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lathanyI said, when I wrote about the season four finale, I would write about the ups and downs of Heroes in general. Here it is, and provided season by season for people who haven't seen it all yet. Due to length, I thought I'd do a season per entry.
Update: In case it isn't obvious, I'd be interested in other people's opinions of what worked and what didn't in the four seasons.
Season One - Genesis
23 episodes
Season one was a huge hit with the audience and with the critics. Whilst a lot of people will dispute their favourite season of a series (Buffy, Alias, etc), I've yet to meet anyone who didn't rate the first season of Heroes as the best. In my opinion this came down to a number of factors - a wide and detailed cast of characters, some incredible twists and moments, various character goals being accomplished throughout the season, an awful lot of material, scenes that covered more than one thing at a time, good episode balance and a decent season plot. Oh, and I also thought that the music was awesome and different.
In detail
Taking the cast situation first - there were fourteen main characters (if you count Noah, Ando and Sylar; which I do)1, twelve significant supporting characters (I mean the likes of Sandra and Ted who were around for a good third of a season or more)2 and another twelve characters with significant mini-arcs or who were minor support3. Not to mention some of the one-episode people who I found memorable (such as Dale, the woman with super hearing and Sylar's mother). That's an impressively big world and even the people I have down as minor - such as Claude and Deveaux - were memorable and significant.
The twists and moments were also frequent and varied. These range from Nathan turning the tables on Linderman after the successful blackmail arrangement (Hiros), the first appearance of Future Hiro (Collision), Peter finally getting to grips with his powers and rescuing Claude from Noah and the Haitian (Unexpected), pretty much the whole of Five Years Later and... I could go on. There's at least one moment in every episode starting with Nathan flying instead of Peter in the pilot. It's the whole new/complete turnaround of each of those which is deeply special. It's probably true to say that the reveal of each power counts in this category - especially Peter's power which it took me a while to understand given it covers several things - but they were not the only items.
Various character goals being accomplished is something that TV series' in general don't do terribly well, so was a real treat to see in the first season of Heroes. It had mini-triumphs all over season one from Peter's first successful flight to Hiro's first win in Vegas. There were also bigger wins such as Nathan's election, the escape from Primatech and the saving of the cheerleader. I think every character had at least one and they were deeply satisfying to watch.
It's difficult to explain how much material was in season one within a paragraph, but I could really see it when writing up the episodes (particularly the second half). Loads and loads of stuff happens which tells stories in itself whilst also advancing the main plot. If you were to fix on just Peter and think about what happens to him (OK, he's arguably the protagonist, but from a huge cast), it's a ridiculous series of events: Prophetic_Dreams-> Flight_Attempt-> Hospital-> Future_Hiro's_Mission-> Paint_The_Future-> Save_The_Cheerleader-> Arrest-> Coma-> Invisible_Training-> Simone_Death-> Killed_By_Sylar-> Resurrection-> Kirby_Plaza. And that's without specifying (most of) the personal interactions with Simone, Nathan, Angela and Claire.
In dealing with a huge volume of material, Heroes was also good at compacting several stories into one scene. My personal favourite is the Peter-Simone scene at the start of Collision; there's the Simone-Peter romance, what they both think of Isaac's ability, the aftermath between Peter and Nathan following his "suicide" announcement and Nathan telling Peter about Mohinder (Nathan assumes Peter sent Mohinder to him). It gets Peter to go to Mohinder (starting both the Save_The_Cheerleader and the_Company_Get_Isaac threads) whilst primarily dealing with a romance. I think part of the key to this sort of scene is to involve several main characters (this one took three). That said, many of the Matt-Audrey exchanges covered their partnership, Matt's marriage and Sylar; so sometimes it can be done with just a couple.
In addition, Heroes season one had good episode balance. My favourite episode was 0.07% and this balances the well-paced, intelligent breakout from Primatech against the much slower emotions surrounding Peter's death and resurrection. Plus it also features Isaac's death, Nathan rejecting and then accepting Linderman's plan and the kidnap of Micah. Plenty of other episodes had this sort of counterbalance of a pacey thread against something more emotional; Homecoming had Save The Cheerleader against Mohinder learning his father's motivations through the Dream Boy.
