Review:
Heroes Volume 5: Improve the Writing, Save the Show

Heroes was once the best show on television. Sure, that’s subjective, but I think that a lot of people agree, the first season was a cultural event. Much of this had to do with marketing, but it worked. Save the cheerleader, save the world. The first season had fantastic pacing, and did an excellent job of keeping you guessing week after week.

The later seasons started, sadly, to lose everything that made the first season so great. Mediocre storylines, betrayal of popular character’s motivations, and writing in general took a nose dive. It’s as if the creators took a deep look at everything that made the first season so good, and removed all those aspects.

The fourth season was no different. In fact, the “Villain” of this season was easily the worst yet. A carnival? Really? The big bad is a carnival? Worst idea ever. They balanced the whole season on the threat of a carnival and it completely doesn’t work. They also chose to take everyone’s favourite light hearted energetic “Hiro” and pulled him down with a brain tumor. Not exactly what audiences wanted to see. Peter, the show’s bad ass and all around awesome guy got gimped, only able to retain one power at a time. Oh and the cheerleader? Yeah, she’s a lesbian.

Probably the most painful arc of the show was the early arc following Nathan Petrelli and his death. It's was so disjointed and uninteresting, I was glad when they finally ended it, and moved their focus elsewhere. Nathan should have died and stayed dead last season.

While the direction of the show has nosedived, not everything is bad. I enjoyed Noah’s arc (Ha!), and Sylar’s quest to become a good guy at the rear end of the season was something I’d been waiting a long time for, and I enjoyed every second of it. I liked the plot device used to make sense that somebody so psycho would choose to be good. I felt that his arc was the most interesting thing of this season.

The first season had moments of total badassness, and that is missing from this season. For a show about people with powers, there really aren’t enough super powered fight scenes, like the couple fantastic ones between Sylar and Peter in the first season.