Thoughts after Heroes S3 Premiere

[alias_sqbr]

NOTE: contains vague-ish spoilers for Season 2/Season 3 premiere

With a lot of shows, you have a fairly small cast of main characters, who get fleshed out and have their own subplots, and then a bunch of minor characters who are fairly shallow and never the main focus, and the audience isn't expected to care about them so the writers can mess them about (kill them off etc) without anyone really minding.

I've decided that the problem with Heroes is that superficially it has a large cast of main characters, but actually it's just that it fleshes out it's minor characters more. They appear to be main characters, having fairly complex characterisations and their own subplots...until they get utterly screwed by the storyline because the writers assume noone cares about them(*). The Petrelli/Bennets are main characters (well, not so much Mrs Bennet or Lyle) so when one of them dies, or is even just a bit sad, there's huge long introspective scenes and angsty music and they tend not to stay dead for long, etc. But characters like the twins or the Sanders family are not real main characters, even though they get a fair amount of screentime, and so the writers are happy to kill them off/hurt them etc as a plot device without much thought or fanfare because, well, it's not like anyone cares, they're just minor characters!

Unfortunately, I tend to get attached to the not-main characters, and thus I am often sad. They should be more clearly marked! The fact that by sheer coincidence they tend to be the non-white-male characters doesn't help(**) (thus bobthehaitian)

Anyway, other than various plot developments that got me thinking about what it is about this show that draws me in then breaks my heart, S3 is looking better than S2. I just have a baaaaad feeling about what's going to happen to the characters, especially Mohinder and Maya. Oh, and you know how last season they clearly went "Wait, chicks dig Peter, we should get him to take his shirt off. Lots!"? Well this season they musta noticed that Mohinder is hot :D

SPECIFIC SPOILERS IN THE COMMENTS!

(*)There are shows that are happy to unexpectedly and heartlessly screw with all the characters, but Heroes is not one of them.
(**) Yes, I could only let myself get attached to the pretty white male characters (specifically, Pettrelli/Bennetts), but I'd rather not :P

Comments

[penchaft.livejournal.com]

Don't worry, soon EVERYONE will be a Petrelli and no one will die.

[alias_sqbr]

It is looking that way isn't it? That or they divide the cast cleanly into Petrellis/nonPetrellis and kill off all of the latter group.

Though if everyone with powers is descended from Adam and you think of him as the urPetrelli...

[nephron.livejournal.com]

Except for DL.

[penchaft.livejournal.com]

And anyone else who isn't a white-American or Japanese male!

I still miss Isaac.

[lauredhel.livejournal.com]

I think Sendhil Ramamurthy must have spent the entire hiatus in the gym. And it was a long hiatus at that.

[nephron.livejournal.com]

Yup, if you're white in Heroes, you can never die.

[loic.livejournal.com]

I think there's something in the Petrelli genome that makes them annoying. I think now all the characters that piss me off (and that I wish would die) are Petrelli.

If I wanted to watch angsty upper-middle-class Americans I'd watch The OC.

I'm just glad they brought back another Veronica Mars character. And I'm glad he lost all his season-3 weight.

[penchaft.livejournal.com]

Does Angela piss you off? =o

[loic.livejournal.com]

Yes, but less than the others.

[deathwombat.livejournal.com]

When Mohinder was climbing walls the first thing that came into my mind was "He's Pavitr Prabhakar, Spider-Man: India!!!" but then I was like "Wait a minute. Spider-Man: India never had Super-Sex..."

[kadeton.livejournal.com]

I think that's possibly a little skewed by the fact that at least three of the white characters literally cannot die.

[alias_sqbr]

at least three of the white characters literally cannot die

Which, again, is completely coincidental to their ethnicity :P

[alias_sqbr]

I liked him more as a physically useless scientist. Not that I mind him taking his shirt off :D

[alias_sqbr]

Someone on another post pointed out he's more "The Fly" than Spiderman, which does not bode well :(

[alias_sqbr]

Yeah, but he's playing a Petrelli :(

[lauredhel.livejournal.com]

I'm a bit of a sucker for the mild-looking nerd who could, just quietly, kill villains with a twitch of his pinky finger. Only realised this after I looked for what my TV boyfriends had in common (Sayid, HRG, Giles, Nine...)

[alias_sqbr]

Hmm. I think my main prerequisite (apart from dark hair and dark eyes) is being under-appreciated by canon and the people around them. Thus Mohinder, Xander, Gunn, Faith, and why I went off Logan when Veronica Mars became the "Isn't Logan Awesome show". Which doesn't explain Ten, but I think I need a special category for "characters played by David Tennant" :D

Unfortunately, another prerequisite is "Not covered in scary icky scaly things"...

[lauredhel.livejournal.com]

Heh! I seem to have just reached that age where characters Logan's age make me think less "Mmmm, I'd like to get me some hawt loving" and more "I'd like to give him some milk and cookies and read him a story".

Ah well.

[alias_sqbr]

Heh. He's verging on that for me (especially when the show emphasises the teenageness of the character, despite the early-twentiesness of the actor), but on the plus side most male characters on tv are 30ish and I'm just starting to appreciate them properly.