Finally, the main plot of the Genesis volume was good; one of the better ones I've seen for a first season. There was a tragedy to stop (New York exploding) and the bad guys' reasons for wanting it were not "'cos we're evil". Plus it wasn't clear until that episode who would explode (although Peter must have been favourite, particularly after Five Years Later). Also it set up an interesting scenario with Angela going forward; because she didn't help Peter (although knew he would survive it).
Having raved extensively, I'll admit that season one did have its faults. Some on a theme/character level and others more episode-specific. To start with, Sylar didn't need Claire's power as it turned out that he couldn't die anyway (I assume 'cos they needed him alive for the end of the season!). He was shot several times by Matt (One Giant Leap) but this didn't stop him disappearing up a ladder super fast, then he falls off the same ledge as Peter in Homecoming and gets away, he is declared dead by the Company (The Fix) but isn't, reanimates time to stop Hiro stabbing him (The Hard Part) and then crawls away at the very end after everyone has hit and stabbed him. Another major fault of the season is that it had some characters who seemed to start promisingly, but not go anywhere - I liked the personality of Simone, but she really was only there as the love interest. In a similar vein, there were few main female roles and those that existed were stereotypes - the girlfriend, the stripper and the cheerleader. Eden and Angela both had much better roles, but one died and the other was a minor character.
To move to individual episode pieces, there was the season finale which I found somewhat unsatisfying; in part because Charles Deveaux hints that Peter is going to prove his mother wrong (about being weak and unable to take control) and Peter more sort of doesn't because he can't hold back the explosion. Then there were a number of dull stories which included Janice's_Perfect_Day, Hope's_Bag and DL_Being_A_Dad. Finally, season one did tend to hang on to some dull interactions and plots for too long - I was done with the gambling thread only about a third of the way through the scenes with Hiro/Ando and, similarly, I felt Niki's domestic woes and also Matt's domestic woes were stretched out too much.
Finally, being season one, it was much easier to have the twists and moments I raved about earlier and, equally, much harder to have major continuity errors as there was far less material to contradict at any time.
Summary
Overall, season one was among the best seasons I've ever seen on TV. It's not flawless, but moves fast, deals with a large group of detailed characters and had lovely surprises and mini-arcs galore. Oh, and it had a decent grand plot - what's not to love?
Tim Kring comments
It's a bit difficult to be sure that the various references to Kring are actually things he said, but, he apparently gave this interview about half to two-thirds through filming season one (although only about four episodes have shown) and the contents seem plausible. He mostly comments that they have a season one plan, vague ideas for the structure of season two, and that they could continue going indefinitely. He also makes specific comments about some of the scenes suggesting that they've thought through the season one powers and where most of the character are going. Additionally he comments on the show's commitment to cliff-hangers and surprises. In general, his comments fit with a thought-out season, with a grand plot and villain and with much thought having gone into the powers.
1 Nathan, Peter, Claire, Noah, Hiro, Ando, Matt, Mohinder, Isaac, Simone, Niki, DL, Micah and Sylar.
2 Sandra, Lyle, Zach, The Haitian, Eden, Angela Petrelli, Janice, Audrey, Ted Sprague, Molly Walker, Candice and Heidi Petrelli.
3 Linderman, Charles Deveaux, Claude Rains, Jackie, Brody (Quarterback/rapist), Chandra Suresh, Charlie, Hannah (email transmitter woman), Meredith, Sanjog (dream boy), Kaito and Thompson.
Update: In case it isn't obvious, I'd be interested in other people's opinions of what worked and what didn't in the four seasons.
Season One - Genesis
23 episodes
Season one was a huge hit with the audience and with the critics. Whilst a lot of people will dispute their favourite season of a series (Buffy, Alias, etc), I've yet to meet anyone who didn't rate the first season of Heroes as the best. In my opinion this came down to a number of factors - a wide and detailed cast of characters, some incredible twists and moments, various character goals being accomplished throughout the season, an awful lot of material, scenes that covered more than one thing at a time, good episode balance and a decent season plot. Oh, and I also thought that the music was awesome and different.
