Yesterday's episode was kind of heartbreaking. Noah and Daphne's death were really sad and poignant in a rip your heart out kind of way and I really felt for Sylar, Matt and Molly.

Ando and Hiro and Usutu...

And I kind of don't like Tracy Strauss. Nikki was a much "warmer" character...

Future Claire

Hayden rocks!

Milo Ventimiglia... In such a short time he became such an awful actor. Awful.

BTW, I forgot I loved Ali Later as the future Jackie O, together with that white outfit and glasses.

Milo is a very limited actor. He was dreadful on gilmore girls, subpar on american dreams, horrid on the bedford show, and okay on heroes only in a limited role mostly supported by the fine actors around him.

"Heroes" managed only a 5.0/7, its smallest rating ever for a new episode.

My jaw dropped with little Noah died and then it dropped even further will Sylar will KABOOOOOM!!!!!

Yesterday's episode was kind of heartbreaking. Noah and Daphne's death were really sad and poignant in a rip your heart out kind of way and I really felt for Sylar, Matt and Molly.

Well, Noah isn't dead. In present day, he hasn't even been born.

So much word from Matt Roush:

Question: Care to weigh in on Heroes? Do you find it quite mediocre in comparison to former times? With an arc entitled "Villains," one would expect a juxtaposition of good versus bad with the introduction of a series of antagonists. But I think the writers would rather have us care about Peter being trapped in Weevil's body (forgetting that Peter has spent the last year being an annoying amnesiac) than working on the themes of heroism the show has been so sorely lacking for a while now. In its defense, I'm enjoying what they're doing with Hiro and his speedster nemesis Daphne. And speaking of bad blood, Cristine Rose was the single best thing about the premiere! But there are still many holes. Doesn't Sylar's acquiring Claire's ability not undermine the "save the cheerleader, save The World" principle we were working with in season one? Wasn't the whole point of saving the cheerleader so that Sylar wouldn't become unkillable? I guess they can pin it on the so-called "Butterfly Effect" (aka scapegoat). And the insertion of Ali Larter's new personality presents us with yet another unrelatable character on the show, which doesn't help. I wish the writers would start delivering introspections into their vast array of characters and return to the stepping-stone approach of telling a story about normal individuals ascending a path to heroism, rather than simply having a load of action figures pointing at each other. — Chris

Matt Roush: To be honest, even at those times when I've enjoyed the show, I've found it to be mostly mediocre in its writing and acting, including during the overrated first season. (Production values, that's another story.) I'm not hating the "Villains" arc because I've come to peace with Heroes being a flashy but rather hollow live-action comic book that so breathlessly churns out plot it leaves little space for the kind of introspective depth — and Mohinder's hopelessly pretentious voice-overs don't count — you seem to desire. I'm enjoying Hiro's pursuit of his "nemesis" Speedster and all of the foreshadowing of his possible-future estrangement with his sidekick Ando, but otherwise, it's the same old jumble I could never understand the popularity of in the first place. This is a show with such arbitrary plotting that I can't even begin debating issues about who lives, dies and are resurrected and what it means for whoever to possess whatever powers they have at the moment. I truly do believe this is one of those shows that makes it up as it goes, which can make for a fun if incoherent ride. For the moment, I'm just settling on the "fun" part and refuse to take any of it very seriously.

And I kind of don't like Tracy Strauss. Nikki was a much "warmer" character...

I do think Nikki was really human and very relatable as a "downtrodded" mother sort of way. However I do feel for Tracey. I feel for her because of the fact that she is alone and has no one who really cares for her. She is so isolated and alone and she is soo scared and depressed. I think I feel more for her then I do for Nikki because of the fact that this woman has no one at all to support, help or love her. I think they have done a great job introducing her character and developing her so far. She isn't in your face. She is barely on but when she is on we slowly grow to relate and understand her.

The only draw back to this is that I feel that they killed off Nikki/Jessica (who was a character we had ties with for two seasons) who was a main character and they just killed her off for no reason. Kring just gets too kill happy.

Milo is a very limited actor. He was dreadful on gilmore girls, subpar on american dreams, horrid on the bedford show, and okay on heroes only in a limited role mostly supported by the fine actors around him.

I think he has charisma and I think he is able to play likeable roles really well. However I don't think he does well with depth at all. He is fine with the stuff they provided for him in season one.

This episode was the worst for me. I watched an hour of this and felt nothing afterward.

We don't know why Future Claire is so bitter.

We don't know why Angela gave Sylar up for adoption.

We don't know why Present Peter really needed Sylar's power. Seeing how something "ticks" doesn't necessarily mean that he can prevent the Butterfly Effect, which is ALREADY a ball that's rolling.

We don't know what the hell is the point of Matt in Africa. Some random gibberish about a "spirit walk" does not equal a story. We found out in one episode that Matt somehow falls in love and forms a family with Daphne, and watched Daphne die.

