The end of Season Two brought with it the return of Sylar's ridiculous capabilities. As Todd so poignantly pointed out a while ago, characters with power like Sylar and Peter is just ludicrous. While I'm a fan of Peter, because he uses his powers for good (most of the time), Sylar is just the bane of the show's existence. And here's why.

While I realize the need for a central enemy of the Heroes, Season two floundered the entire run while trying to figure out who it should be. In the first Season One, while I detested Sylar, I took comfort knowing that he would be limited to an unimportant portion to the Heroes' sophomore year. And he was, for the majority of it. And, I loved it. Not only is Zachary Quinto an awkward actor (good, but awkward and hard to watch, at least for me), but Sylar is a particularly annoying and has massively odd "isms" that endlessly piss me off.

I just don't know how much screen time featuring the likes of Sylar I will be able to handle when Heroes returns. What Tim Kring and his writing crew are trying to do with bringing Sylar back in this fashion is beyond me. We've already proven that he pretty much can't be beaten, so his character in essence limits the possibility for drama and new plot elements severely.

He just needs to be killed off. Fast.

According to creator Tim Kring, Heroes will be sending at least one of its characters to Canada.  Last year at a public event in Toronto, Kring promised to have the plot switch to Canada via a video message.  It is now reported that this is planned to happen two episodes from now.

Besides the Canada news, Kring was asked whether or not he was concerned about new characters that are being added on almost a weekly basis to the show.  For example, Kristen Bell, formerly of fan favourite Veronica Mars begins her run next week as a rumoured baddie.  Kring responded that Heroes is the type of show where you can fold characters in and fold characters out.  Sounds as though some of our characters are about to meet their maker.

Well, it looks like we'll finally get to see Nathan without his stupid hobo-beard. Not only that, but it's looking like we'll start to see a couple more of our characters stories intertwining, finally. Also, it looks like Maya and Alejandro are about to meet Sylar, which, I hope turns out in favor of the twins. And, rather unfortunately, we get yet another new hero. The reason I say unfortunately, is because the storyline just hasn't come along yet, so I think they should be saving the new guys until we have some kind of fluidity in the plot. Oh well. Here are the promos:

NBC Promo (USA):

Global Promo (Canada):

From authors Lynnette Porter, Davlid Lavery and Hillary Robson comes the ultimate guide to all of our favorite TV show, Saving the World: A Guide to Heroes. I haven't been able to get my paws on a copy yet, but hope one be in my grips soon.

From Amazon:

Saving the World: A Guide to Heroes will include essay analyses of the many reasons that keep Heroes’ audience tuning in each week. Authors Lynnette Porter, David Lavery, and Hillary Robson are experts in the field of television analysis, having penned books on Lost, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Deadwood, Seinfeld, The Sopranos, and many others. In this book, they will explore the history of comic books making their way to the screen, and how this show has been affected by the decades of comic book superheroes that precede it; the series’ archetypal characters; the fandom surrounding the show; its link to other current series such as Lost; creator Tim Kring and how he is the driving force behind the show. The book will include brief episode guides of each installment of the series.

Sounds good to me!

Sylar is back. So are Niki and Micah. Claire looks like she's well on the way to a romance with her new boy toy. And someone appears to be moving a truck with telekinesis (Peter?). And is it just me or does HRG seem a bit sinister at the end of the clip? But the focus of the video preview is... "The Box!" I have to admit I giggled when I saw how over the top they promo'd a wooden box. But I guess if "Save the Cheerleader, Save the World!" works as a catchphrase, why not also do "The Box!".

Monday night I watched Heroes (Lizards) with a couple of house guests that had never seen the show before. It was interesting to 'see' the show through newbie eyes as they volleyed question after question to me about who people were, what their powers were and questions about the plot.

From just spending that hour with a couple of friends, I sense that Heroes greatest asset is also the biggest liability. The show has such a wealth of characters, main and supporting, and a labyrinthine plot, that people can really dive into a total immersive universe. At the same time, this complexity makes it hard for anyone but the most regular viewer to know who is who and what is going on. I'm a big fan of the show but even I have to frequent websites sometimes to remember the names of each character or to make sure I'm understanding the plot. The show doesn't really appear to lend itself to new viewers joining the fun since it doesn't pander to newbies. It's sink or swim (mostly sink), for anyone who wants to start watching the show beginning with season 2.

I really love the show and I'm doing pretty good at following the plots, but I don't think there's many shows that have quite as many characters as Heroes. The only ones that immediately come to mind are maybe Lost and Ugly Betty. Maybe this is a way to maintain rabid fan loyalty or maybe it is just a way to have replacements for characters they knock off, but I think Heroes needs to somehow simplify the storyline and characters. Although I think my friends enjoyed the show, I could tell they were more than a little frustrated trying to understand what was going on. For Heroes to expand on ratings, I think this is the only way to go.

If I've come up with the diagnosis, I should also write a prescription. My least favourite of the Heroes is the Niki / D.L. / Micah family. I got tired, very quick, of crazy powerful Niki / Jessica, her walk-through-the-walls husband and their son Micah, who can 'communicate with machines and technology'. Ho hum. Put them all on a car going off a cliff soon please and we'll all be ahead. Heck, they haven't even used the family for the first couple shows of the season. I think a good rule of thumb is if you can have characters absent for a couple of shows and you don't miss really miss them, off with their heads! I'm sure other people have different ideas though on who, if anyone, should go, and I'd love to hear them.

Ever wonder how much your favourite TV show is charging for 30 seconds of airtime? According to Mediaweek, Heroes pulls $330,000 every 30 seconds. Of course this doesn't account for any product placement or other deals that Heroes has in the works with advertisers. But let's assume that Heroes is about 42 minutes long (I haven't had the urge to actually ever time it.) Assuming that's the case, let's take a couple minutes out for network advertising (ie. Journeyman's new exciting episode right after Heroes!). That leaves 16 minutes x $660,000. That takes Heroes right around the $10 million mark for each episode. Not too bad for heroes without tights or capes.

via Mediaweek

There's plenty of clips on YouTube with previews for next weeks' episode Lizards. Looks like we'll find out about a new disease affecting the heroes as well as the return of Peter Petrelli. I'm dying to know what the episode title refers to though. Wouldn't it be cool to have a lizard man on the show? Ok, maybe not.

EW has an interview with George Takei regarding the season 2 premiere of Heroes and how he came to be part of the show playing Hiro's father, Kaito Nakamura. It has some spoilers so make sure to read it after having watched the Season 2 premiere. My favourite comment from Takei has to be this:

[...] Two months before I got the Heroes job, I did an independent film called Ninja Cheerleaders, like Charlie's Angels with cheerleaders, and I was their ninja master.

When you find a goose that lays the fabled golden eggs, what do you do? You either try to get the goose to lay more eggs or you find another gold-laying goose. That's the tactic that NBC is using with their Heroes: Origins show which is slated to begin April 2008. Using new characters that haven't been seen on the main show, Origins will try interesting different that is almost American Idol-like. Viewers will be able to vote for one character to join the main cast for the 2008-2009 season.

A few big names have already been announced to pen episodes for the new show. Eli Roth, the writer/director behind the Hostel horror movies as well as Michael Dougherty, writer of last summer's Superman Returns will both write an episode. But it is Kevin Smith, creator of Clerks, Dogma and director of the pilot episode of the new show Reaper (you have to see it), that I'm most excited about. You can be sure that his Origins episode will have his trademark humour throughout it.