Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Heroes Premiere and Thoughts on Characters

I was talking once to a producer here at TNT about Angel. Somehow we got onto the subject of Wesley. He (the producer) told me that he thought Wesley's character development, how his character changed drastically over time (pretty much from Buffy season 3 to Angel season 5) was the most believable transformation of a character on television that he had ever seen. I had not thought much about it until he brought it up, but once he did, I saw the truth in his opinion. Wesley had about 6 years to develop and change as a character and you would not recognize the sissy girly-girl from 3rd season Buffy if you saw him in 4th or 5th season Angel. The events that unfolded for him throughout the Angel series were so traumatic, chaotic and heartbreaking that it is completely believable that he would have become a truly different kind of person by the end. It was so believable in fact, that I hadn't even really noticed how different a person he was until it was pointed out to me.



















SPOILERS:

You may be asking yourself what this has to do with the Heroes premiere last night. That's a good question. It comes into play when dealing with the character development theme. I was sitting watching Heroes, on the edge of seat and loving every minute of it, when I realized that I didn't know any of these characters. I didn't know Peter, Nathan, Mohinder...even Hiro and Claire seemed different to me. They were nothing like the people I met in 1st season Heroes. They had changed. The change was apparent in the Petrelli brothers more so than in anyone else. Especially Nathan. And yes, I know that the Peter we saw throughout the whole episode was Future Peter, but even the tiny glimpse of Present Peter (and remembering him from the end of last season) was enough to make me feel like he had changed just as drastically from the 1st to 2nd season as he seemed to have changed going 4 years into the future. Still, it was Nathan and Mohinder that seemed to have little reason for such drastic changes in their characters. Even before Mohinder shot himself up with his recently discovered Hero serum and became all aggressive, scary guy, it seemed out of character for him to even risk testing it before all the possible wrinkles had been ironed out. Mohinder never seemed like the kind of guy to desire a power for himself. He just wanted to help people, to finish what his father had started, to honor his name. How did he suddenly become this power-hungry mad scientist? It didn't really seem to fit. And don't even get me started on Nathan. I mean, yes, he died for a minute. But almost ALL the characters on this show have died and come back to life before and they never felt the need to suddenly turn to God and NOT notice that hey, my brother is acting a bit off, maybe he's not really Peter and maybe he SHOT me and I should start asking where my REAL brother is. Jeez. Ok, maybe he didn't need to be THAT intuitive, but the whole "God saved me" bit was so very out of character for Nathan that I was scowling at the television every time he was in the frame. I mean, he's a politician for Zeus sake! Not only that, but Nathan seemed like a smart man in season 1, but now he's making the same mistakes he did before and that's just not smart. But then again, it wouldn't be such a great show without the conflict that stupid decisions create. So I guess I shouldn't complain.

Still, because there are just so MANY characters on this show, they can never focus very long on just one character, so any kind of huge transformation for a character will always come as a shock for the audience. They have SO much going on that I barely had time to react to one crazy event before I was moved into ANOTHER crazy event. It's frustrating and totally awesome at the same time. It was such an amazing and thrilling premiere that I am actually excited to go back home and watch it again. I can imagine the list of things I probably missed due to the action moving so fast from one thing to another. All in all, the best and most exciting premiere I have seen yet for this fall season. Bravos Heroes, you're coming back up from behind and we are loving every dang bit of it. May I please have some more, massterrr?






























4 comments:

kiwi said...

i could not agree more with the character development! it sucks! mohinder is like a completely new character, he is nothing like the character in season 1. i have a hard time believing him. same with nathan. and Noah seemed disappointingly flat to me, what happened to the really loving, protective father?

i have to say, i think the premiere was more bells & whistles than substantial story. so confusing, and lots of flashy special effects. i hope they straighten some things out for us next week! and i hope they don't follow the trend from last year of too many things going on at one time for any of us to actually enjoy the show!

Bufyluver said...

Oh, you have no idea how happy it makes me that someone actually reads my blog. I heart you. Haha. And I'm glad you agree!! It's just crazy character development. Totally unbelievable. Good call on Noah too. I didnt even get to think about him, but that's very true.

kiwi said...

did you watch last night? i just watched online. I don't know if I'm going to watch any more. Maybe 1 more episode. But I am still having a hard time believing these characters! How ridiculous was it when Peter is talking to his future self: "why should I believe you?" Uh, why not? You're talking to yourself dude.

Bufyluver said...

HAHA! Seriously. That was kinda funny. But you have to kinda know how to look at a sci-fi like scene, like that one. He's not Peter. He's FUTURE Peter, someone entirely different than himself. You have to look at them as two different people. Not the same person. That's how I thought about it and it made it better. I mean, Present Peter would NEVER shoot his brother, but Future Peter is all wacked (so to speak) and obviously would, since he did...Anyway...I am having fun with it. As long as it keeps me entertained, I'm good. I mean, it's got it's flaws, but i do enjoy the stories. Though, Nikki Sanders story is beginning to be really weird. I dont know what to think about that. We will talk more later! :)

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The views expressed on this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer.