HEROES
Season 3 Episode 2
Volume Three: “Villains”
Chapter Two: “The Butterfly Effect”
Written by Tim Kring
Directed by Greg Beeman
(WARNING: SPOILERS)

“You have no idea of the fire that you’re playing with. You don’t screw with time.”
-- Mama P

Say what?! (In reaction to Mama P’s big cliffhanging reveal, and not the quote above.)
Urrrr… this better be some cockamamie scheme on Mama P’s part, ‘cause if not, why are we dipping into hackneyed soap opera territory? (Wasn’t Peter’s amnesia last season bad enough?)
And while I’m happy to see a bigger role for Mama P, given that she’s now in charge thanks to the Company’s chain of command, I am terribly disappointed that Bob has now suffered one of those thankless Heroes deaths: blink, and the character’s history. (And it happens off-screen to boot.)
And now poor Elle’s out of a job… but only after she inadvertently causes the escape of about a dozen powered lowlifes from Level 5 (when she lets out a massive electrical discharge as Sylar is cutting her head open, she causes the power grid to go down, and presto, escaped supervillains).


That escape gets Mr. B out as well, and he runs off into the night, but only after ensuring Sylar’s confinement (which Mama P looks about to rescind, thanks in part to the reveal that, gasp, he’s her son!).
Sigh.
As I said though, maybe this is Mama P trying to manipulate Sylar into doing her bidding, by giving him a mother figure by claiming to be his real mother.
Gods, I hope so.


So Mr. B heads back home, to have a brief reunion with Claire, and is set to go off again, to take down the Level 5 escapees.
But not before he brings back Claire’s pyrokinetic bio-mom Meredith, to keep his family safe.
Hurrah!
And I say that without sarcasm, as, honestly, this was one of the few high points of the episode. I just hope that Meredith is on the level here, ‘cause she did seem a tad mercenary the last time we saw her…

Oh, and one of the Level 5 escapees, Jesse Murphy (played in a little bit of stunt casting by Veronica Mars alum, Francis Capra), is where scarred Peter-from-the-future “put” the real Peter. (Does Future Boy feel like such a d!ck now, or what? Is a portion of Volume Three basically just cleaning up the idiot mess he caused by gunning down Nathan, while the other is cleaning up Hiro’s idiot mess?)
So now Capra gets to share screen time with Milo Ventimiglia in the role of supervillain on the lam (does Capra get half a paycheck then?)
Jesse’s power: sound manipulation.


And my mention of The Fly in response to Mo’s totally irresponsible “oh, I’ll inject myself with an untested compound because I am so conflicted and tortured right now” moment?
Well, what do we have here but a scene straight out of Cronenberg’s remake, where a shirtless Mo is hanging off the rafters, then does some wall-climbing? He then makes the moves on Maya, who succumbs to his shirtless charms, and ends up in bed with him.
Of course, he wakes up in the middle of the night, and, well, he seems to be… flaking. Or something.
You know, he’s looking in the mirror, very Fly-like, and there are some odd looking patches of skin on his back that are coming off.
Sigh.
So we’re raiding soap operas and sci fi remakes.


Meanwhile, Nathan’s Linderman appears to be a figment of his imagination.
Gods, Nathan is certifiable.
Either that or Linderman (who is supposed to be dead) is just invisible to everyone else, but that’s just plain silly, right?
Heh.
Nathan, by the way, takes the offer for the junior Senator seat, provided Tracy-who-looks-exactly-like-Nikki will be on his team.


Oh, and Tracy-who-looks-exactly-like-Nikki? Well, she apparently has the power to instantaneously deep freeze anyone she touches, and of course, when a human insta-popsicle falls to the ground, the body shatters, leaving itty bitty bits of bloody ice all over the place.
Ick.
(The poor sap who gets the messy death? The Greatest American Hero himself, William Katt! Stunt casting, hurrah!)

And Parkman?
‘Ported to Africa, where he meets Usutu (Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine), who knows Parkman’s name, and claims that he shouldn’t be there, and that this is not the future he painted.
Another Isaac?
Oh, and Usutu is apparently the one who painted that cracking globe symbol which Parkman saw in the previous episode.
(And why hasn’t anyone wondered what happened to Parkman? Has no one noticed that’s he’s gone missing?)


Hiro (I’m the idiot who’s responsible for that dangerous half-formula being stolen by some super-speedster, and can’t I see that how I’m treating Ando could very well turn him against me?) Nakamura on the other hand, has a plan to track Daphne the super-speedster and catch her before she steals the other half of the formula.
Fine, let’s see how that pans out, though why do I get the feeling that won’t work out too well either?


Claire, meanwhile, realizes that she now can feel no pain, which troubles her deeply since, despite her extraordinary regeneration, what kept her grounded and human before was the fact that she could still feel pain.
Now, while I admit that’s an interesting turn of events, the “attempt #7” scene is curiously lacking in the emotional weight department. I’m not sure if the greenscreen is totally to blame (as such shots always seem to be bereft of any genuine tension due to their artificiality), but it certainly doesn’t help any.

Meanwhile, Mama P has a disturbing (and rather comic book-y) dream where some of the heroes are shown being defeated/killed by a bunch of baddies, which include Nikki (or whatever the hell her name is) and Parkman Sr.


Well, I can’t say that that was significantly better than the first hour, and I have to say that this troubles me a bit.
After the largely slapdash and compromised affair that was Volume Two, I had hoped that this third volume would waste no time and from the opening, immediately detonate at ground zero and recapture the glory of the golden age of Heroes (back in Season 1, when Bryan Fuller was still in the house).
Sadly, that didn’t happen.
There are still too many characters running about, and worse, some of them are acting rather idiotically, apparently just to kick-start some subplots.
And then there’s that whole Sylar-as-long-lost-Petrelli-son reveal.
Urg.