In detail
Taking the cast situation first - there were fourteen main characters (if you count Noah, Ando and Sylar; which I do)1, twelve significant supporting characters (I mean the likes of Sandra and Ted who were around for a good third of a season or more)2 and another twelve characters with significant mini-arcs or who were minor support3. Not to mention some of the one-episode people who I found memorable (such as Dale, the woman with super hearing and Sylar's mother). That's an impressively big world and even the people I have down as minor - such as Claude and Deveaux - were memorable and significant.
The twists and moments were also frequent and varied. These range from Nathan turning the tables on Linderman after the successful blackmail arrangement (Hiros), the first appearance of Future Hiro (Collision), Peter finally getting to grips with his powers and rescuing Claude from Noah and the Haitian (Unexpected), pretty much the whole of Five Years Later and... I could go on. There's at least one moment in every episode starting with Nathan flying instead of Peter in the pilot. It's the whole new/complete turnaround of each of those which is deeply special. It's probably true to say that the reveal of each power counts in this category - especially Peter's power which it took me a while to understand given it covers several things - but they were not the only items.
Various character goals being accomplished is something that TV series' in general don't do terribly well, so was a real treat to see in the first season of Heroes. It had mini-triumphs all over season one from Peter's first successful flight to Hiro's first win in Vegas. There were also bigger wins such as Nathan's election, the escape from Primatech and the saving of the cheerleader. I think every character had at least one and they were deeply satisfying to watch.
It's difficult to explain how much material was in season one within a paragraph, but I could really see it when writing up the episodes (particularly the second half). Loads and loads of stuff happens which tells stories in itself whilst also advancing the main plot. If you were to fix on just Peter and think about what happens to him (OK, he's arguably the protagonist, but from a huge cast), it's a ridiculous series of events: Prophetic_Dreams-> Flight_Attempt-> Hospital-> Future_Hiro's_Mission-> Paint_The_Future-> Save_The_Cheerleader-> Arrest-> Coma-> Invisible_Training-> Simone_Death-> Killed_By_Sylar-> Resurrection-> Kirby_Plaza. And that's without specifying (most of) the personal interactions with Simone, Nathan, Angela and Claire.
In dealing with a huge volume of material, Heroes was also good at compacting several stories into one scene. My personal favourite is the Peter-Simone scene at the start of Collision; there's the Simone-Peter romance, what they both think of Isaac's ability, the aftermath between Peter and Nathan following his "suicide" announcement and Nathan telling Peter about Mohinder (Nathan assumes Peter sent Mohinder to him). It gets Peter to go to Mohinder (starting both the Save_The_Cheerleader and the_Company_Get_Isaac threads) whilst primarily dealing with a romance. I think part of the key to this sort of scene is to involve several main characters (this one took three). That said, many of the Matt-Audrey exchanges covered their partnership, Matt's marriage and Sylar; so sometimes it can be done with just a couple.
In addition, Heroes season one had good episode balance. My favourite episode was 0.07% and this balances the well-paced, intelligent breakout from Primatech against the much slower emotions surrounding Peter's death and resurrection. Plus it also features Isaac's death, Nathan rejecting and then accepting Linderman's plan and the kidnap of Micah. Plenty of other episodes had this sort of counterbalance of a pacey thread against something more emotional; Homecoming had Save The Cheerleader against Mohinder learning his father's motivations through the Dream Boy.
Finally, the main plot of the Genesis volume was good; one of the better ones I've seen for a first season. There was a tragedy to stop (New York exploding) and the bad guys' reasons for wanting it were not "'cos we're evil". Plus it wasn't clear until that episode who would explode (although Peter must have been favourite, particularly after Five Years Later). Also it set up an interesting scenario with Angela going forward; because she didn't help Peter (although knew he would survive it).
