Heroes (2006)

[Doc_Scorpion]

A shoutout to a series that doesn't get nearly enough attention nowadays...  Though no subsequent season lived up to the first, it was still a fantastic show.

It was something massively different - serial rather than episodic.  We take serials for granted nowadays, but back then prime time serials were practically non-existent.  I think it's success and popularity was a factor in the success of Iron Man just barely eighteen months later.
 

Last time I got new glasses, I seriously considered horn rims so I could cosplay as HRG.
 

Hiro Nakamura : Peter Petrelli?

Peter Petrelli : What? Are you doing this?

Hiro Nakamura : You look different without the scar.

Peter Petrelli : I don't know you.

Hiro Nakamura : Not yet. My name is Hiro Nakamura. I'm from the future, and I have a message for you. I don't have much time. I'm risking a rift just by coming here. The girl. You have to save her.

Peter Petrelli : What girl?

Hiro Nakamura : The cheerleader. It's the only way to prevent it.

Peter Petrelli : Prevent what?

Hiro Nakamura : Everything. Listen to me. She must live. The painter, Isaac, go to him. He will know. When I call you, you must tell me where we meet. You've told me many times how lost you felt before it all started. *This* is what you've been waiting for. Be the one we need.

Tons of good moments in the show, and fourteen years later this one still gives me chills - the moment a number of major plot threads were suddenly and unexpectedly tied together.  "Save the cheerleader, save the world" became something of meme and people laughed about it...  But it's the moment the series became so much more.

[Hyperstrike]

I got about 2-3 seasons in, and then the show kinda disappeared up it's own ***hole.

I tried rewatching it several times and it's like someone took the plot, set it on fire, drowned it in feces, then nuked it multiple times in the space of an hour before electrocuting, infesting it with mold, and then throwing it into an atomic-level shredder and blowing on the remains and becomes impossible to follow.

Unexplained BS on top of unexplained BS on top of...

Also, wish the series would have had the budget for SFX beyond simple wipe effects.  Initiating flight, regeneration, okay...  Time travel...interpretive...
Pretty much anyone else with a combat oriented power?  They step out of frame and lights start flashing...

[Dreamboat]

I think the credit for bringing the serial back into the mainstream is chiefly with Lost (two years prior, if I remember rightly, and at the time of Heroes I recall a lot of comparisons being drawn to it), but it definitely helped open up the door for superhero media that came after it, yeah.

I don't really remember much beyond the first season, which was great, though I remember thinking the end of season 1 was a little flat. Beyond that, all I remember is that at one point the girl who had Taskmaster's power did a 619. Also vaguely felt like they started really unceremoniously bumping characters off after a point, but maybe I'm missing something.

Endless props for having Tim Sale involved.

 

Edited April 21, 2020 by Dreamboat

[Redlynne]

For all the impact that Claire Bennet had on the Heroes series, you'd think that Hayden Panettiere would have wound up with a better launching of her acting career ... and yet she hasn't really broken through all that well since 2006 ...

 

Save the cheerleader.  Save the world.

[Call Me Awesome]

11 hours ago, Hyperstrike said:

I got about 2-3 seasons in, and then the show kinda disappeared up it's own ***hole.

I tried rewatching it several times and it's like someone took the plot, set it on fire, drowned it in feces, then nuked it multiple times in the space of an hour before electrocuting, infesting it with mold, and then throwing it into an atomic-level shredder and blowing on the remains and becomes impossible to follow.

Unexplained BS on top of unexplained BS on top of...

Also, wish the series would have had the budget for SFX beyond simple wipe effects.  Initiating flight, regeneration, okay...  Time travel...interpretive...
Pretty much anyone else with a combat oriented power?  They step out of frame and lights start flashing...

I agree that it went straight into the crapper after season 1, but I do think that first season was a fantastic show.

[Marine X]

On 4/20/2020 at 2:45 PM, Dreamboat said:

I think the credit for bringing the serial back into the mainstream is chiefly with Lost

Star Trek Deep Space Nine ( 1993-1999 ).

[Dreamboat]

3 hours ago, Marine X said:

Star Trek Deep Space Nine ( 1993-1999 ).

