Finishing up the first season of Heroes left me with mixed emotions. Certainly it was nice to see everyone involved in the finale, it certainly did not come together all too well. There were some good characters and reveals, but there were also things left unused and undone and the stinger at the end of the season was not anything I wanted to see from this show.
Claire did not have her memory erased, but everyone else in her life was essentially written out of the show (including her newly revealed mother) because the writers decided to make her father a character that just so happens to be a main character. This is a disappointment, but it does give her some development as she learns about her family. At the same time, her father ends up being one of the more interesting characters on the show when he stops inadvertently turning his wife's brain to mush.
Hiro's plot-line got momentarily derailed by family squabbles, but eventually lead to one of the best episodes in the season which is basically this show's version of Days of Future Past. His friend, Ando, also becomes much more or a hero in his own right despite not having any powers of his own. His story is almost ruined when, at the end, he fulfills his destiny and teleports to, uh . . . Ugh, I don't even wanna take about it. Let's just say that I would have preferred if the show kept its original idea of keeping each story limited to the season it was in. Hiro's story was complete, what happened was just superfluous.
Matt Parkman's story finally becomes worth paying attention to when he is approached by two characters (one of which is jarringly never seen or mentioned again) and is brought directly into the main story. He finally manages to be a real cop and put his power to good use. No more relationship drama or everyone calling him a jerk (for no reason, most of the time), just finally dealing with the main plot.
The low point of this season, however, has been the whole Nikki/Jessica storyline. It was an eternal cycle of Jessica being horrible and killing people, D.L. threatening to take their son away, and Nikki crying about it. Over and over. Their story ends with a confusing death of a villain that doesn't make a lot of sense if you think about how it was achieved, but leads to Peter getting a power that helps him tremendously in the final battle.
Speaking of, Peter's storyline was probably the best storyline in the season. It was the one I wish the rest of the show was more like. From the Invisible Man, to the Exploding Man, he is given a lot to do and a lot to parse through, leading to a final battle with a man who has similar powers to him, but is in a very different place.
All in all, it was a pretty good season with some warts to it. I can sort of see why it was seen as a "LOST-killer" when it started since people were getting sick of LOST spinning its wheels at the time, but it certainly wasn't amazing the whole way through. And from what I hear about how it degrades later, I doubt it will ever retroactively reach that level when looking back.
I'm leaving the province for the next few days, so my friend and I will not be able to watch any more Heroes for a while, but I don't think I'll be too eager to see more. Superheroes on TV (and in film) have come a long way since Heroes, but there is a lot of good here to admire. As it is, I'm glad I watched the first season.
I can't say much for the latter seasons, but season one of Heroes is solid television. If you're a fan of superheroes, you could do much worse than sit through this season of the show. At the very least, it should get you prepared for the new mini-series starting this Fall. I can only hope it manages to top season one and washes out the bad taste a lot of people have for this show. It certainly would be nice.
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