I can understand that Season 2 lacked "adrenaline", but this is the complete opposite end of the spectrum because this adrenaline-paced churning through plot is leaving no time for the character development and introspection that I loved in Season 1.

Linderman's ramblings make no sense. I can't figure out the relevance of any of Mohinder's quotes and monologues.

Season one had adrenaline but we KNEW the destination: Save the cheerleader, save the world. Sylar's the bad guy, everyone had to come together and play a part to prevent Sylar's victory and Claire's potential death. With Season 2 with the virus, we could see the bigger picture in that Claire needed to be saved to continue on and be a key to a potentially deadly virus. Season three..... IS she saved if Sylar took her ability to not die? They are playing this confrontation as "Claire's rape" and it's turned her darker, but the whole episode that just aired didn't even feature Present Claire, it featured Future Claire who is mercilessly trying to kill (and torture!) her uncle Peter.

All the jumping from the future to the past to the present isn't making for storytelling to follow easily, when you have several versions of the same characters overlapping in different times. Future Claire killed Future Peter, but Present Peter who was in the future traveled to meet Future Sylar and took his ability (but still had to ask? Since when?!) in order to be able to go to the past and prevent the butterfly effect from sabotaging the future.

At least in previous seasons when an episode was told "out of time", set in the future or the past, the entire episode and all its characters, were told in that time in a bubble, and the episode stood alone, as foreshadowing, or an explanation through flashback of what led the characters to the point they are at. But jumping back and forth through time with half the episode taking place in the present, and half in the future is just too confusing. And seeing Mohinder being a mess under a dark cloak in this future can't help but remind me that in Season 1's future episode, Mohinder was a very-well-put-together advisor to the president... who turned out to be Sylar... who had killed Nathan and held office under Nathan's identity. But NOW the future is that Mohinder's a mess in seclusion, Peter kills Nathan because of "the hunger" and Sylar is a susie homemaker with Mr. Muggles and a little son named after Noah Bennet?! HUH?!

Matt can see the future by listening to a set of old headphones? WHAT?!

Some of the Heroes were born that way, and others were MADE?! WHAT?!

Tracy was one of three triplets, all experimented on and separated at birth, Niki, Tracy, and Barbara?! What the hell happened with Jessica, who I thought was always supposed to have been Jessica's twin, looking like her (in a picture of them as young girls) and born around the time Niki would have been born (according to Jessica's headstone). So Jessica was an adopted sister?! Who the hell is Barbara?! Is she the next role for Ali Larter when the producers tire of Tracy and kill her off too?

Hiro's mission for Angela involves digging up Adam Monroe who KILLED his father and plotted to kill Angela?! Who in hell out of any of them would think it was a good idea to dig him up?

In the beginning, I loved Heroes because everything seemed DELIBERATE and carefully plotted. You knew the end result, the fascination was the journey of getting there, and the twists and turns along the way. By now, Heroes seems made up as it goes along, and I don't know WHAT we're supposed to be working towards. Save the world? Prevent the formula halves from coming together? Get the formula halves together to reverse Mohinder's condition or cure Maya? Stop or reverse the butterfly effect and go back to before Sylar took Claire's ability to heal? Save Daphne from dying in the future? Re-capture all the released prisoners from Level 5? Take down The Company? What is Nathan's story again? Stay in office or not stay in office? Continue trying to be president, or give up politics? Sleep with Tracy or don't? Is Nathan going to sleep his way through all the Ali Larter characters?

There is no clear objective this season just a jumble of mysterious agendas and ever-changing rules and I have no idea who or what I'm rooting for.

I do think Nikki was really human and very relatable as a "downtrodded" mother sort of way. However I do feel for Tracey. I feel for her because of the fact that she is alone and has no one who really cares for her. She is so isolated and alone and she is soo scared and depressed. I think I feel more for her then I do for Nikki because of the fact that this woman has no one at all to support, help or love her. I think they have done a great job introducing her character and developing her so far. She isn't in your face. She is barely on but when she is on we slowly grow to relate and understand her.

The only draw back to this is that I feel that they killed off Nikki/Jessica (who was a character we had ties with for two seasons) who was a main character and they just killed her off for no reason. Kring just gets too kill happy.

You make some very good points!

I think Kring gets "too kill happy" partly because of an advice Damon Lindelof gave him: Don't be afraid to kill people off. And I totally agree with it and that's one of the reasons I started that thread about character saturation.

As for Milo, I just think he kind of over-acts in a terrible sort of way. His grimaces, the way he pronounces his lines... It's all so silly. Instead of believing in his quest or whatever, you can't do anything else but laugh.

Edited October 9, 200817 yr by Sylph

Also, one of the most stupid things about the episode was Peter fixing Sylar's watch. He did it way to quickly and the whole rambling by Sylar thus made no sense. In three seconds he was able to determine how stuff works. Yeah...

