Heroes Season 4 Review

• 19th Oct 2010

In the glory days of the critically acclaimed Season 1, Heroes was garnering awards and viewers left, right and centre. Season 2 lost its way so badly that creator Tim Kring was forced to apologise to fans. So has 4 managed to reverse the decline? The answer is… sorta. It’s nowhere near as slow as Season 2, and although it sticks to the tried and tested Heroes formula, the apocalyptic feel of the last three seasons is gone. Instead the characters are now dealing with more personal issues as they try to return to their normal lives – Peter has returned to his job as a paramedic and is desperate to use every power he can get to rescue people who otherwise would be dead, while cheerleader Claire is trying to be a “normal” college girl (complete with obligatory lesbian experience), although how she’s managed to find the time to get any qualifications over the past few years is anyone’s guess.

These issues only take centre stage for a short while until the spotlight is inevitably stolen (along with everyone’s powers) by Sylar and his magic finger. The last season left Sylar believing he was Nathan Petrelli thanks to Matt Parkman’s mind altering powers, after he bumped off the unfortunate senator. Much of the first half of the series is spent with Nathan/Sylar battling for control of their body as Sylar’s stolen abilities begin to manifest. This makes for some genuinely interesting moments. Sadly, it’s fairly obvious as to who is going to win that fight and, after that, Sylar’s story arc is far less engaging.

As the world is no longer in peril and Sylar is otherwise engaged, at least for the first few episodes, season 4 needs a new evil. This comes in the form of Samuel and his sinister carnival group (with some of the silliest abilities I’ve ever seen – Lydia, take a bow), who are trying to recruit more people with abilities into their family for reasons that remain murky for much of the series. Samuel himself is initially an intriguing baddie but his convoluted back story, complex motivation (love? hate? power?) and the fact that his evil plans don’t become clear until the final two episodes mean that he ultimately falls flat as a super-villain. The other members of the carnival also begin well (and include Darth Maul himself, Ray Park, who has a nice line in Kukri knives) but are largely uninteresting characters who again fail to develop.

The rest of the series unfortunately goes down a similar path, in the end not succeeding in delivering on its initial promise. Several favourite characters (Mohinder, Tracy, even Noah Bennett) are woefully under-used, often only appearing for an episode or two to provide a body to be saved by someone else. A tangled web is woven, but it is never satisfactorily untangled. Still, it’s an improvement on the previous seasons and ends with a major event which could have led to some stimulating storylines in season 5; but with the NBC axe falling in May and the recently announced decision not to make a Firefly/Serenity-esque movie to tie up all the loose ends, it appears that the Heroes “Brave New World” may remain unresolved.

Extras include the usual audio commentaries, deleted scenes and various featurettes including “De-constructing Sylar” discussing the complexities of the character and a rather self-indulgent feature called “Milo Speaks” with Milo Ventimiglia (Peter Petrelli) waxing lyrical about life, the universe and everything.

Emma Wilkin