I recently re-watched Heroes Seasons 1-4 and I have some thoughts on a couple of irritating things that I think the show did not handle well. But first of all, if you're interested, I have a review of each of the four seasons from the first time I watched them: Season 1 - Season 2 - Season 3 - Season 4
Moving on... there are all kinds of discussions online about how and why Heroes declined and became a mess after the promising first season. I don't really want to go into that too much, but I do want to discuss how the show handled two things: science and diversity.
The Ridiculous (Non-)Science of Heroes
Heroes is a show about superpowers and it really didn't require any scientific explanations. Unfortunately, the writers decided that they were going to try to be super scientific about the whole thing. So we get Mohinder following up on his father's research which basically amounts to "genetics says there will end up being people with superpowers because evolution" which... whatever. Fine. I'll take it. Just get on with it and show me these people discovering their powers. Unfortunately, as the show went on it became increasingly clear that even though the show wanted to be about science the writers actually knew pretty much nothing about science or wouldn't be bothered to try.
There's one scene from season 2 that perfectly showcases this. Claire is back to trying to pretend to be normal in a new school, but for some weird reason she can't stop doing things like sticking her hand in bunsen burners in the middle of class... >.> Whatever. So they needed her to be in a science class for this to happen, they needed the bunsen burners. Ok. And this is High School remember. So she's sitting in a class, and her teacher asks them to turn on the bunsen burners. Which they all do. And then an entire class sits there, with the bunsen burners going on their benches, only to listen to the teacher start going on about... evolution? Huh? What does that have to do with the bunsen burners? Why did you need the bunsen burners? Why are you wasting all this propane! Turn them off!
Others have expressed much more eloquently how ridiculous the virus storyline got, and the whole thing with the "catalyst" and all the rest of it. And let's not even mention the ridiculous regeneration via Claire's blood even after someone is dead or the whole thing with Mohinder becoming a weird lizard creature that builds these gooey gross cocoons for his victims for no apparent reason. It got... strange. My point is, if they weren't going to bother with the science they should have just not tried. Just have people discovering superpowers without trying to pretend its scientific.
Mishandling of Diverse Characters, Especially Black Characters
There's a huge list of characters that were very badly handled and most of them are Black. It's as if the writers didn't know what to do with these characters so they just either got rid of them or had them do nothing episode after episode. Here's a non-exhaustive list:
The Haitian: The Haitian wasn't even really a character. He was a plot tool. Whenever Noah or the Petrelli's wanted to wipe someone's memory or stop someone from using their powers he would magically appear. It was ridiculous. There was one point where they made him interesting, when we realized he wasn't mute and that he might have his own agenda that didn't necessarily match Noah's or the Company's.
D.L.: They almost did a great job with D. L. It was interesting to have this character who was a Black man on the run from the police, but to have the show make it clear that he wasn't the actual killer - that it was Nikki. And he eventually developed into this character who was trying to take care of his wife and child and do the right thing. He even found a way to use his power to help people. It was amazing. And then they went and killed him. Which... would have been ok if it didn't become a pattern of them killing off interesting black or brown characters.
Isaac Mendez: Isaac started out being one of the most interesting characters in the show. The whole story of the first half hinged on his art and his ability to tell the future with it, both through his paintings and through his 9th Wonder comic. And then the played up that whole drug addiction thing and Simone's weird betrayal of him and it reached a point where he was pretty annoying. So they decided to get rid of him, only to have various other characters acquire his ability later.
Monica: Monica was cool. She was D. L.'s cousin. Her relationship with Micah was interesting. And then she actually wanted to use the power she had. And then of course her character went completely nowhere and they forgot about her. (Or did they kill her? Is it sad that I don't even remember?)
Maya and her Brother: I still don't even know why they were in this show. Their storyline had nothing to do with the rest of the show until they met Mohinder and it just... made everything so much worse.
Micah: I really hated Micah in season 1. He didn't seem like an actual kid. He was very annoying. Sorry. Anyway, they managed to find a very cool way to bring him back as Rebel and that was awesome. And then he just fell off the face of the earth again when his role helping Tracy and Sylar was done.
The Fear-Strength Guy: This character had an interesting power and a potential to become a good character, but let's face it. He existed in the worst part of the show - the part with Arthur Petrelli - and was just an example of the wasted potential of the characters on this show.
The African Isaac Mendez: They got rid of Isaac Mendez so they had to have another character who could paint the future. And then he ended up doing all of nothing - except being a stereotype and mentoring Matt Parkman who could somehow, randomly, also go on "spirit-walks" and see the future. His story was just so stupid, but the way they killed him off was even worse.
Mohinder: Mohinder started off being a main character, but he soon became extremely annoying. They first destroyed his character by making him betray several characters for no reason. Then they made him experiment on himself and turn into a weird lizard creature. Then they realized they really had no idea what to do with him so he disappeared for a while. It was... a mess.
Hiro and Ando: The show did a good job of trying to respect these characters' Japanese heritage and make them awesome. Let's be honest, the reason most of us kept watching the show was because of Hiro. But then, they decided they had no idea what to do with him and made him go on useless side-quests for most of the time. Some have said he was too OP because of his time-travel ability and that's why they had to distract him or keep him away from the main Villains - he would have easily defeated Sylar or any other Villain immediately. I don't agree. I think Hiro had enough of a self-imposed Hero code that he wouldn't have abused his power. Plus, let's be honest, these Villains stuck around for waaaaay too long, especially Sylar.
Any of these things on their own would have been fine, if the show also handled their White characters the same way. But there was a huge difference. They kept reincarnating Nikki in different ways. Noah Bennett got shot in the eye and was magically revived. Nathan died and came back several times. And, of course, Sylar, who stuck around for so long and had so many abrupt personality changes that it became ridiculous. Hell, they even brought Doyle back so many times. Next to this obvious inability to kill off or get rid of certain characters the show's handling of the Black and POC characters stands out as particularly bad.
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