Well, hope springs eternal, and there’s always next week for another shot at redemption…

Parting shot: In the lag between the time the premiere aired, I got to see it and wrote this review, and today, when I finally got to post the review, news broke regarding the “letting go” of Heroes co-executive producers Jeph Loeb and Jesse Alexander. (Details here and here.)
As much as this came as a shock, how this will affect the show is also at the forefront of my mind.
It has already been indicated that Kring will be “simplifying” the storytelling, and “refining the tone of the show.” There’s also a bit about—thank Heavens—“emphasiz[ing] character development more than plot twists.”
I imagine the exact repercussions of this sudden shake-up will become evident sometime in the second half of the current season, during Volume Four (reportedly titled “Fugitives”).
Though it does seem like Loeb and Alexander have been shafted—and who exactly did the shafting is up for debate—this does present yet another opportunity for the show to clean up its act (if Loeb and Alexander were indeed the problematic pieces in the Writers’ Room).
Like I said, hope springs eternal. Let’s see, shall we?

(Images courtesy of comicbookresources.com, gregbeeman.blogspot.com, and eonline.com.)

HEROES
Season 3 Episode 1
Volume Three: “Villains”
Chapter One: “The Second Coming”
Written by Tim Kring
Directed by Allan Arkush
(WARNING: SPOILERS)

So.
If it’s one of the things that would occasionally irk me about Heroes, it would be those scattershot episodes where so much was going on in the 40+ minute running time that the hour would end up featuring a host of headless chickens running about, and would ultimately feel unsatisfyingly choppy.
Well, despite creator Tim Kring being in the writer’s seat for this first half of the Season 3 2-hour opener, this is one of those squawking, stutter-skip chapters.


I’ll give Kring props for the reveal that the gunman who took down Nathan at Volume Two’s close is a scarred Peter from 4 years in the future, who’s about to actually be killed by that future’s Claire, before he ‘ports back and guns Nathan down.
And though that does open up a whole new can of worms, it’s still probably the best idea here…


I guess the hugest letdowns would have to be the Hiro-Mo double header of “how irritatingly stupid can you get?”
Hiro, despite being told by Papa Sulu (via pre-recorded DVD message) not to open a safe containing a secret that could destroy the world (why couldn’t it have been a nice secret?), does exactly that, because he’s bored, only to have that secret—one-half of a formula; could it be the very formula Mo uses to come up with his magic syringe? More on that later—stolen by some speedster (Brea Grant).
The annoyingly impulsive time-traveling idiot—did he not learn anything from Volume Two?—then travels to the future, to see how the formula destroys the world. And there, not only does he witness betrayal at the hands of a powered Ando, but also the apparent destruction of Tokyo.
So he returns to the present, now suspicious of Ando, and sets off on his newfound quest (a quest he’d never had to have gone on in the first place if he’d only listened to Papa Sulu) to retrieve the half-formula.
Idiot.


Mo, meanwhile, apparently having grown tired of the Two Men and a Molly sitcom, shunts Molly off to God knows where (this happens off-screen, and we’re never really told exactly where she was tossed; Maya just claims that the youngster’s unfindable and safe now).
He’s then about to go jetting back to India (gods, does this man have no conviction?) when Maya almost does him in with her bleeding eyes bit, though she calms down before anything permanent happens.
This serves up a “Eureka!” moment for Mo, and he realizes that the key to the powers are in the adrenal glands, and not the blood, as postulated by Papa Suresh.
So he tests his theories, and voila, cobbles up a serum in a syringe that he claims will give a normal human powers! (So much for trying to figure out how to take away Maya’s powers… Couldn’t he have just tweaked one of those Company serums which could take away powers, like the one they used on Nikki last season? Make one that didn’t have that nasty side-effect of a little case of death?)
And after rambling on about breakthroughs and quantum leaps in science and the advancement of the species and “if only I had powers I might have been able to save my father,” Maya realizes that Mo could be getting that Mad Doctor gleam in his eye, and tells him to destroy whatever’s in the syringe.
We see idiot Mo at the docks, torn, about to toss the syringe into the sea (where it could have ended up being washed ashore somewhere and shot up by some poor addled junkie). But of course, we all know he’ll inject himself with it, and he does.
And he’s about to get rolled by some punks, when he displays some superhuman strength (he crushes a punk’s gun), and does an athletic flip to his feet.
So now he’s got powers, despite the wholly irresponsible way in which he got them. (Did this man not see The Fly? Nothing good can come out of self-experimentation. And did he not hear a word of what Maya said?)
Idiot.


There are a number of other bits in here that are also rather annoying.
We learn that Sylar doesn’t eat his victims’ brains, but just seems to study them, looking for a particular part of the brain, and somehow absorbing his victims’ powers that way.
That in itself isn’t annoying.
Rather, it’s how exactly did Sylar find Claire in Costa Verde? Why did Claire think that doing the Halloween bit and hiding in a closet would keep Sylar out? And why the hell didn’t he just TK the damned closet doors open?
And of course, Sylar figures out his next step by rifling through some very important-looking files that Mr. Bennett left behind, which are now in a conveniently-labeled box on the kitchen counter.
Ay, madre de Dios!


At any rate, we find out that Claire is different and special, and that she may very well be immortal, as Sylar apparently now is, as well (having successfully absorbed her powers).
We also find out that Linderman is alive, and is responsible for healing Nathan (yes, Nathan doesn’t die here, just as he didn’t die as a result of Volume One’s cliffhanger).
We also find out that someone who looks exactly like Nikki/Jessica (yes, Ali Larter is still in the building), yet named Tracy, is showing interest in the revived Nathan (who’s now spouting some blather about divine intervention and being God’s angel). Naturally, we first see this Tracy person wearing some sexy bedroom thingie.
Sigh.


And we have the scarred Peter-from-the-future somehow shunting the real Peter’s consciousness into some powered goon who’s incarcerated in Primatech’s Level 5.
At least, I think that’s what happened.
But if so, where’s the real Peter’s body?
And why is Mr. B in a cell? I was led to believe that at the end of Volume Two, he returned to the Company’s fold, in his previous capacity of operative.
What gives?


I was happy to see Cristine Rose though, and Mama P reveals that her power was indeed the dream bits, which Peter inherited.
Confronting the scarred Peter-from-the-future (who gunned down Nathan because supposedly, that moment when the world was told about the existence of powered individuals, was the moment his future went to sh!t), Mama P claims that now, this is a different timeline, all thanks to scarred Peter-from-the-future’s shooting of Nathan.
Hrrmmm.

