Heroes Reborn

[Chen]

Anyone watching this? As inconsistent as the later seasons of heroes, I still find myself watching this. Also totally ripping off X-men this season it seems.

[Fragenstein]

I caught the first episode. It was better than I was expecting -- but then, most new shows are pretty good for the first three episodes. Then they seem to rotate out the top-tier writers and let the regulars take over. It seems like a 'Hollywood' thing. I bet they even have a name for the routine.

Regardless, I'm going to give it a fair shot.

[Kitten Champion]

I'm watching it... but I have a very been-here-done-that feeling to everything. The X-Men parallels as mentioned, 9/11 but with superpowers is fairly old hat in 2015, and generally I've just sort of gotten too aware of the mechanics of how a Kring show operates by now.

I don't dislike it so much, it's just pretty disappointing that they couldn't come up with something more creative at the end of the day. I felt Heroes - while certainly flawed and I'm sure you can find numerous tropes it used - was trying to be its own take on super-powered humans... and I appreciated that at the time.

[LordRahl6]

I won't disagree with your assessment of the Reborn is reusing old ground with new characters. When I saw the dynamics of Tommy and Emily it looked like a gender flipped Claire and Zach, and Miko's storyline is remarkably similar to Hiro's. She even had the Kensei sword in the first episode.

Still that being said there is something fresh about these Evo's being out in the open, and the double edged threat of extremists like the Collins and Renatus's long ranged plans are something we wouldn't of seen in the original Heroes. I look forward to seeing how all these plots roll together as I follow Noah Bennett down the rabbit hole.

[Dienekes]

They kept Noah but got rid of Claire and that dog obsessed wife person he had, that right there gives them some brownie points in my book.

As to the show itself, it's still doing the same thing, trying to save the world from some huge disaster by following several tangentially related characters. Which is fine. But like the original, not all stories are made equal. Noah's search for his memories was interesting if slow to start, teleport-y kid is ok in so far as there's a mystery about penny-man, I'm probably most interested in the mutant killers as far as new characters go, always liked a good villain and they have an interesting dynamic where they both seem to deeply resent the other for their choices they made together.

And then there's computer samurai girl. Nothing in her story has been interesting so far. Absolutely nothing.

[BlueHerring]

And then there's computer samurai girl. Nothing in her story has been interesting so far. Absolutely nothing.

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She has a power that's only useful in a weird way, but she somehow has Hiro's sword. They're probably going to use that to set up his return to the show.

And I'm curious as to how they're going to handle having a time traveler around again. They definitely didn't do a very good job of it last time.

[Olinser]

I mean the big thing that was wrong with the original show was that they just didn't have very well thought out plot lines, which lead to a lot of suddenly discarded characters and unresolved plotlines and what felt like the writers flailing around and throwing stuff at a wall hoping something would stick and be popular.

They REALLY need to plan their story arcs better if they want this show to last.

I mean, the first season started out pretty decent, but it started rapidly going downhill because they didn't actually THINK about how powerful they were making Peter/Sylar and then had to make thinly veiled asspulls to rachet their powers down later on.

Then there are the abruptly discarded characters like the virus disaster future (where random girl was left and never mentioned again), Molly just straight up disappearing from the show with nary a mention, Claire's boyfriend disappearing just as suddenly, Micah's cousin, Sylar getting a number of powers that are never mentioned again despite being extraordinarily useful (he has super enhanced hearing and seems to get snuck up on a LOT), etc.

Then the just plain pointless or random storylines like the Mexican brother/sister that spent like half a season getting to America and ... nothing happening, the utter unexplained randomness of Ali Larter's twin suddenly appearing with frost powers, the fact that their time travel is RADICALLY inconsistent (multiple times they go to the future or have people from the future come to them and then they change the course of time, but then when Hiro goes way in the past it turns out its a Stable Time Loop and he had already gone to the past and been the Takedo guy), radical inconsistencies with how Samuel's powers worked (he destroyed a building in a town with no other powered people around, yet at the finale teleporting every powered person away from him suddenly renders him powerless despite several powereds like Claire Emma Sylar still being in the general area).

I mean I enjoyed the show at first but about midway through the 5th season I just got tired of everything being so disconnected and just quit watching (went back later and finished and remembered why I had quit watching in the first place).

[Clertar]

I mean I enjoyed the show at first but about midway through the 5th season I just got tired of everything being so disconnected and just quit watching (went back later and finished and remembered why I had quit watching in the first place).

I think the really innovative series was just in the first season. I even think there is a general consensus that the rest of the seasons aren't worth their weight in durian-coated peanuts.

[tomandtish]

The first season of heroes was excellent. Later seasons suffered from a few significant problems.

