First Impressions - Heroes Volume 4

So yesterday marked the official return of television. Whilst shows like Lost, Scrubs, 24 and Battlestar Galactica came back a few weeks ago, February marked the full fledged return of television. Sunday we got a new Office (Superbowl special which whilst being hilarious wasn't a good Office episode) and yesterday Heroes, Chuck and How I Met Your Mother came back. Since most of these shows are mid way through a season I'm not going to give First Impression (I did that a few months ago). However Heroes has opened a new Volume which we have to grin and bear.

Surprisingly I was impressed.

It wasn't flat out awesome like an episode like "Company Man", however it showed potential. Whilst the new story is essentially an X-Men rip-off, it was executed well. There are definitely some tense moments, especially involving Sylar (finally a decent fight scene involving super powers!!!). In case you don't know all the Heroes are being rounded up and it is fairly well done. The whole round up is interesting and the final scene on the plane was an interesting lead into the next episode (however I do want to know who went flying from the plane). However I can't help thinking if I stop watching now all I have to think is that everyone died and that's the end. To be honest it might be better if I do that.

The only reason I think this is because Bryan Fuller, has said that the first few episodes are quite strong however a few episodes in the show loses focus again. The interview has to be read between the lines but essentially he says that they fucked up in a big way and its his job to salvage the volume (his involvement is probably my one interest in this volume.

However there are a great deal of improvements over last volume. For starters it feels slower, instead of a billion plot points in one episode many of which are later forgotten, we got 1 main one with a few new cool pieces (except for one but that's for later). Secondly the characters acted like humans for once. It felt a lot realer than last volumes flip-flopping. Plus Nathan didn't change his mind again which is a positive. Also the Hiro/Ando storyline looks passable (Ando is quickly becoming his own character).

On the negative side, the volume looks like Lost crossed with Prison Break. Lost might be awesome but I'm just not sure if the Heroes writers could ever match what they're doing on Lost, especially at the moment with the time travel mechanic. There's also the threat of the show becoming bogged down again and then there's Parkman's story. I'm sorry but WTF. Painting was originally a power and now it's a gift. Both Sylar and Peter took it but now it can pass to random chosen people. We all know you love Tim Sale's artwork Heroes, but please you've killed off two artists, why do we need another one? Especially since Parkman already had his own power to start with.