I was also happy to see Ashley Crow, though that was for the briefest of moments, as she enters with Lyle to find a bloodied Claire…
Hopefully we see more of her in the second hour.

Oh, and Parkman gets ‘ported off (by scarred Peter-from-the-future) to some out-of-the-way wilderness with an apparently new Heroes–related symbol, which appears to be a globe that’s cracking, or breaking, with stuff gushing out of it.
We also see that symbol as graffiti in the Mo-gets-powers scene.


I dunno. There’s a lot in this hour that doesn’t feel right somehow.
Part of it is the sheer number of characters battling it out for screen time, yes, but I think part of it is the writing too.
I can’t recall a single moment here that can come close to many of the truly excellent and moving bits in the Heroes pilot. The Tim Kring that wrote that chapter doesn’t seem to be the same Tim Kring who wrote this one.
And, overused as it is, I love Yeats’ “The Second Coming,” but here, it just seems like the easy, lazy way out.
Why couldn’t we have just had one of Mo’s poignant voice-overs instead? (I am aware there are some critics of those bits, though I’m generally not one of them.)

At any rate, I’m looking forward to the second half of the season opener, if only because I’m hoping things pick up considerably, and the show gets back on track…

(Images courtesy of comicbookresources.com, ew.com, latimes.com, and gregbeeman.blogspot.com.)

AFTERTHOUGHTS (51)

51.1 THUS ENDETH THE STRIKE
So the count last Tuesday night: 3,492 to 283, in favour of ending the strike during the ratification process.
It’s officially over and the writers can get back to work Wednesday. Some, in fact (like the writers for the upcoming Oscar night) were already in the thick of things late Tuesday night.
Now, as the two week ratification of the proposed three-year deal takes place (votes for that to be tallied on February 26), Hollywood gets back into the swing of things, which leads us rather neatly to…

51.2 REVVING THE POST-STRIKE ENGINE (1)
LOST
Showrunner Carlton Cuse has already made the announcement that they’re aiming to come up with 5 post-strike episodes, so this season will end with 13 episodes.
Intending to wrap the season up at the same narrative point it was originally supposed to end at, there will be some storyline compression required. Hopefully, that won’t have an adverse effect on the story’s rhythm. And hopefully, writers, cast, and crew won’t run themselves ragged to get those episodes ready to keep the consecutive airing of Lost an on-going concern.
Cuse also indicated that the 3 AWOL episodes (since season 4 was meant to be comprised of 16 installments) will pop up somewhere down the road, so we’re still going to get the same number of Lost episodes we were meant to get, before the strike stepped on the brakes.
In an ABC press release, the network has also announced it’s picking up Lost for a fifth season, though I’m uncertain if that season kicks off this Fall, or will have a delayed start date, as per the current season.

PUSHING DAISIES
In the same ABC press release, Pushing Daisies was also announced as having been picked up for a second season.
Thus, there will be no more episodes beyond the 9 pre-strike installments for the current season.

CHUCK
NBC’s Chuck is also expected to return in the Fall, so the first season topped off at 13 pre-strike episodes.

HEROES
Meanwhile, Volume Two’s 11 episodes are pretty much Season 2.
Volume Three: “Villains” will presumably kick off Season 3 when Heroes returns in the Fall.
In preparation, Tim Kring is reportedly getting busy on a series Bible, an always indispensable tool for shows like Heroes.

So with the picket signs being put aside, I’ll be having irregular updates for any strike-affected projects that are on my radar (like the Justice League film) as reports and announcements are made.

Let’s all breathe a huge sigh of relief that it’s over, and that apparently, the writers got a deal they can call a triumph.
Admittedly, not the total victory they were first targetting (reality and animation writers—who have been likened to the sweatshop equivalents of the Hollywood writers world—are still not covered by the guild, one of the aims the WGA had hoped to achieve), but the strides forward in new media seem to be cause to cheer.

Now let’s all hope the upcoming SAG negotiations don’t run into any speed bumps…

(Images courtesy of variety.com [WGA strike is over]; impawards.com [Lost]; avclub.com [Pushing Daisies]; aintitcool.com [Chuck]; and yahoo.com [Heroes].)

HEROES
Season 2
Volume Two: “Generations”
Chapter Eight: “Four Months Ago…”
Written by: Tim Kring
Directed by: Greg Beeman
(WARNING: SPOILERS)

Okay, for an episode designed to answer most of the questions that have piled up since the season kicked off, this one still feels a tad scattershot—and this, with only two scenes of the Wonder Twins, an obligatory intro for Monica and Nana, and no Claire, Mo, Hiro, or Parkman—but hey, I’ll take it if only to get it out of the way, so we can forge on to the end of this volume.

And, in keeping with the spirit of getting things out of the way, we first see the Wonder Twins at Alejandro’s wedding, as he gets married to a girl who’s only too willing to cheat on him on their wedding night.
Already unhappy and suspicious of Alejandro’s blushing (yet skanky) bride, Maya catches her getting hot and heavy with someone other than Alejandro, thus triggering the first disastrous outburst of her power: everyone at the reception dies, except for Alejandro. Maya then runs away, saying she killed them all.
When next we see Maya, she’s become a nun, and Alejandro’s found her after months of being on the run. Everyone thinks she’s poisoned the wedding guests, and Alejandro’s actually turning her over to the policia, when her power kicks in. Alejandro does the “calmate” thing, and he realizes that, as Maya asserts, this is about the both of them, so, off the Wonder Twins run.