First, the original idea was that each season would feature all new characters. So you’d have an entirely new group of heroes and villains each season. About halfway through the season (with excellent ratings and a very popular cast at the time), they were told that they would need to keep the original cast (and therefore the original characters. Queue trying to rework some ideas. So you have characters that were never intended to last more than a season being shoehorned into plots that weren’t written for them. Some it works OK for (Noah). Some it clearly doesn’t (Sylar, Suresh, Niki).

The 2007 Writers Strike hurt things badly. They only got 11 episodes of a 22 episode season (Volume 2). The original 3rd volume “Exodus” was cancelled. It was supposed to deal with the outbreak of the virus. So basically season 2 is shot.

Season 3 (Volume 3) opens to poorer ratings because Season 2 was incomplete and there was a 9 month hiatus. At this point writing becomes more inconsistent, and by the second half of Season 3 (Volume 4) ratings are as low as they’ve ever been and there’s been a big shakeup in the writing staff. Jesse Alexander and Jeff Loeb are both fired by the end of Volume 3, Bryan Fuller is gone by the end of Volume 4, and Director Greg Beeman is gone at the end of Volume 4.

In short, Heroes was an excellent idea killed by a poorly timed strike and a reluctance try new ideas, even though the long-term designs of the series were initially based on new ideas and new characters.

[Mato]

I'm kind of eh about it.

I already watched Heroes, X-Men, Flash, S.H.I.E.L.D. and such. Including a few minors like Tomorrow People or Mutant X. So my first question is what's the sell point of this series?

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The guy who played Chuck is in it.

I thought you my self, "Well that's cool." until I realized he was the bad guy.

But I'm going to watch episode 3 now, so far I'm just not impressed

Edit: And that was... Boring. I feel like one thing changed over a forty minute episode.

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Chuck has powers.

Guess what he wants to stop doing now.

[Legato Endless]

Given the superficial similarity the opening has to Shield's current plot, I'm wondering if that will adversely effect the ability for both to stay on the air. Probably minor on its own, but I've already seen several people drop it for being to similar. It's not like Heroes is going to subsist only on its old fanbase, unless they're significantly larger than I'm led to believe .

[Mato]

It's not like Heroes is going to subsist only on its old fanbase, unless they're significantly larger than I'm led to believe .

Well I'm part of that fanbase and I can say that we and the producers alike were immediately disappointed in Reborn the moment Newspock told everyone he wasn't coming back.

He was pretty much the sole reason to watch the show, losing him I bet cost them several returning viewers.

[Dienekes]

Well I'm part of that fanbase and I can say that we and the producers alike were immediately disappointed in Reborn the moment Newspock told everyone he wasn't coming back.

He was pretty much the sole reason to watch the show, losing him I bet cost them several returning viewers.

Huh really? Because while Sylar was originally intriguing but they did so much random crap with him by the end I thought they should have just dropped him

[Chen]

Not to mention Sylar has one of the worst powers for a TV show. Him, Peter and Hiro all have powers that make writing a logically consistent plot almost impossible. When someone can gather so many powers so that they're practically invulnerable, they should be able to solve most TV drama problems with ease. You have to throw them the idiot ball to prevent it.

So far this season hasn't been too bad with that. All episode spoilers to follow:

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The kid's power is obviously ridiculously strong, now that he knows how to use it. He teleported himself pretty easily this last episode so he has a pretty easy way of solving many of his issues (barring getting shot at a distance). I have no clue what Miko's power actually is.

Is it the sword that lets her go into games? Is that her? Is she actually a person or some sort of living computer program? No real clue what's going on there.

I still don't care at all about the vigilante in LA storyline. Doesn't really seem interesting. Do we know if the guy actually has any powers? I mean he seemed able to take a beating and fall out of a third story window and survive pretty well. I guess that's something.

And what the hell is up with Molly and Noah? How bad can Noah actually be that Molly would rather go with the evil corporation than with him. Unless its all part of some sort of insider plan and she's going to destroy their machine or something. I also gotta wonder why Noah would think of a plan that involved erasing his memory and not see this outcome occuring. Unless that's somehow part of his plan, but that seems needlessly convoluted.

[SuperPanda]

...but that seems needlessly convoluted.

I think that might have been the pitch that got the show back on the air.

[LordRahl6]

Spoiler: Molly and Noah

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I don't believe Molly knew that she was going to be caught by Renatus escaping from Noah, and definitely didn't expect to be plugged in to be used as a program. She'll probably thank Noah if they can fid her to unplug the cord, but I think she'll more than likely part ways with him ASAP, no later than when Noah reunites with Parkman.

Also like seeing Robbie Kay as something else than evil Peter Pan.

