From Heroes to Zero

In the long wait the BBC forced us to endure for the second season of Heroes (Thursdays, BBC2), there was a lot of time to hear the voices of dissent gathering around it from across the pond. Ratings dropped dramatically and people hated it so much that their collective whining even earned them an apology from the show's creator; Tim Kring ultimately confessing to fans that he'd made some creative decisions he now regrets. Back when I read that I though it sounded crazy.

After all, though Season 1 of Heroes got off to a great start, since the cheerleader was first saved in 'Homecoming' (s01e09) the show never recaptured that same momentum or drive. What looked like being a very good show eventually settled into being a mediocre one. The strong start was enough to earn a full season's attention, certainly, but there was already cause for concern about the show's longevity. So, when I heard people railing against Season 2 I arrogantly assumed people had caught up to the fact that Heroes just isn't that good. I figured it was probably hovering around the same middling level of quality it was in the second half of Season 1 and people only judged it differently because all their "Save the Cheerleader, Save the World" excitement had finally worn off.

Boy, was I wrong to doubt their judgement. Three episodes in and quite frankly it has been a dreadful start.

It's actually hard to think of anything positive to say. The new crop of stories seem to range from the mildly uninteresting (Mohinder as a double agent, Maya and Alejandro coming to America, Hiro in the past) to the flat-out terrible (Peter in Ireland, Claire's romance). It feels like it's muddling along with no real purpose.

Claire's fledgling romance with West, in particular, is almost embarrassing television. "Are you a robot or an alien?” he asked within five minutes of meeting her. What a complete twat. And why is Claire suddenly so amazed by the depth of her power? Here's a girl who has come back from any number of ridiculous injuries (off the top of my head she's fallen from great heights, been set on fire, hit by a car and stabbed in the brain) and she even woke up during her own autopsy. Has the image of waking up and seeing all of her internal organs left her so quickly that the regeneration of her little toe is so mind-blowing? More importantly, does Kring expect the audience - who have long come to terms with the meaning of Claire's powers - to be particularly interested in her slowly dawning realisation of things we've long understood? The key to interesting character exploration, surely, is to have the character and the audience realising things on roughly the same schedule, the pace of which should be dictated by the show's events. In the case of Claire, the absence of any other real story makes her pondering ponderous, and it's a faultline that seems to be running through the entire show.

For a show that so obviously laboured through the second half of its first season, it's amazing to me that Kring and Co. could allow the show to be so slow out of the blocks this time. And now that Kring has conceded the show needs a new direction for its third year, it’s hard to be hopeful for what is yet to come in the second season.