From the smallest portion of the episode, to the largest: Peter, and how he ended up amnesiac, in Ireland.
Kirby Plaza: Nathan zooms up into the night sky with a Peter-about-to-go-nuclear. Nathan’s already getting bad burns, and Peter—after a quick explanation as to why he suddenly can’t fly—makes his brother drop him, just before he explodes, blasting Nathan even further.
Before Toasty Nathan can go splat though, Peter (who can now, conveniently enough, fly) catches him and brings him to hospital. Guess who’s there: Bob, and Elle, who zaps Peter unconscious.
When Peter regains consciousness, Bob tells Peter he’s a friend of the elder Petrellis, and that he’s here to help Peter: 30 years ago, they discontinued work on a vaccine to eradicate powers. Now though, they’ve started the research up again, and Bob offers Peter the chance to live life without fear of harming anyone he loves ever again.
Peter bites.
After getting a haircut from the sociopathic Elle (who likes to get kinky with some jolts of electricity), Peter’s kept in a cell, given regular doses of a cocktail designed to suppress powers. One guess as to who’s the occupant of the adjacent cell.
Ding! Adam/Kensei! And wouldn’t you know it, but they’re actually able to communicate with each other! (Given how dangerous Adam is, shouldn’t he have been in solitary confinement? That’s bad enough, but to actually put anyone in the cell next to his! Gross criminal negligence. And they didn’t have the cells wired with surveillance equipment?! Man, I thought Bob was smart…)
So Adam gets to chit-chat with Peter, eventually winning him over and convincing him that Bob’s a baddie. And what seals the deal is when Peter makes a request to see his family, and Bob flat out refuses. To sweeten the get-away plan, Adam says he can cure Nathan’s burns with a small amount of his blood.
So Peter goes off his meds, and five days later, uses D.L.’s phasing ability to walk into Adam’s cell, then to walk on outta there with Adam.

Meanwhile, Monster Face Nathan’s confined to hospital, where Granny P is his constant companion.
Then, in a great scene (perhaps the best of the episode), Heidi—who’s now walking, thank you very much, the late Mr. Linderman—visits, and has an exchange with Granny P in the hall.
Nathan’s told her everything, about the powers, about the plan to let New York go ka-blooey, everything, so Granny P does spin control, and feeds her the same lies she told Peter, about the mental illness that runs in the Petrelli family, and that, quite obviously, Nathan’s got it too.
That scene between Cristine Rose and Rena Sofer blows everything else in this episode away. Granny P’s like this alluring black widow, spinning her web, hypnotic as she gets Heidi to tow the line. There’s such simple, yet awful menace in the way she touches Heidi’s arm…

After the breakout, Peter and Adam pay Nathan a visit, and Adam injects a syringe of his blood into Nathan’s IV. Immediately, Nathan’s burns begin to heal.
But the escapees have to book.
Adam has just given Peter the plane ticket to Montreal, when Elle and the Haitian catch up to them.
Elle zaps Peter in the back, setting his shirt on fire. Elle gives chase to Adam, while the Haitian goes after Peter.
Peter shrugs off the flaming shirt, and runs into a whole bunch of shipping containers. The Haitian corners Peter in one, easily overpowering him, since the Haitian nullifies any powered individuals in his vicinity. And since Granny P helped him once, now the Haitian does his best to return that favour: it’s his attempt to give Peter a new life, by taking away the memories of his old one, and leaving him shirtless, handcuffed, and amnesiac in an otherwise empty shipping container. (Oh, and he places his necklace around Peter’s neck.)
I guess he mush have a lot of faith in Peter, ‘cause, who’s to say that, shirtless, handcuffed, and amnesiac, he wouldn’t have starved to death in that shipping container?
And, since we don’t see any more of Adam, we can only assume he managed to get away from Elle. Or, gasp! The sociopath let him get away.
Also, whether or not Elle is Bob’s daughter is still up in the air.

In another Kirby Plaza aftermath scene, D.L. is saved from the gunshot wound of Season 1’s climax.
Concerned about their lack of medical insurance (Michael Moore, where are you now?), Niki is surprised to learn all the bills have been paid, by… Michael Moore?
No.
Bob.
Bob, who claims to be cleaning up the mess left by Linderman, and who offers Niki the chance to voluntarily enter a facility while she undergoes chemical suppression of her powers. At this point, Bob makes an interesting comment regarding how some people react to the reality of these powers: those unable to cope with the mental strain end up creating other personalities, as with Niki.
Niki’s hesitant to leave her family, but Bob warns the meds have some side effects. So Niki’s a lot logy, and when she can’t even smile at Micah’s 11th birthday—what’s the design on Micah’s cake? The 9th Wonders St. Joan cover!—she stops taking her meds.
And just when she’s about to start a new job at a car dealership, another personality pops up: Gina, who takes over and high-tails it to L.A.
Meanwhile, D.L. takes a job to make Micah proud: fire fighter! (Which was, I guess, preferable to D.L. over Micah’s birthday wish: for his family to be the Fantastic Four Minus One.)
There’s a minor tease at this point, as the audience is made to think, oh, is this how D.L. dies? In the line of duty?
But no.
D.L. tracks “Gina” down, and finds her in a club, where he takes her away from some scuzzy lowlife clubster, who shoots D.L. down in cold blood.
At the wake, we have the New Orleans crew making their brief appearance, where Nana offers Niki her help.
Bob also shows up, and exchanges a Meaningful Glance with Niki.

Okay, let’s see. Other than a few present day scenes: Nathan arriving at the pub in Ireland, the now-virused Niki being released back into society, and Peter and Adam in Montreal (which bookends the chapter, so that ostensibly, the entire episode is Peter using his power to heal the broken synapses so he can remember the past four months; of course, how he is also “remembering” things concerning the Wonder Twins and Niki is beyond me), that’s pretty much the episode.
So, while it does address some questions, it also quite obtrusively, ends up being a narrative bump, off-setting the momentum that Chapter Seven managed to build, as we’re made to sit through an hour of catch-up.
Yes, I absolutely loved the hospital scene between Granny P and Heidi, and yeah, Elle sure is one sick puppy, but the entire scenario of how Adam got to Peter and flipped him (and how Peter ended up in that shipping container) got way too incredulous for me.

But, like I said, now that that’s out of the way, let’s get back to the story as we rush on up to the last three chapters of the volume, and that alternate ending we’ve all been hearing about; see Afterthoughts (22).

(Behind the scene images courtesy of gregbeeman.blogspot.com; TV Guide Heroes cover art [3 of 4] by Michael Turner, courtesy of tvguide.com.)

