Heroes

So I dropped the ball more times than I can count but here we are at the stand-in finale-of-the-season-so-far and I've got the laptop on my lap, ready to go. So what you get is a (spoiler-heavy) liveblog of episode 11 which is full of rambling, swearing, ire, small moments of happiness and a handful of questions. Needless to say, it will probably not make any sense unless you watched.

Things, shall we say, are really a mess. Click here for the rambling commentary!

I lose at blogging.

But Heroes has been losing at TV, to be honest. Uninteresting new characters, unconvincing romances and a scattered storyline are combining to break down my interest, which breaks my nerdy little heart a little. But all is not lost; the show's creator, Tim Kring, recently told Entertainment Weekly that he knows the show's been sucking (my word, not his).

What I think is wrong is a little different, though: It's just not been making sense. Just this week, we had Suddenly Powerful Matt! and Suddenly Stupid Mohinder! — two terrible tastes which do not go well together. A tiny bit of inspiration and Matt understands his powers? A tiny bit of manipulation and Mohinder changes sides, or at least appears to? Please tell me you're kidding.

At least one of the show's sour points has finally come to an end: Hiro is back from Japan. And he's not the only one! (Cue ominous music.) That plotline did nothing but bother me, endlessly, and not least because of its reliance on a princess what needs saving. There is far too much saving of women on your show, Mr. Kring.

Am I repeating myself? Probably. But it's tired, tired, tired stuff to watch over and over again.

What the show does well is build. Last season built toward what could have been a great finale, but then lost its momentum. This season, nothing much has built. Finally, now, we're getting the rebuilding of Peter, the mystery of Elle, the revelation about Adam Monroe (not an iota of surprise there for anyone who read any theorizing, but still fun. And it might be worth noting that now we have an Adam to go with the sadly deceased Eden). We haven't had to suffer through the Wonder Twins and their weak storyline for a bit, which is a relief; I've yet to see them add anything to the show. On the other hand, there's Monica, my new favorite character, who's apparently off training somewhere.

One wonders what will happen when Peter gets that power too.

Anyway, I'm discombobulated from too much to do, but I haven't forgotten about Heroes; I've just forgotten how to blog properly about it. And it's not given me much to work with, lately. I'm almost relieved that this "volume" of the story will come to an end with the December 3 episode, even though I'm worried that this means we won't get satisfactory answers for the mysteries already floating out there. If the entire story of the early generation is "Adam brought us together and then went bad," I'm going to throw things at the TV.

So, yeah. I dropped the ball on the Heroes recaps. In short: The show got really stupid. Then it got a lot better. Then it got stupid again. Now, lord knows what it'll do, as the Writers Guild of America strike will take its toll on this and every other show (note: I'm not complaining! I'm on the side of the writers, of course. But it's a fact that this is going to disrupt programming all the same). I've read — but can't currently find the link for the story — that an alternate ending to an upcoming episode was written in advance, and that if the strike can't be resolved, it'll be reshot and turned into a season finale. Which is pretty dire, really.

But shows are always a few weeks ahead, so we'll see a few new episodes, and I will — I swear — recap them. I'll make it a Tuesday morning, first-cup-of-coffee habit.

I tried to do this with Grey's, but I fell off the bandwagon. What is it with TV this season?

To those, what, two? maybe? people who check for Heroes posts: Sorry! It is still Beast of Eugene time. Blogging falls by the wayside. It's sad. I like blogging. But there it goes ...

You know what I don't like, though? Stupid things happening on my "favorite" show. (I keep forgetting to watch Grey's. I completely forgot to watch Private Practice and/or Pushing Daisies, both of which I also wanted to recap. Bionic Woman was silly; Reaper can't sustain the whole hour. Plz more America's Next Top Model now? Does that show even air at a regular time or am I just lucky whenever I stumble across it?) To this season of Heroes, I give a big W. T. F., for the most part. Shall we discuss?

Spoilers through episode three after the jump! So make with the clicky...

Bad Molly: I couldn't, for some reason, stop talking during this episode. What's that? Who's he talking about? Isn't that related to X, Y and/or Z? What did Mr. Bennett mean by that? Etc., etc., etc. No wonder my boyfriend started doing laundry instead of watching with me. Sorry, yo.

But I did watch, all the same, and while this week's recap will probably not be as in-depth as last, I'm still going to natter on for awhile, because that is what blogs are for. So: Episode 2: "Lizards," aka The One In Which Claire Does Dumb Things. As always, after the jump there are spoilers for the story so far!