Having raved extensively, I'll admit that season one did have its faults. Some on a theme/character level and others more episode-specific. To start with, Sylar didn't need Claire's power as it turned out that he couldn't die anyway (I assume 'cos they needed him alive for the end of the season!). He was shot several times by Matt (One Giant Leap) but this didn't stop him disappearing up a ladder super fast, then he falls off the same ledge as Peter in Homecoming and gets away, he is declared dead by the Company (The Fix) but isn't, reanimates time to stop Hiro stabbing him (The Hard Part) and then crawls away at the very end after everyone has hit and stabbed him. Another major fault of the season is that it had some characters who seemed to start promisingly, but not go anywhere - I liked the personality of Simone, but she really was only there as the love interest. In a similar vein, there were few main female roles and those that existed were stereotypes - the girlfriend, the stripper and the cheerleader. Eden and Angela both had much better roles, but one died and the other was a minor character.
To move to individual episode pieces, there was the season finale which I found somewhat unsatisfying; in part because Charles Deveaux hints that Peter is going to prove his mother wrong (about being weak and unable to take control) and Peter more sort of doesn't because he can't hold back the explosion. Then there were a number of dull stories which included Janice's_Perfect_Day, Hope's_Bag and DL_Being_A_Dad. Finally, season one did tend to hang on to some dull interactions and plots for too long - I was done with the gambling thread only about a third of the way through the scenes with Hiro/Ando and, similarly, I felt Niki's domestic woes and also Matt's domestic woes were stretched out too much.
Finally, being season one, it was much easier to have the twists and moments I raved about earlier and, equally, much harder to have major continuity errors as there was far less material to contradict at any time.
Summary
Overall, season one was among the best seasons I've ever seen on TV. It's not flawless, but moves fast, deals with a large group of detailed characters and had lovely surprises and mini-arcs galore. Oh, and it had a decent grand plot - what's not to love?
Tim Kring comments
It's a bit difficult to be sure that the various references to Kring are actually things he said, but, he apparently gave this interview about half to two-thirds through filming season one (although only about four episodes have shown) and the contents seem plausible. He mostly comments that they have a season one plan, vague ideas for the structure of season two, and that they could continue going indefinitely. He also makes specific comments about some of the scenes suggesting that they've thought through the season one powers and where most of the character are going. Additionally he comments on the show's commitment to cliff-hangers and surprises. In general, his comments fit with a thought-out season, with a grand plot and villain and with much thought having gone into the powers.
1 Nathan, Peter, Claire, Noah, Hiro, Ando, Matt, Mohinder, Isaac, Simone, Niki, DL, Micah and Sylar.
2 Sandra, Lyle, Zach, The Haitian, Eden, Angela Petrelli, Janice, Audrey, Ted Sprague, Molly Walker, Candice and Heidi Petrelli.
3 Linderman, Charles Deveaux, Claude Rains, Jackie, Brody (Quarterback/rapist), Chandra Suresh, Charlie, Hannah (email transmitter woman), Meredith, Sanjog (dream boy), Kaito and Thompson.
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no subject
Date: 2010-05-16 08:27 pm (UTC)The villains and the foreshadowing of the big explosion were nicely done. I wasn't quite convinced by the conspiracy to blow up New York though. I'd have liked a firmer reason from the conspirators than the vague notion that doing it would make the future better.
The downside, and the mistake that would follow the franchise for the next three series was *not killing Sylar*. He was a brilliant villain, and that was why he had to die.
Christopher Eccleston was good value too - why did we never see him again?
no subject
Date: 2010-05-16 09:01 pm (UTC)Yeah, I enjoyed that too. I had particular fun with Peter's power - guessing its exact parameters.
I'd have liked a firmer reason from the conspirators than the vague notion that doing it would make the future better.
I do agree with you but... I'm hard pushed to think of a series that managed it other than by having the bad guys be demons (The Lost Room is about the only exception).
Christopher Eccleston was good value too - why did we never see him again?
I wanted him back too. I guess he wasn't available again; it's not like they killed him.