AFTERTHOUGHTS (22)

22.1 So Heroes has experienced a 15% ratings dip. The confluence of that viewer slippage and the on-going WGA strike has already placed the spin-off series, Heroes: Origins, on the network shelf for the meantime; see Afterthoughts (21).
There’s another direct effect of these two hammer blows though that we’ll also be experiencing shortly.
As I’ve mentioned before, Volume Two: Generations, is comprised of 11 episodes, and that’s still on the table. What we will be seeing on December 3 though, will be a chapter that will sport an alternate ending from the one originally devised. The new ending will “function as a potential season finale,” and provide Heroes with “a clean slate” when it returns to production on Volume Three (the start date of which is entirely dependent on the length of the strike).
Aware of the dissatisfaction fans have expressed over the current season, Tim Kring replied: “The message is that we’ve heard the complaints—and we’re doing something about it.” (Read what else Kring has to say about Volume Two’s troubles here.)
So that’s good. Now we just have to get the networks and the studios to be fair with their writers, so this strike can be resolved, hopefully sooner than later.


22.2 And on that note…

“If this strike lasts longer than three months, an entire season of television will end this December. No dramas. No comedies. No “Daily Show.” The strike will also prevent any pilots from being shot in the spring, so even if the strike is settled by then, you won’t see any new shows until the following January. As in 2009. Both the guild and the studios we are negotiating with do agree on one thing: this situation would be brutal.”

That’s from a great New York Times op-ed piece (“Mourning TV”) by Lost showrunner Damon Lindelof. Read it in its entirety here.
And if you want to know more about the strike, check this blog out.
Again, here’s hoping this mess gets resolved fairly and quickly.

“Yes, I’m picketing my own show. So surreal.”
-- Heroes creator Tim Kring, from the picket line

(Images courtesy of unitedhollywood.blogspot.com [Sendhil Ramamurthy and Greg Grunberg on the picket line] and variety.com [Damon Lindelof and Desperate Housewives creator Marc Cherry on the picket line].)

HEROES
Season 2
Volume Two: Generations
Chapter Four: “The Kindness of Strangers”
Written by: Tim Kring
Directed by: Adam Kane
(WARNING: SPOILERS)

We rebound from the previous choppy, scattershot chapter to this more satisfying, lean and mean episode.
We drop the feudal Japan and the amnesiac Peter in Ireland subplots, and there’s also no sign of Niki working with Bob. And as the “Salvaje” clue did suggest, the powerless Sylar subplot oh-so-conveniently collapses into the Wonder Twins’ thread, as Maya, Alejandro, and the American kid-in-the-Mexican prison-whose-car-they’re-fleeing-in (aka Derek, played by TW Leshner, soon to be seen in the upcoming Timber Falls) almost run over a prostrate man lying in the middle of the road.
And yes, it’s Sylar, though he introduces himself as “Gabriel.”
Maya, trusting fool that she is, tells Sylar that they’re headed for New York too, since she needs to meet Papa Suresh, brandishing the book for Sylar to see. And when Sylar says that he knows Papa Suresh, Maya is overjoyed, while Alejandro is rightly suspicious.
At a stopover, Derek sees a newspaper with the police sketches of the Wonder Twins and calls Sylar over. Derek says, ironically, “There are murderers in the car.” Sylar tells Derek to call the cops while he keeps the Wonder Twins busy. But he instead picks up the brick that’s being used as a paperweight at the newsstand, and bashes poor Derek’s head in (off-camera).
Back in the car, Sylar confronts Maya with the paper, and when she says, “Yes, that’s us, but it wasn’t murder,” Sylar says, “Well, Derek’s calling the cops on you.” Maya freaks, and her bleeding-black tears-from-the-eyes power kicks in, and Sylar starts to die. But Alejandro does the whole “calmate” thing, and Sylar is saved. Shoot.
He now realizes that he’s in the car with two powered people. So he drives off, while the Wonder Twins think that they’re just ditching Derek, but who’s apparently dead, while a cockroach crawls over the bloodied brick.

Over in post-Katrina New Orleans, Micah is staying with his cousins Monica (Dana Davis, from TV’s The Nine and the upcoming Prom Night remake) and Damon (Carlon Jeffery), and their grandmother (or “Nana,” played by Nichelle Nichols, who we saw ever-so-briefly last episode).
Monica (who has quickly proven to be the most interesting new character this Volume) works at the Burger Bonanza, with high hopes to get her family out of the still-depressed area. But her hopes are dashed at every turn, and all the while, she slowly begins to realize that she is not exactly normal.
Apparently, her power is to insta-learn anything she sees, so she learns how to make a tomato flower and whoop a$$, Rey Mysterio-style, all from the TV. At this point, it’s unclear whether Monica can insta-learn anything she actually sees, or if the TV is the proper conduit. (Micah, her cousin, has an affinity with machines, after all.)

Meanwhile, in Costa Verde, Claire, mindful of her father, at first tries to distance herself from West. But flyboy is insistent and asks her out on a date, and, if she is unimpressed by it, promises to leave her alone.
So West ends up flying Claire to the Hollywood sign, where they sit and bond amidst some good blue screen (a lot better than last episode’s Japan stuff). Claire says stuff happened back in Odessa, and she’s not sure if she can really trust anyone anymore. West, of course, says learn to trust me. Jump off the sign. (Yeah, I say that to all the people I’d want trusting me too.)
And when Claire is convinced, she does so, and of course, flyboy catches her, and there’s a mid-air kiss.
When Claire gets back home, late, she and West realize that her excuse (library) isn’t going to hold water. So Claire, in getting Mr. B off the scent (he suspects it’s a boy), says she tried out for cheerleading. She then manages to convince Mr. B that this is something she needs (“one normal thing”). So Mr. B, poor schlub, relents, on the proviso that she doesn’t start dating anyone yet.
Claire, little liar, agrees.
Oh, and the Haitian shows up, presaged by the wind chimes, and says he has a lead on the other Isaac paintings. They’re headed to Odessa.
Texas, you ask?
Nope. The Ukraine.