I love DS9, but it didn't make serial television Cool & Sexy like Lost did when it first hit. I doubt it ever pulled half the numbers, either - I remember at the time Lost was the most DVR'd show on television or something like that.

Edited April 27, 2020 by Dreamboat

[Redlynne]

Babylon 5 is what showed that serialized television was not only possible but a superior storytelling vehicle for television.

[Haijinx]

I doubt it was any scifi type show that did it. 

 

Audience too small.

 

It was probably some drama people like us didn't watch. 

 

Heroes was really cool Season 1.  

 

The rest? Meh. 

 

 

 

[Techwright]

On 4/20/2020 at 4:28 PM, Redlynne said:

For all the impact that Claire Bennet had on the Heroes series, you'd think that Hayden Panettiere would have wound up with a better launching of her acting career ... and yet she hasn't really broken through all that well since 2006 ...

 

Save the cheerleader.  Save the world.

I would have said the same thing about Milo Ventimiglia (aka "Peter Petrelli) and Jack Coleman (aka "HRG: Batman in glasses).  But then I looked up Milo and apparently he's been starring in "This Is Us", a show I've never seen, and had a pretty successful voice acting career.

[Hyperstrike]

6 hours ago, Techwright said:

I would have said the same thing about Milo Ventimiglia (aka "Peter Petrelli) and Jack Coleman (aka "HRG: Batman in glasses).  But then I looked up Milo and apparently he's been starring in "This Is Us", a show I've never seen, and had a pretty successful voice acting career.

And Ventimiglia had a supporting part in the last Rocky movie.

[Hyperstrike]

On 4/27/2020 at 7:17 AM, Redlynne said:

Babylon 5 is what showed that serialized television was not only possible but a superior storytelling vehicle for television.

I didn't care for B5 when it first came out.
I just...didn't speak to me.

On later viewings, and the ability to stream whole seasons, it was a MUCH more enjoyable series, and I see what drew people to it.

[Hyperstrike]

On 4/27/2020 at 6:20 AM, Dreamboat said:

I love DS9, but it didn't make serial television Cool & Sexy like Lost did when it first hit. I doubt it ever pulled half the numbers, either - I remember at the time Lost was the most DVR'd show on television or something like that.

I tried to get into Lost.

But the whole "lick and promise" non-exposition  made me hate the living *BLEEP!* out of it.

It's part of what drove me away from Heroes later on.

All plot, no resolution.

[Haijinx]

On 5/29/2020 at 1:20 AM, Techwright said:

I would have said the same thing about Milo Ventimiglia (aka "Peter Petrelli) and Jack Coleman (aka "HRG: Batman in glasses).  But then I looked up Milo and apparently he's been starring in "This Is Us", a show I've never seen, and had a pretty successful voice acting career.

Hayden did "Nashville"

 

And had some children I think. 

[ShardWarrior]

On 4/27/2020 at 8:17 AM, Redlynne said:

Babylon 5 is what showed that serialized television was not only possible but a superior storytelling vehicle for television.

I love B5 3000

[WanderingAries]

IDK, it kinda ruined Reboot Spock for me TBH. That and I couldn't handle his "absorbing" scenes. *shudders*

[BafflingBeerman]

Used to love the big old episode recap threads back on the old CoH/V boards. Shoutout to McBeast. I definitely think it would worked better as a limited series, wherein their original plan of a rotating cast would have been allowed.

 

I still yell out "Dammit, Mohinder!" anytime I see Sendhil Ramamurthy in another project, most recently, "Never Have I Ever".

[kiramon]

I enjoyed their take on super powers, at least -- they had some creative ideas -- like the girl who was ashamed of her body but had illusion powers so she walked around as a "hot chick" that you only saw after she was killed, rather than some traditional shapeshifter. 

[Kyksie]

The first season was awsome: top-notch writing, great acting, great SFX, everything. The second season retained the solid acting, but the plot rambled and meandered without any clear focus. Gay Spock flip-flopped from being a good guy to a bad guy seemingly at random. The third season was bad, and the fourth was so horrible that one was left frantically chugging Everclear and huffing airplane glue to wipe those bad, bad memories away.

Edited August 11, 2020 by Kyksie