Goodbye Heroes

I've all but given up on this show. No, I'm giving up this show. First season was wonderful and second season wasn't terrible (though I can't remember much of it that I liked). As much as I've grown to hate characters in the show, it will still be tough to break with my relationship to the series. I've already resolved not to watch 24 this season for various reasons and so my Monday night will no doubt feel empty. The occasional Heroes episode might still slip through the cracks as my roommate's friend down a few halls apparently loves the show and no longer has a TV of his own. Still, his watching it in our room in no way binds me to watch what is left of Heroes and I plan on watching as little as possible.

In the beginning I had such optimism for this show. On the recommendation of a few friends, I watched the first season in about three days' time, and left ecstatic about the show's future, and championed Heroes to any fellow television viewer. While hating such vile, flat characters as Peter's girlfriend, Simone Deveaux, (and still hating) whatever Ali Larter's characters' names were (and are), I fell in love with Noah Bennett, Hiro Nakamura, and Gabriel Gray. Characters like Mohinder, the Haitian, Peter and Nathan had many high points as well. Each of the rest of the cast seemed for the most part to add a necessary component as well and I had very little other problems with characters (and I even remember liking, or at least contentedly tolerating, Claire at points - it's hard to imagine that far back now). After watching the season finale, there were a few loose ends and obvious room for development, but there was closure on the plot of "Save the cheerleader, Save the world" storyline.

I left first season tremendously pleased and couldn't wait for the next season to start, in which the teaser trailer promised background on our favorite heroes and associates. I remember at one point even thinking that Heroes was the show whose next season I looked forward to the most. Mind you, this was just after the gloriously confusing and exciting Lost 2nd season finale and The Office's Casino Night. I of course still yearned for these two shows, but Heroes seemed to stand alone in my mind. When the second season arrived and aired, I was disappointed, but Hiro's jokes, the awesomeness of Noah, Sylar, and Mohinder, and the relative "bearability" of the rest of the cast urged me forward. After all, with the writer's strike, the story came and went quickly.

With third season though, came ruin, for our relationship. The idea seemed interesting: making our heroes villains and vice versa, and one or two episodes I still greatly enjoyed, but the characters that emerged from the experience seem almost interchangeable now. What made the characters themselves has ceased to exist and too many of the cast members seem like stock characters or otherwise just extras along for the ride. By the end, I only looked forward to the deaths of my most hated characters.

As a memorial, I plan to watch first season again, but you've changed Heroes. I'm sorry. There's too much Claire. Character development is dead. At least Sylar is still killing people. Goodbye. I'll look for highlights in the future.