Over with the Petrellis, Granny P confesses to having murdered Daddy Sulu, while the wounds she received in the attack two episodes ago appear to have been self-inflicted. It’s clear though that she’s covering something up. (Or perhaps protecting someone…)
Knowing Parkman is reading her mind, she “tells” him to just accept her statement and leave it alone, or everyone will find out about “us” and “what we can do.” (Note though that we have yet to see what Granny P’s power actually is…)
After a brilliant scene between Cristine Rose and Adrian Pasdar, Granny P’s handcuffed and wheelchaired out to the hoosegaw.
Meanwhile, Beardo Nathan first visits his two sons, and tells them their grandmother is in hospital and could use some cheering up. The pint-sized Petrellis don’t approve of Beardo Nathan, so he shaves off the facial hair in time to have his scene with Granny P before she is carted off by the fuzz.
Parkman enlists No-Longer-Beardo Nathan’s help by first revealing he can read people’s thoughts, then showing Nathan the death threats received by Daddy S and Granny P, which both came from a photograph Nathan recognizes. A photograph with his parents in it, that had some “ten, maybe twelve people.”
So let’s review. Daddy S said there used to be twelve, and now there are nine.
Check. Pop Petrelli, Charles Deveaux, and Linderman, casualties of Volume One.
Nine.
Daddy Sulu then does a pavement dive.
Eight left.
Now, when Nathan searches for the photograph, Parkman reveals that the ex-Mrs. Matt was actually pregnant with Matt’s scummy partner’s kid. (How this impacts on the “Five Years Gone” implication that Matt’s kid has powers remains to be seen.)
Then, when Nathan finds the photo, who should be in it as well but Bob, someone who may or may not be Joanna Cassidy, and… dan-da-da-daaan, Papa Parkman!
So Parkman takes the photo home and asks Molly to help him find Papa Parkman, who apparently stole a lot of money from some people, and abandoned his son when Matt was 13. But when Molly sees the photo (and somehow I saw this coming), she throws a hissy fit and refuses.
Papa Parkman is the Sauron baddie, whom Molly dubs “the Nightmare Man.”
Parkman, bull-head twit, tries to strong-arm Mo into making Molly find his MIA father, but in the end, it’s Molly who says, “Okay. I’ll help you find him.”
Molly does the stick pin-on-the-map thing and (yes, apparently we all see this coming except for idiot Matt) gets “caught” by the Nightmare Man, going into shock, while Parkman hears her screaming in his head.
To her credit (and Matt’s bone-headed prodding), Molly gets out city, apartment building, and room number, before she enters Catatonia City.
Repeat after me: Parkman is an idiot.
Oh, almost forgot. Somewhere along the way, Nathan sees Monster Face Nathan in the mirror…

So, I liked this chapter a lot (hey, Mrs. B and Mr. Muggles! Yahoo!), and Monica, as I mentioned above, is an interesting character being played ably by Davis. And though I could have done without the quick snippets of file footage of Katrina damage (which seemed a tad heavy-handed), Monica seems like a very real, honest character, with some nice rapport with Micah, so I’m looking forward to seeing where that subplot goes.
And then there’s Claire, who continues to be a rather substantial, involving character; I think this is the first time I’ve really been disappointed with her, because of that whole lie about not seeing any boy at the moment.
To be fair though, she was lied to for many a year by her adoptive father, so maybe she just sees this as a fair turn-around. And she of course has no idea about the 8th Isaac painting-yet-to-take-place. Though I do suspect that West (as far as the painting goes) is a red herring, and that shadowy someone with Claire is someone else altogether (my pet theory as to the killer’s identity).

I also enjoyed this episode since it feels the least-cluttered since the season began, so here’s hoping there’ll be more chapters like this to come.

(Images courtesy of comicbookresources.com; behind the scene images courtesy of gregbeeman.blogspot.com.)

HEROES
Season 2
Volume Two: Generations
Chapter One: “Four Months Later…”
Written by: Tim Kring
Directed by: Greg Beeman
(WARNING: SPOILERS)
(SERIOUSLY…)

“The sun rises on a new dawn, yet few of us realize the debt we owe to those responsible for this. To those who dwell among us, anonymous, seemingly ordinary, whom destiny brought together to repair, to heal, to save us from ourselves.”

So Season 2’s first salvo opens with a VO by Mo, and a montage of scenes from episodes past and presumably, future. (The final shot with Nathan is a doozy.)
Dang.
There goes my fervent wish that Season 2 would open with a shot of Claire finally doing some actual cheerleading…

As we play catch-up with our gang, Mo is doing a meagerly attended lecture tour, where he discusses the virus that took his sister’s life and almost did away with Molly as well, a disease that sounds like the Legacy Virus which first reared its ugly head in the X-Men comics and was showcased in the sad and sorry X-Men: The Last Stand.
At his Cairo stop, he is approached by the Company, who offer to fund his research. Here, we are introduced to perhaps the most intriguing new character of the episode, Bob, played by Stephen Tobolowsky (seen recently on HBO’s Deadwood), who apparently has the Midas touch.

Meanwhile, Parkman—having survived the four bullets of season 1’s finale—at long last gets his detective’s shield (utilizing his gift to help him pass his final test). He’s divorced now (I’m gonna miss Mrs. P, who should still be pregnant, wherever in the world she is; and as we discovered in “Five Years Gone,” Baby Parkman has some sort of power…) and playing Two Heroes and a Little Lady with Mo and Molly, the trio living in Mo’s apartment.
As all this domestic bliss is going on, Molly is having nightmares of that Sauron baddie she mentioned at the tail end of Season 1. (Said baddie even utters the oh-so-Sauron line, “I can see you…”) She’s drawing creepy kiddie pictures of eyes and that Heroes “godsend” sigil, and Parkman (and Molly’s teacher) are understandably worried.

Meanwhile still, while Daddy Sulu and Ando conduct a vigil at Kirby Plaza, waiting for Hiro to return, someone sends a death threat to Daddy Sulu.
Granny Petrelli also gets a similar death threat, right after she confronts a boozed-up and bearded Nathan—I knew that figure Ando bumped into seemed familiar—who apparently survived the Peter explosion, only to be left by his wife and kids. So he’s drowning away his sorrows, while seeing himself scarred and burned horribly in mirrors. (I guess with Niki in absentia, someone had to do the mirror thing…)
The subplot has a great scene between Daddy Sulu and Granny P atop the Deveaux building, and ends with Daddy Sulu apparently going splat on the sidewalk, without displaying any sort of power at all. (He says if he’s to fight, he would need a sword, which Ando dutifully scurries off to find, only to arrive just as the Mysterious Hooded Figure Known To Daddy Sulu pushes Daddy S off the rooftop. You’d think though that Daddy S would have been better prepared and have some sort of sword near him at all times… Or at the very least procured one on the way from Kirby Plaza to the Deveaux building.)

