Mania Grade: B
8 Comments | Add
Rate & Share:
Related Links:
Info:
- TV Series: Heroes
- Episode: Shadowboxing
- Starring: Hayden Panettiere, Masi Oka, Ali Larter, Milo Ventimiglia, Jack Coleman, Leonard Roberts, Greg Grunberg, Adrian Pasdar
- Written By: Misha Green, Joe Pokaski
- Directed By: Jim Chory
- Network: NBC
- Series:
Heroes: Shadowboxing Review
Peter needs a break and Sylar just needs to break something By
Stephen Lackey
November 12, 2009
Heroes Review
© NBC/Bob Trate
Last week’s installment of Heroes was less than stellar. Did you ever hear the old saying “remember when is the lowest form of conversation?” That old saying applies to last week’s installment of the show because the story was a rehash of a story from Season One. This week’s episode definitely gets points for at least trying to tell a story that hasn’t already been told once in a previous season. Peter was one of those uninteresting characters early on the life of Heroes. He was overpowered and not very well developed. This season, he has become a true super hero and he’s dealing with all of the good and bad that come with a super hero’s life, making him one of the more interesting characters this season. The issue with him being overpowered has been fixed with the adjustment to his ability that now only allows him to copy one power at a time. Currently, he has the healing power which seems to cause a strain on him physically every time he uses it. There could be some fantastic drama if at some point he has to decide to get rid of this power in favor of some other power that he must copy to save the day. Peter will be reluctant to give up this healing power because he uses it to do more good than any other power he has ever had, especially in his position as an EMT.
The big problem with Peter’s current power is that very little peril can exist in the series while he has it. The climactic ending of this episode offers up a perfect example of why Peter’s power is a problem. There has been a rumor for a while that a major death was coming to Heroes and the ending of this episode offers up some potential for that death to happen, but then the preview for next week shows Peter showing up to save the day. Peter will probably get around to healing Hiro before the promise of that death can happen too. The death at the end of this episode could still have some impact though. That remains to be seen.
The Matt Parkman/Sylar story is, like the characters, good and bad. Just when Matt gets a little irritating, Sylar gets a good line and makes the whole thing amusing again. This week now that Sylar is in the proverbial driver’s seat he finally does the one thing that he’s been working toward all season. He crosses a line using Matt’s body that Matt himself would never cross and he does this to force answers out of Matt. It’s easy to forget that Sylar was once a serious murderer in spite of all the lame stories he was a part of last season. Parkman is a brave character and his choice at the end of the episode is a predictable but effective one
It’s public knowledge that Adrian Pasdar is no longer a part of Heroes, so Nathan will finally be permanently leaving the show. Hopefully, this means that Sylar will finally get his essence back into his body and the story with Matt Parkman will be over. While the exchanges between Sylar and Matt were entertaining in this episode, it is definitely time for this story to come to an end. The more of these secondary stories that wrap up means more space in upcoming episodes will be available for Hiro’s latest time travel exploits and that means nothing but low grades unless there’s some real surprise in store.
In this week’s episode, Samuel finally makes his move to bring Claire into the fold. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: it has never made sense that Samuel had to craft such a complex plan for Claire while he basically just walks up on all of the other heroes. The only possible reasoning for Samuel’s convoluted plan becomes the most apparent this week. Claire’s attachment to Noah may be Samuel’s biggest stepping stone to winning Claire over. Samuel may believe that she has been indoctrinated into Noah’s way of thinking and Samuel may feel that he has to go to special extremes to show her the way. I say “may” because his reasons for handling this situation and most others are only marginally revealed at best. His fear of Noah is very well placed based on Noah’s history with the company. I would imagine there are others living in the carnival that wouldn’t mind getting a chance at taking out Noah. A potentially cool episode could come from Noah being taken hostage in the carnival and forced to face everything he’s done to Samuel’s family. At any rate, Samuel’s goal of separating Claire from her friends works out in this episode when Gretchen gets too freaked out and leaves college. All that Samuel has left to do is turn Claire against Noah and that probably won’t be much of a challenge. The problem is that this is well worn territory. I had hoped we were done with Claire having a love/hate relationship with her father. If that’s the direction we’re heading, we’re in for “good ole’” irritating Claire once again.
There’s a lot to appreciate in this episode of Heroes, a big step up from last week’s episode. It’s far from perfect though. It’s good to see Sylar being a full on villain again even if he is stuck inside of Matt’s mind. Hopefully this story is building to something fairly interesting. Any scene in Heroes that features Noah with a gun and the Haitian doing his thing is a good one. It’s time for Noah to do some work. Wouldn’t it be great if he went back to being the badass but this time he just focused on villains not every person with abilities? I didn’t even get into the interactions between Peter and the character I’m nicknaming “Dazzler”. She’s an intriguing addition to the show. Even with my quibbles, this show still came off entertaining and it offers some potential with a few of the stories, and well, a little concern for some of the others.
LOGIN
REGISTER
RSS
HOME
wtf!? a heroes review that thoughtfully examines character plot?! holy shiitake, batman! maybe theirs hope for this site yet!