The first half of the third season of Heroes, named Villains, is a decidedly
mixed affair that goes all over the place, but never really takes us anywhere. A
future Peter comes back in time to kill Nathan, which will hopefully stop him
from doing something really terrible. But a formerly dead Nathan miraculously
comes back to life and gets religion, as well as a new job as Senator. The
present day Peter is trapped in the body of a prisoner confined at the
Company--who winds up escaping with his fellow inmates, yet he dumbly doesn’t
make his own escape from them the first chance he gets. Sylar gets captured by
the company, who--in a pure, unbelievable soap opera twist--gets recruited into
becoming Noah’s partner (!), this after he violently attacks Claire and steals
her healing powers (!!), all while Matt Parkman is on a vision quest in Africa (!!!).
As if all of that wasn’t enough, the always dependable Ali Larter is now playing
a completely different character with a completely different power, yet she
still looks exactly like Nikki (and is constantly mistaken for Nikki by the
others). Dania Ramirez, who was introduced in the second season as the
sympathetic Maya, has been reduced to being Mohinder’s whiny girlfriend--while
Mohinder is busy doing his best impersonation of Jeff Goldblum from David
Cronenberg’s The Fly. The writers have even ramped up the antics of Angela
Petrelli, who’s now acting like a royal shrew, thanks to her backroom machinations of
Byzantine proportions. At least the writers didn’t forget Kristen Bell’s crazy
Elle from the second season, who gets a nice, unexpected storyline here when she
becomes Sylar’s partner in crime, as well as his lover (although they completely
forgot about Dana Davis' engaging character from the second season, Monica Dawson).
But the fact that Nathan spends the better part of the first half of the third
season speaking with the ghost of Linderman (Malcolm McDowell), a major villain
from the first season, is very telling. Linderman’s ghost turns out to be a
psychic manipulation on the part of the new villains, in an effort to make
Nathan go their way. But what doesn’t make sense is the fact that, if you want
to manipulate somebody in this manner, then why use their worst enemy to do so?
The tepid reusing of Linderman shows a reluctance on the part of the
writer/producers of Heroes to let go of their glorified past and try something
new. For example, Hiro went on a vision quest in ancient Japan, and now Parkman
must do the same thing in Africa, and the fact that Parkman chooses a turtle as
his spirit guide is symbolic of the sluggish pacing the show suffers in the
Villains storyline overall.
But, once the sturdy Robert Forster (Jackie Brown) takes the stage as the central
baddie, things begin to pick up very nicely. And when we begin the Fugitives
storyline in the second half of the season, things improve greatly. The
Fugitives story is a good, straight-forward Hitchcockian thriller where the
Heroes are fighting a much different villain this time: the United States
government, who has become paranoid about these super powered freaks wandering
around unchecked. The superb Zeljko Ivanek, who appears as Danko, the government
black ops agent in charge of hunting down the heroes, becomes the chief villain
this time out, and he’s a great choice. Ivanek brings a realistic sense of
menace to his character, without becoming a cardboard cutout. It’s also fun to
see Sylar--now refreshingly free of the soapy machinations from the first half
of the season--finally unleashed in his full fury as a total badass, and Zachary
Quinto is marvelous here.
Unfortunately, as good as the Fugitives storyline is, it’s still saddled with
its own problems (not the least of which is the lame ending). The first
season of this series was so brilliant that it raised the bar for television fantasy
shows in the same way that The Dark Knight raised the bar for superhero movies.
But while that fabulous first season may well be a tough act to follow, it's hard to cut
the Heroes writing staff some slack because we know what greatness they are truly
capable of. However, thanks to the sympathetic--and marvelous--cast, it’s
hard to take your eyes off of this series. It’s technical brilliance, along with
its excellent and non-intrusive special effects, are greatly detailed in the DVD
box set in some nice special features--which also has some entertaining and
enlightening commentaries on every single episode. Writing-wise, the third
season of Heroes may not be on par with the amazing first season, but it’s still an
entertaining ride nonetheless.
--SF
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