And meanwhile even more, the Bennets (now the “Butlers”) have moved to Costa Verde, California, where Claire has her first day of swimming in “the shark-infested waters of 11th grade.”
She’s told by Daddy B to keep her head down and to be completely anonymous and ordinary, understandably a very difficult thing, not just because of what she can do, but also because of her age. That sense of wanting to be the individual she so clearly is, but needing to appear mundane and mediocre (a “robot” instead of an “alien”) because the family is still on the run, is conveyed beautifully by Hayden Panettiere, and her scenes with Jack Coleman are some of the best the episode has to offer.
Daddy B is also bored and uppity at Copy Kingdom, where he’s no longer the Boss of himself, though he quickly addresses that concern…
We also get to see Lyle, Mrs. B (yay!), and Mr. Muggles (double yay!), himself also suffering in anonymity; in Costa Verde, no one knows he’s a champion. Poor Mr. Muggles…
As it turns out though, Mo’s lecture tour was designed to attract the Company’s attention, and the plan Mo and Mr. B have to bring down the Company kicks into gear when Mo takes the job offer.
But, unbeknowest to all, West (Nicholas D’Agosto; Election and Rocket Science), Claire’s classmate who seems to have an interest in our favorite Indestructible Cheerleader, can (gasp!) fly! Exactly the power Claire’s currently Boozed-Up BioDad has. Coinkydink? Hmmm…

All that, and we’re also introduced to siblings Maya (Dania Ramirez, from, hmmm, X-Men: The Last Stand) and Alejandro Herrera (Shalim Ortiz), who are apparently wanted for murder in San Cristobal, Honduras. They’re evading the authorities and trying to make their way to the United States, Papa Suresh’s book their only hope to help Maya, whose power seems to be uncontrollable and fatal, leaving corpses that appear to have bled from their eyes.

Oh, there’s also the Hiro subplot, which picks up—unlike the present, which does a four month leap forward—right where Season 1 left our lovable time- and space-bending geek, in feudal Japan, as he comes face-to-face with his hero, Takezo Kensei (Alias’ David Anders).
Sadly though, Kensei turns out not only to be a gaijin, but also a saki-swilling mercenary despised by the swordsmith’s daughter Yaeko (Eriko Tamura) who is supposed to be his One True Love.
Very quickly it becomes apparent that Hiro has to turn this lout into a hero and cause love to flourish between the two, or risk the integrity of future history.
Unfortunately, this subplot is the one that seems the most extraneous of this episode. I suppose that’s because, a) it doesn’t seem explicitly connected to all the other events unfolding, and b) it feels like familiar ground, the time traveler turning the historical figure into the one people will know in the future, as opposed to the fallible, and less-than-heroic schlep he finds.
I’ll give this subplot some leeway though, as a) hopefully, this will all connect with everything else later on, and b) I’m hoping they’re going to turn that familiar riff on its ear.

Of course, all this is going on, and we still haven’t seen hide nor hair of Micah (whom I miss) and Niki and D.L. (whom I don’t). I just hope that when they come on-board, the writers can juggle all of those plot balls without things getting too crowded.

Oh, and the cliffhanger?
It comes as no surprise (given that Milo Ventimiglia’s name was in the opening credits) that Peter—whom everyone thinks is dead—is actually still alive.
Of course, he apparently has amnesia (gasp!), got a haircut (double gasp!!), and lives chained up in an otherwise empty cargo container in Cork, Ireland. He’s also taken to wearing that snazzy Heroes sigil around his neck.
Repeat after me: Hmmmm…

Parting shot: A breakdown of this season’s schedule: the first 11 episodes in a row, then a month long break, the next 7 in a row, a 3-week break, then the final 6 episodes, followed by Heroes: Origins, the 6 episode spin-off which will introduce us to a half-dozen new characters. Origins episodes will be brought to us by such established names as Kevin Smith, Eli Roth, and Michael Dougherty. Boo-yah!
Also, when Origins was first announced, the intent was to do an American Idol, and get viewers to vote for their favorite character, who would then go on to become a Heroes regular in Season 3. I’m not certain that’s still exactly the way they’re gonna go with Origins, but that’s an interesting idea…

(Behind the scenes images courtesy of gregbeeman.blogspot.com.)

AFTERTHOUGHTS (8)

8.1 On the heels of major wins at this year’s Saturn Awards, Superman Returns, Battlestar Galactica, and Heroes are all nominees in several categories of the upcoming Constellation Awards, “…Canada's new set of annual science fiction awards, focused on rewarding excellence in science fiction film and television.”
This is a partial list of the nominees:

Best Male Performance in a 2006 Science Fiction Television Episode
Masi Oka, Heroes, “Genesis”

Best Female Performance in a 2006 Science Fiction Television Episode
Hayden Panettierre, Heroes, “Genesis”
Katee Sackhoff, Battlestar Galactica, “Torn”

Best Science Fiction Television Series of 2006
Battlestar Galactica
Heroes

Best Male Performance in a 2006 Science Fiction Film, TV Movie, or Mini-Series
Brandon Routh, Superman Returns
Clive Owen, Children of Men
Hugh Jackman, X-Men: The Last Stand
Hugo Weaving, V For Vendetta
Nathan Fillion, Slither

Best Female Performance in a 2006 Science Fiction Film, TV Movie, or Mini-Series
Julianne Moore, Children of Men
Kate Bosworth, Superman Returns
Maribel Verdu, El Laberinto Del Fauno (Pan’s Labyrinth)
Natalie Portman, V For Vendetta

Best Science Fiction Film, TV Movie, or Mini-Series of 2006
Children of Men
El Laberinto Del Fauno (Pan’s Labyrinth)
Superman Returns
V For Vendetta

Best Technical Accomplishment in a 2006 Science Fiction Film or Television Production
Battlestar Galactica, Visual Effects (Zoic Studios)
Children of Men, Cinematography (Emmanuel Lubezki)

Best Overall 2006 Science Fiction Film or Television Script
Children of Men (Alfonso Cuaron, Timothy J. Sexton, David Arata, Mark Fergus, & Hawk Ostby)
Heroes, “Six Months Ago” (Aron Eli Coleite)
El Laberinto Del Fauno (Guillermo Del Toro)

Outstanding Canadian Contribution to Science Fiction Film or Television in 2006
Battlestar Galactica
Evangeline Lilly

Check out the Constellation Awards website for the complete list of nominees.
Winners will be determined by the Canadian viewing public, so all you Canadians out there, go vote for your favorite SF TV shows and films.

