TV Series Review: HEROES – Season 3 (2008)

 So the suckage continues with Season 3 of the, potentially awesome show about superheroes, HEROES. The only saving grace of this show is that no one tries to put on a ‘costume’ and be a superhero and fight crime. Oh wait, Hiro tries that with Ando. Hmm.

HEROES so far has been interesting show. It’s had its very annoying issues, as in my previous Season Reviews. But people with powers on screen with a unique shared universe, is just awesome to watch.

Season 3 ups the ante even more and shows us another, almost comic book adapted season wide story arc. First things first though. Season two was only half the episodes of a normal Season. This was due to the Writers’ Strike Hollywood was facing at the time. So Season 3 has been split into two volumes. The first half of this season wraps up and tries to salvage some of the crap set up in Season 2, that they weren’t able to finish.

he’s her uncle… the less said about this the better…

The second half starts off with a very cool story arc, similar to Marvel’s CIVIL WAR storyline. Essentially we see Nathan wanting to reveal the existence of people with abilities to the world, only to be stopped by future-Peter. The future becomes a horrible place because of their exposure. Nathan goes back and forth for the first half as being a dormant character, who’s just kind of there. Setting up his importance later on.

The wrap up from Season 2 is abrupt and quick and doesn’t go anywhere much. Just because of the fuck up during the Strike. So they get that out of the way quick! Let’s move on to the awesome parts. Nathan returns full circle from Season 2 to being his own self-serving character with dreams of power and ambition. He takes over the evil plans of the main baddie, and basically becomes the big baddie of this season.

Nathan starts an initiative to track down and capture everyone with powers. This puts him directly in conflict with every person with powers, including all our good guys, effectively making Nathan the big baddie of this season.

It’s a mad dash, and the entire status quo of the show gets flipped. Some powers people are hunting down the rest with Nathan, and all our ‘heroes’ are on the run. In a surprising turn of events, Noah Bennett sides with Nathan in order to protect his adopted daughter Claire, who’s also Nathan’s biological daughter. Greek tragedy much?!

This half of the season moves along at a great pace, despite the constantly cheesy elements of HEROES. The flipping of good guys into bad guys and vice versa plays out exactly like Marvel Comics’ CIVIL WAR. Nathan is essentially Iron Man while Peter would be Captain America… albeit a whiny and pussy version of him.

even supposed badass future Peter has no balls…

Again, Sylar does shit all this season. Honestly it feels like the writer’s don’t know what to do with him. Season 3 is probably the only season with the highest number of flip-flops of Sylar. Every freakin’ episode tries to alter his motivations and persona… and just ends up fucked. When it looks like there was a situation where he might become a good guy, he abruptly turned bad. Which is fine. However, then he starts regretting his actions, and wants to find his real parents to know who he is. He does, and decides to be committed to being evil again. Then he finally gets an awesome power, and starts having in identity crisis, which it seemed like they were trying to make us sympathize with him, but again… he goes all bad… again!!

What’s even more frustrating is, even at the end of Season 3, they STILL don’t know WTF to do with him. Biggest downside to HEROES is this. Amidst the ongoing issues form before.

Season 3 of HEROES is the massive clusterfuck that’s been established as being the show’s biggest issue. Characters that don’t know what they’re supposed to be. Storylines that seem to have no idea where they’re going. And over all continuity issues where the tone and pacing of the show changing from episode to episode… horribly.

Get Season 3 on Blu ray