My Thoughts On Heroes

It was obvious that Heroes this season was broken. Even Tim Kring's admitted that. There were some problems.

Part of it, obviously, was the strike. The season wasn't supposed to end where it did. They managed to get kind of lucky that there was some resolution, what with taking care of the virus and taking care of Adam.

But I think that there are some things the creators don't understand.

First, nobody likes Sylar.

Okay, maybe that's a misstatement. An exaggeration. There are probably people out there who like Sylar.

But nobody watches Heroes for Sylar. They just don't. He's not one of those love-to-hate kind of bad guys that brings us back to the TV, like the evil President on 24 or Ben on Lost.

Sylar is just unpleasant, and I never once, this whole season, enjoyed a scene he was in.

Okay, I take that back.

This season had exactly one Sylar moment that worked. When Mohinder was getting ready to go take the virus to New Orleans to save Niki, and he got the phone call from Sylar saying she was with Molly, that was a good moment. Moral dilemmas make for good TV, and having to choose between Niki and Molly made for a good moment.

Except that the producers didn't seem to notice they'd created a moment. From then on, it was like Mohinder just forgot all about Niki or anybody else he could have called to help him out with Sylar. He just trotted off to go find Sylar by himself, in a very non-smart, way-people-only-act-in-movies-to-make-a-plot-work kind of way.

That's one of my two big problems with Heroes. My two problems are:

1. The writers don't think enough.

Take Peter, for example. The guy's got like 40 different powers, including the ability to read minds. But this entire season was based on Peter being tricked by someone he didn't know, and who had no ability to block his thoughts from Peter.

The writers need to have a geek on call that they can call up and say something like, "Hey, we've got Peter in a hallway where he's got to get into a giant safe with a virus in it. What could he do?"

And the geek would say, "He's got DL's powers, doesn't he? He just walks through the safe door."

And the writers could say, "Um, yeah. That's what we though, too. Just checking."

2. They don't understand why we love Hiro.

I was discouraged by an interview I read with Tim Kring. In it, he said he felt the problem with the part where Hiro was in the past was that it went on too long.

Quite the contrary--there were two problems with Hiro in the past, and one of them was that we weren't seeing enough of the trials. Too many of them happened off-screen. We want to see Hiro and Adam use their powers and be clever and do stuff, but instead, all the scenes were them standing around talking about how tough the trials were. Show us more, not less.

The other problem was that it wasn't the Hiro from the first season. Hiro from the first season was just so cheery and excited about things, you couldn't help but get excited about whatever he was a part of. This season was "Sad Hiro" season, and that's just not the emotion we love Hiro for.

My Prescription

So if anybody cares, here's my prescription for how to fix Heroes next season:

First, recognize that some of the best moments are when you put people in situations where their powers won't help. Niki beating up that guy without her powers was my favorite Niki moment. Put people in situations where their powers don't help, and you've got drama. And don't cheat--make it obvious why none of their powers would work.

Second, realize that people like this show for the Heroes, not the villains. I know next season is called "Villains" and the temptation is going to be to showcase the nastiest folks you can think of.

Let me tell you a secret--the out-of-control bomb guy from last season was far more interesting and compelling and menacing than Sylar. Give us villains we're almost tempted to side with, not cardboard baddies like Sylar and Adam who just randomly decided they're supposed to kill as many people as possible.

And no, the girl with the black eyes doesn't count. She wasn't interesting to anybody, and Sylar fooling her into abandoning her brother was about the most unbelievable thing I've seen on TV outside of Warner Brother's cartoons.

Third, show the action. Build up to it, but then show it. Let Peter and Hiro fight. Let Adam get ravaged as he charges up the steps to face the trials. Let Claire and Elle fight it out.

Fourth, just accept that Noah Bennet now owns the show, and let him do his thing.