8.2 Meanwhile, on the good ship Galactica, apparently, whatever comments Edward James Olmos made at this year’s Saturn Awards night, they aren’t an “official” announcement of the series’ end. Executive producer David Eick made his own statement, and promises the public “… that when [executive producer] Ron [Moore] and I make a decision about Galactica's future, we'll let you know."
Okay. Breathing a little easier now.

8.3 Hey! There’s gonna be a Heroes World Tour before the second Volume kicks off this fall. To emphasize the global scope of Volume Two (“Generations”), the Heroes cast will be globe-trotting to promote the show, and presumably, work to broaden Heroes’ already impressive fan base.
Awesome!

8.4 And, in some other Heroes news: spin-off, people!
Not only is NBC ponying up for a world tour, they’re putting together a 6-episode mini-series, Heroes: Origins.
Origins will introduce a new character each week, and then, in an interactive twist, the audience will then get to vote for their favorite character, who will graduate to the third Volume of Heroes.
It’s like American Idol with superpowers!
That bit of news also had an interesting revelation. They’re already pegging a third season.
Origins will air during the mid-season hiatus of Heroes, so as to avoid those dreaded re-runs. With 24 chapters in Volume Two, plus the half-dozen Origins episodes, that’s an even 30 hour-long doses of Heroes coolness starting this fall. (Read about it here.)
I’ll say it again: Awesome!

AFTERTHOUGHTS (6)

6.1 Congratulations to Hayden Panettierre, who graduated high school at the tail end of shooting for Heroes’ first season. So there was a special graduation ceremony during the Heroes’ wrap party, with series creator Tim Kring presenting Hayden with a diploma from Heroes High.
I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again. Hayden is hands down one of the best of the Heroes ensemble, no mean feat, that, and she’s not even at the legal drinking age!

6.2 Well, it’s a pleasant surprise, I’ll say that much.
I’m referring to the announcement (at variety.com) that Lost will run for 3 more seasons, then wrap in 2010. What, with all the doomsayer talk of plunging ratings, a part of me was psyching itself out for the possibility that Lost would take its bow at the end of season 4 (or at least till it hit its 100th episode, as I recall one of the key creators once pointed that out as a nice round number to aim for as the show’s end).
According to the deal struck between Damon Lindelof, Carlton Cuse, and the ABC bigwigs, there will be 3 more, shortened seasons (16 episodes each), to be aired without repeats (as per 24). That makes 48 episodes, plus the final 4 for this season, so we’ve got 52 more episodes to go, people.
That’ll be a grand total of 119 episodes, nearly an entire season over the 100 mark. Brilliant.

6.3 Returning to Heroes, in case you guys didn’t know, Alex Maleev did the art for the paintings Sylar made after absorbing poor Isaac’s power. Like Tim Sale (who is the artist responsible for Isaac’s paintings and 9th Wonders art), Maleev is a comic book artist perhaps most widely known for a critically-acclaimed run on Daredevil.

(Image courtesy of comicbookresources.com.)

HEROES Season 1 Episode 18 (WARNING: SPOILERS)
“Parasite”

That is such an evil cliffhanger to leave us with for five weeks! Evil!!!
Not only is HRG in a whole heap’a trouble, but Mo’s stuck to the ceiling, and Peter’s getting his head sliced open by Sylar…
But hey, there’s all that good stuff too.
I’ve loved Mrs. B and Mrs. P since the get-go, but this episode just cements the deal. Finally, HRG lets Mrs. B in on the secret, and she doesn’t cave. Finally, he’s got an ally close to home. But given that Thompson’s on to him, I gotta wonder if maybe Mrs. B is in some hot water too.
And Mrs. P. Bosom buddies with the Haitian. Who’d’a thunk? And that scene between Claire and Mrs. P (or should that be Grandma P?). This is brilliant television, people!
All that and Ando’s back! (Of course, he and Hiro are in post-explosion NY, but hey, at least Hiro’s teleporting again. And he’s taking passengers now!)
There’s also a new b*tch on the block, in the (ever-)shifting form of Stick It’s Missy Peregrym. Jury’s still out on whether I’m happy with this new character or not.
What I am stoked about in terms of new additions to the cast is Malcolm freakin’ McDowell as Mr. Linderman! And he cooks too!
Just as I’m curious what Mrs. P is up to chit-chatting with the Haitian, I’m also wondering what Linderman’s game really is. Linderman knows a lot. And he’s got Felicity’s Javier (Ian Gomez) as a curator. And did I mention? He cooks!
Man, this is such a cool TV show.

Parting shot: Tim Kring indicates that “[Heroes is] a little more the 24 model than the Lost model.” Interesting choice, that. To make each season a self-contained story, adding new characters to the sprawling global phenomenon of people discovering they are now no longer as ordinary as they’d once thought.
I think there’s a certain sense of security that this kind of template gives to the audience, who can look forward to a story with a beginning, middle, and end, each season, as opposed to a serialized story that continues from one season to the next. It also affords the show’s writers fresh avenues to explore with each new season.
Of course, the trick here would be to ensure that the new characters to be introduced are just as interesting as the original group are (or were, as the show’s creative team seems to imply there may be at least one more death before episode 23 comes to its conclusion).
Well, all in good time. 5 weeks, then 5 more episodes.

Till then,
Are you on the list?