If Peter can absorb other people's abilities, why can't he absorb Sylar's instead having to figure it out how it works? He has amassed so many powers and abilities, it's absolutely ridiculous. And how come he can't heal after being in Claire's proximity? If she can't die, he can't either.

Edited October 9, 200817 yr by Sylph

We don't know why Present Peter really needed Sylar's power. Seeing how something "ticks" doesn't necessarily mean that he can prevent the Butterfly Effect, which is ALREADY a ball that's rolling.

My theory is that if Peter had Sylar's ability to "see how things work" he could prevent too much damage from happening with the Butterfly Effect. He could see all of the possiable solutions to all of the problems they are having in the current time line and fix them in a way.

I can understand that Season 2 lacked "adrenaline", but this is the complete opposite end of the spectrum because this adrenaline-paced churning through plot is leaving no time for the character development and introspection that I loved in Season 1.

Season two was horriable because it just sucked all around and had horriable story concepts and idea's. Hiro in Feudal Japan was a horrid storyline, Peter in Ireland was a stupid storyline, Claire and West was a stupid storyline, ect. This season we have good stories that work in theory but it isn't translating as well on screen. But I would take season 3 over season 2 any time.

Question: What shall we do with Heroes? NBC must be asking itself the same question. Its first season, the show was a breakthrough hit, and then its season finale disappointed many. The abbreviated second season disappointed many more. Its producer publicly apologized for mistakes in that season. Then it comes back, supposedly rejuvenated and better than ever. NBC promotes the hell out of it and, almost unbelievably, viewership is down. The episodes that have aired so far have certainly been pretty good and even promising. I have to wonder if NBC made a blunder by airing the premiere against the Dancing with the Stars premiere. Maybe they should have come back a week earlier. Regardless, we need some explanation as to why the show can't get back on track to where it was in its best first season moments. My conclusion is that there was one colossal blunder made by the show's producers that has caused most of the problems, and that decision was to keep Sylar around after the first season. I suppose they learned nothing from the Buffy model, where you have one big bad per season and then a new one shows up the next. In the second season, they had a pretty good villain in Adam Monroe/Kensei, and Sylar was wrapped up in a negligible storyline. This season, he is front and center again, and it's all Sylar all the time. There is no doubt that Zachary Quinto is an excellent actor, but the character carries so much baggage that he is a drag on the show. His very presence negates the entire first-season arc. The fact that he was able to steal Claire's ability without killing her also negates the show's most famous catchphrase. Now they've gone and made their villain invincible. That's an albatross if ever there was one. Apparently, Sylar was kept alive and around because the producers liked Quinto. But an actor's skills should never affect storylines to a show's detriment.There are smaller things as well. After killing (sadly, non-permanently) Sylar, seeing how his father died, and giving his childhood hero an Arvin Sloane-like fate, Hiro Nakamura should have just a little more gravitas (like the future version we've seen), but he's back to comic relief in scenes that have clearly been this season's weakest. Dangling plot threads from Season 2, like the fate of Peter's Irish girlfriend who is now stranded in a nonexistent future, are bothersome, but I'm actually calling for network intervention here. NBC was counting on this to be their anchor show, and the ratings are disappointing to say the least. If they want the ratings — and the show itself — to improve, they need to get rid of Sylar — for good — and move on to other big bads. Quinto's scenes with Jack Coleman have been entertaining, but that does not make up for the issues caused by the continuation of the character. And we haven't even mentioned the disturbing "mother" twist. This is clearly a case of the producers' misbegotten attachment to one character causing the decline of their show. — Kelly H.

Matt Roush: I'm not sure Sylar is the big problem here. In a season arc subtitled "Villains," focusing on the show's uber-villain seems like an OK idea. If only there was a focus to this show. I think Kelly wrote this essay before last week's episode, which jumped around between characters and back and forth in time so often my head was spinning, trying to keep track of which version of which character was a hero or villain in a particular scene. Is it really Heroes' goal to make us work this hard for such uncertain payoffs? No wonder the ratings are falling. To me, Sylar is a very compelling character, and presenting him last week as a good-guy house-dad with a son named Noah (homage to HRG) who somehow had learned to resist his hunger, until he's spurred by tragedy into going all nuclear, was an interesting if thoroughly baffling twist. The decline of Heroes, not unlike that of the far superior Lost over the seasons, may have less to do with any individual aspect than with the reality that it's a cult show whose first-season popularity was something of a fluke.

Question: Since Heroes began its third season a couple of weeks ago, I keep hearing about how the ratings have gone down quite a bit from last season. Is it time to start worrying about this show's future, or do you think we will have this show around for a while? — Matthew

Matt Roush: No worries yet, I'd think. NBC has far more serious problems all over its schedule, and while Heroes is down, it's far from out. At least it's a show we're talking about and which bears thinking about. Which is more than I can say about any of the network's new shows this season.

There's a new addition to the cast. Read here.