not if he were to hold the cut open with TK. Still, it would probably take him a little bit to figure that out, and once he did, it would still take a lot longer and require more effort than anyone else.

The scene where Peter is about to go nuclear (which, how? He never met Ted) and Calude decks him with a single punch?  Priceless.

It looked to me like he was about to go into a coma, like in Fallout.

Next week, Mohinder and Sylar team up?  WTH?  Did someone not get the memo about the brain-eating and the general psychoticness?

Like kkhohoho said, I don't think Mohinder's ever seen Sylar.

[/spoiler]

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

I pretty much agree with what Conduit says, although:

[spoiler]
A couple of the previews I've seen show Jessica and Matt facing off while they're talking about a hero dying.  It could just be a fakeout, but it would be a lame one, plus the last time they did something like that (Eden's death) the image they showed as they said that turned out to indeed be the dying character.  As for the argument that it was somebody good, Niki's good, and since she and Jessica share a body, kill one and you've killed the other.

In fact, if anything, that helps advance the plot a bit as her husband is concerned, because now he's REALLY stuck with no one to depend on.  Linderman would have him even more in his clutches.
[/spoiler]

[Conduit]

[spoiler]
Those previews of Matt fighting Jessica are from the next episode, and if the death is going to occur then, the promo monkeys would almost certainly have said so (the "upcoming weeks" preview is the only one that mentions the death).  And besides, it's been stated elsewhere that the death occurs in episode 18.

The death could still be Niki, though, and its a very good point that killing Jessica will kill Niki also.
[/spoiler]

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

Thanks for clarifying that, Conduit.  I'll have to go back and take another look at the "One hero flies and one hero dies" promo.