Help me decide whether to watch these "Heroes" episodes on my DVR

Cafe Society
1

I have a timer on my DVR set to record all new episodes of “Heroes” that I set up last season. When the new season started, it fired up and recorded them… but what with one thing and another, I haven’t gotten around to watching any of them. However many eps have aired so far this season, that’s how many I have stacked up.

Before I plunge into the pile, I thought I’d ask you folks what kind of return I can expect on the investment of my time. Should I watch them, or just delete them and free up more space for other things? How has this season compared to previous ones?

2

General opinion on SDMB seems to be that this season was better than the second season, but still way below the first season. I think some viewers were really polarized by this season; some declared that they are done with the show and cannot bring themselves to watch another minute; others (myself included) think that the show is starting to improve but needs to be more consistent. I think that there were times this season where the show had flashes of awesomeness and other times when it was groan-worthy. I think the later episodes were better than the early episodes.

Personally, I’d opt to watch them. But I know that there are going to be people who will tell you not to bother. So maybe watch an episode or two, then decide for yourself if you’re interested enough to watch the rest.

3

I stopped watching around Thanksgiving. Over Christmas, I decided to catch up, starting with the episode of November 17. I got partway through, but just wasn’t into it, and stopped watching it. I deleted it and all the subsequent episodes from the DVR. I may eventually return to the show, but from what I’ve heard, even NBC and the producers know that the show has taken a wrong turn, so perhaps I’ll wait for them to retool it.

4

Maybe some selective viewing to get caught up and enjoy the fun bits, keeping in mind this chapter is pretty Sylar-intensive (Hey, it’s called Villains!):

-Ep 1, for the setup of the chapter
-Ep 3, if you want to watch Sylar play FBI agent, otherwise skip
-Ep 4, this chapter’s alternate future ep (bonus waffles)
-Ep 5- Skippable, just know that Mohinder is capturing people and cocooning them to the walls, purpose unknown. There’s a great moment where he drags a drug dealer down a flight of stairs with the guy’s head going THUD THUD THUD THUD all the way down
-Ep 6- skip, just know that Arthur Petrelli’s alive, evil mastermind, kills Adam and steals Peter’s abilities. He sucks abilities out of people. Which is nice for Maya.
-Ep 7, if you want to watch Mohinder beat Sylar’s skull into pulp (one character gets a bit of revenge on another, nothing plot critical). Lots of action.
-Ep 8- flashback, nothing really critical except some plot setup Meredith and fire-hands bald villain are siblings, Angela poisoned her husband because she found out he tried to kill Nathan, Elle pretended/became sweet on Gabriel in order to provoke him to demo his brain surgery skills, Gabriel finds out she was a big faker, commences cross country Sylarizing spree
-Ep 9- explains some setup for the remaining eps Arthur wants to build a specials army, Sylar and Elle make up and he learns to take powers without the killing .
-Eps 10-11, Fun stuff, Noah goes a’hunting, and some completely inconsistent character behavior- which is the whole chapter’s biggest flaw IMHO. Also, Peter grows a brain.
-Eps 12-13- Entertaining wrap up.

Maybe watch #1 and the last 5, and if you are sufficiently interested in filling in the gaps go back to the others.

5

Because by now you could have watched two of them.

6

We’re having the same predicament. We’ve watched the first six episodes, but haven’t gotten any further than that. Whenever we have time to watch tv, we look at all the things we have recorded and always pick something else. I think we’ve just lost interest in the show…you know it’s bad when you are willing to watch re-runs of other shows rather than new episodes of something that was once your favorite.

7

Grace, it does pick up from there. Or just skip the next two, the last 4 are better.

8

You could save some time and just hit yourself in the head with a 2-by-4.

9

Actually, the 2x4 might be recommended if you’re going to watch some of the episodes, too. This season was a bit… uneven.

I’d agree with Annie’s recommendations, though. Although Sylar playing FBI agent is quite good – Zachary Quinto is a very good actor, and it comes across well in that episode. (unfortunately, it also shows how very poor some of the others are at acting…)

10

Thanks for the input, folks. I suppose I’ll either watch the first one and see if it grabs me, or wait until the DVR fills up and starts deleting them so the decision is made for me.

11

Honestly, Annie’s recaps in the episode threads here are better than the show. The last half of the season I think I watched more on fast-forward than normal speed.

12

Thanks Peanut, but if I didn’t think the show was fun enough to watch, I wouldn’t be snarking it.

13

I’ve been rewatching season 1, and I’m FF’d through a bit of that too- coff~ Hiro poker chip floozy~coff. There were some, err, narrative dry spells that season too, but the stretch from Company Man onward got the show’s threads unified to the denouement. But those slow patches were used to better define the characters- more effectively than they have this season.