[Chen]

Spoiler: Molly and Noah

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I don't believe Molly knew that she was going to be caught by Renatus escaping from Noah, and definitely didn't expect to be plugged in to be used as a program. She'll probably thank Noah if they can fid her to unplug the cord, but I think she'll more than likely part ways with him ASAP, no later than when Noah reunites with Parkman.

Also like seeing Robbie Kay as something else than evil Peter Pan.

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How could she not know she was going to get captured by them? She was already captured! Why would you try to escape on your own in that situation. You know I can accept Molly's reaction, if Noah is actually a mind-wiped, body-changed Sylar again. So barring that or some sort of insider plan to take down Renautas from the inside, I'm calling her reaction stupid.

[Kitten Champion]

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How could she not know she was going to get captured by them? She was already captured! Why would you try to escape on your own in that situation. You know I can accept Molly's reaction, if Noah is actually a mind-wiped, body-changed Sylar again. So barring that or some sort of insider plan to take down Renautas from the inside, I'm calling her reaction stupid.

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Yeah, that was more or less my reaction. It was done for the X-File-esque here-be-conspiracies! moment of Molly's reaction before moving the plot back on its rails with the Renautus people, but from a character standpoint Molly hardly seemed the type to jump into near-certain capture in wandering around Evilco's building unarmed and clueless when she could have much more easily followed Bennett to safety and then escaped from him later. That's some for the greater good-level of motivation required to willingly sacrifice most of your odds of escape for some higher cause, which frankly the character hadn't demonstrated thus far as at all representing. Unless she knew somehow simply meeting with Bennett was going to destroy the world that very instant if she simply engaged in a single line of dialogue more with him, it seems as the easy choice and the one she would make to me. She didn't even have to talk, she could have just motioned for an escape and everyone there would have been really happy to do so immediately.

It bugs me, the drama shouldn't take complete precedence over the logic of its characters.

[LordRahl6]

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Yeah, that was more or less my reaction. It was done for the X-File-esque here-be-conspiracies! moment of Molly's reaction before moving the plot back on its rails with the Renautus people, but from a character standpoint Molly hardly seemed the type to jump into near-certain capture in wandering around Evilco's building unarmed and clueless when she could have much more easily followed Bennett to safety and then escaped from him later. That's some for the greater good-level of motivation required to willingly sacrifice most of your odds of escape for some higher cause, which frankly the character hadn't demonstrated thus far as at all representing. Unless she knew somehow simply meeting with Bennett was going to destroy the world that very instant if she simply engaged in a single line of dialogue more with him, it seems as the easy choice and the one she would make to me. She didn't even have to talk, she could have just motioned for an escape and everyone there would have been really happy to do so immediately.

It bugs me, the drama shouldn't take complete precedence over the logic of its characters.

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I'm getting the impression that after Renautus takeover of The Company in all its constituent parts Noah was still working for them until last year when his memory was wiped by Rene, aka the Haitian. So Molly may have thought he was still working with them, and he wasn't going to help her escape at all.

[Chen]

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I'm getting the impression that after Renautus takeover of The Company in all its constituent parts Noah was still working for them until last year when his memory was wiped by Rene, aka the Haitian. So Molly may have thought he was still working with them, and he wasn't going to help her escape at all.

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I don't remember exactly but didn't he stop working for them in the later seasons of the first series? Plus she was with him at the hospital and seemed ok with him. So maybe something weird went down after that I guess.

[Kitten Champion]

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I'm getting the impression that after Renautus takeover of The Company in all its constituent parts Noah was still working for them until last year when his memory was wiped by Rene, aka the Haitian. So Molly may have thought he was still working with them, and he wasn't going to help her escape at all.

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I didn't watch Heroes to the end so I can't speak to its later plot points... but why would he ambush her escorts and offer to free her? Just to screw with her, who was already in their custody? And it doesn't track with the dialogue at the scene which was some vague variation on "I can't see you yet, you'll screw everything up!".

Maybe some time from now everything will make sense, but I'm holding that to a moment of PIS rather than unexpected twist in the meta-narrative mystery it was trying to be.

[Clertar]

Interesting development on the origin of the younger characters.

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It was nice to see Mohinder again, he felt like the Mohinder from season 1 the original series again.
Still, I think the plot would have been better off without constant references to Claire and her awkward "cameos"

[AlHazred]

I was on the fence about it, but my general rule is to give a new series three episodes to keep me. Even though this is essentially the follow-up to the original Heroes (which I loved, hated, loved again, felt "Meh" about, and then hated), I still treated it like a new series.

We're now, what, seven episodes in? And I still feel "Meh" about it.

I like some of the stuff they do differently from the original Heroes. On the other hand, I get the same impression of "Why should I care about this guy?" for half of the point-of-view characters.