TV Show Review: Heroes - Season 3

Stars: 3 out of 5
Pros: Some good storytelling...

Cons: ...at the expense of logic and character

The Bottom Line:

Decline continues

Seems to have lost direction

Struggle to still watch

"Do I Have Powers?"  "So Far We Know You Can Faint Really Well."

Oh how the mighty have fallen.  That certainly applies to season three of Heroes.  This formerly great show keeps bleeding viewers, and with good reason.  While I still watch it, it is a shadow of what it once was.

Season 3 had two distinct story arcs with climaxes.  Well as much as we ever get climaxes on this show.  Up first was "Villains."  In this arc, there is a mass escape of villains from Level 5, a detention facility used by The Company to house evil people with superpowers.  Noah Bennett (Jack Coleman) gets to work trying to track them down.  He's surprised to see his new partner is Sylar (Zachary Quinto) who is trying to give up his murderous ways and get back on the straight and narrow.  Can they catch these bad men?  Will Sylar remain a hero?

The second half of the season found our characters on the run.  "Fugitives" found now Senator Nathan Petrelli (Adrian Pasdar) heading a task force aimed at bringing all those with special powers in "for their own protection."  Of course, he's failed to mention his own unique powers.  Leading the charge against him is his own brother Peter (Milo Ventimiglia).  Will Nathan see the error of his ways before everyone is captured or killed?

Obviously, this is just the biggest of the broad strokes of plot lines for the year.  All of the main cast is still around, like Claire the cheerleader (Hayden Panettiere), mind reader Matt Parkman (Greg Grunberg), and Japanese friends Hiro and Ando (Masi Oka and James Kyson Lee).  They even brought back Ali Larter as new character Tracy.

There is enough plot to definitely keep me watching.  The stories move forward fairly regularly.  And we're still being dished out back story about the sins The Company has committed in the past while dealing with people with special powers, thanks in large part to Angela Petrelli (Cristine Rose).

The problem is the show has become plot driven to a large extent.  This was most evident in the "Villains" storyline early in the season.  Characters started doing things solely because the plot called for it.  There was little to know effort made to make character actions logical.  And the problem was just made worse by the constant time travel.  Things started to get better in the middle of the "Fugitives" story, but it ended with plot driven stuff again.

Having said that, another gripe is their lack of willingness to kill off any of the characters.  Oh, they might kill one or two, but they always find a way to bring them back.  Or they create a new character for the actress to play.  This really gets obnoxious when it comes to Sylar.  Don't get me wrong, he's a great villain and Zachary Quinto is brilliant at playing him.  But eventually, you have to defeat your villain, at least for a little while.  Here, Sylar just keeps getting stronger and stronger.

I'm placing the blame for all this squarely on the shoulder of the writers.  The acting is still great.  The cast manages to squeeze every drop of character they can out of these scripts.  They just don't have much to work with.

And the special effects continue to be top notch.  This show calls for lots of effects, and if there is a flaw with them, I certainly can't find it.  I figure the budget for the show must be huge.

Despite my complaints, this season left me curious enough about the future of the characters to tune in to season four.  Here's hoping that it begins climbing out of the hole dug by season three of Heroes.

To be continued....