Personally, I felt this episode had the worst writing in the entire series. I mean sure, this was a filler episode for an amazing episode coming soon, but still no excuse.

For example, Tracy's conversation with Peter in the woods, both of them were completely out of character in that scene.

Hiro talking to Mohinder.. Apparently Hiro can speak perfect english in only two seasons after being unable to speak barely any in the first season. Again though, that scene was really out of character for both of them.

Daphne the entire episode until something happened (Not going to spoil anything for the fanboys and fanladies!) was out of character. And even Parkman when that something happened didn't respond accordingly as his character or really anyone should have.

Even Nathan talking at the crash site to The Hunter was completely out of character.

We can blame it on the acting maybe, since all actors should be able to turn any line into reality, but in this case I think it was because of the direction and writing that made the acting fail.

Also, you can say, "well all of them are tested in new ways where they have to get out of character.", but just look at the dialogue and actions of the characters here? They could have stayed in character throughout, but the writing wasn't supportive enough to their characters. When enough actors fail together like this, you can only blame it on the writing and direction.

What do you guys think?

Well, Hiro spent all the time with Charlie in season 1. Then I'm sure his English got better the more time he spent around the other characters.

i dont know bout that
id have to think its to the point of survive and adapt or die

I thought tonight was great. Sounds to me like you are looking for reasons to hate rather than enjoying the ep for what it is.

I agree with you, to me the writing was a little off this week.But i still liked this episode,
its better writing than any other shows on regular TV right now.

I'm not quite sure how they were acting out of character. Hiro has been able to speak pretty good english for awhile now. Like zensu said all that time with charlie hey picked up a lot. The disscussion between Peter and tracy in the woods wasn't bad again not quite sure how they were acting out of character. Whats so weird about matts reaction, He just watch daphne get shot. She's supposed to be the love of his life and with all he's benn through this was his breaking point. So I guess im pretty much saying I completely disagree.

I agree. It wasn't a bad episode, it was just a filler episode afterall, but the writing and acting threw me off from being able to enjoy it. I could list off the things I enjoyed about the episode, but I just wanted to know if people agreed with me here.



No, I mean his accent changed. He used to have more of a Japanese accent and it seems like here there was very little. He did not have this same accent in the last volume or season. After Charlie, he had a more developed accent, but it wasn't as Americanized as it was in tonight's episode.

oh ok, I didn't notice if it had changed or not. I'll have to watch it again.

The few things that I saw wrong in the episode (which I listed in the Negative Reviews thread) were these:

- Daphne getting killed. They spent no time on it. It was just like BOOM! dead. I'm assuming that she's probably dead for good, no magic Claire blood or anything.

- When Tracy got apprehended by the guards after her meeting with Nathan in the woods -- why didn't she freeze them and make a break for it? Uhhhhh. Does not compute.

- Sylar + apprentice. Seriously. Just WAT. No idea how he wound up in their house, why he was in their house, etc. This has the potential to be done well, but I think it'll probably fail.

- Ando seemed to have a magically vanishing accent in this episode yet again.

The one thing I did really like about this episode was Zeljko Ivanek because he is made of win and awesome.

Their suits allowed them to not be affected by Tracy's touch, like shown in the first episode when they went to capture her.

Umm the guns?
And the fact that alot of the soldiers are prepared for her ability like when she got caught...

They lived across the street from his fathers house and he was banking on them knowing more information seeing as they lived right across the street.

Okay, I totally forgot that the suits were immune to Tracy's power, so that explains that.

And I think I missed where they said those people lived right across the street from Sylar's father.

I agree. I thought the witting in this episode was awful. The exchange of dialogue between Ando and the Speedster when they first get to the crash site was horrible and wooden and had little to do with their acting because I've seen much better from both of them in other eps.

It was the first time since the series began where I was honestly getting annoyed.

Thank you. I am glad more then one or two people agree with me. These last two episodes annoyed me. I am looking forward to Building 26 and Cold Wars because I know eventually we are going to get awesome episodes again. I am not giving up on Heroes.

Also I looked into it, according to Beeman's Blog they had a new writer write out that episode. That may make sense why the dialogue seemed so out of character for all of them.

I agree that the reading was kind of WAT in this episode. The dialogue was really out of place. Ando had a magically disappearing accent. The exchanges between Ando and Daphne seemed forced. As much as I love Noah, his shtick about how he's doing such and such to protect Claire is getting very old meme.

The dialog between Mohinder Matt and Hiro right after they got away from the crash really bothered me, and I usually am hard pressed to find any flaws in acting/lines of dialog. It did feel flat and repetitive. Like, Hiro wants to save the world. Matt wants to find Daphne. Mohinder wants to run away. Blah blah blah.


I wouldn't say out of character at all, just a bit dull.


But the Sylar story line makes up for it times a billion.




I know. Like if I hear that damn line "I'm doing it to protect this family" one more time my head is going to fizzle away. At least Mohinder talking about his father's research was funny.

Also she had guns pointed at her. She may have frozen a couple but would have died.

As for everyone else...There is no pleasing some people.

Yea.. Tracy may be a lot of things, but I stupid isn't one of them... When some one has a laser point dead in the middle of her forehead, it was probably in her best interest to try and bargain with Nathan rather than fight her way out...

If you look back at series 1...

You'll find that Hiro from the future spoke English without a Japanese accent. I thought that they made some significant steps from old Hiro to new Hiro in this episode - more sombre, more poetic, more... international. They were giving us those long-awaited glimpses of FHiro.

The writing, dialogue and acting for the most part has been HORRIBLE in these past two episodes.

Tim Kring wrote both of these episodes I believe?

If thats the case, then he shot himself in the foot when Jeph Loeb was fired from the show.

Kring has a Horrible track recording in writing shows for his own series! Go to Heroeswiki and see for yourself, he's written some of the worst/filler episodes of the series yet. This is taking the cake though, The brand is falling apart thanks to sloppiness.


I'm just glad i'm not the only one who sees this.

What was really bad though was Pete's dialogue (about not using credit cards/assets etc.) at the end of the episode and that cheesy music in the background, that was just tacky. Lets not even start with Claire and "REBEL", somebody better start stocking the writer's bathroom with toilet paper on a regular basis because all that feces seems to be turning in their scripts.

I only noticed the accent gone in Hiro in Five Years Gone which obviously would make sense, since it was five years later. Not only that, but it worked then.. I mean it just seems like his accent changed between last volume and this one. That's just me..

My god some of you people complain a lot.

And about stupid things.

I personally am loving the way they are writing Peter this half of the volume, especially from last nights episode. They are finally giving him some balls and not making him all soft and gullible anymore.

Not only that but did anyone else laugh at the spelling error when Angela was holding the newspaper? "Civilain Casualities Reported in Angola Coup" It just seemed like these last two episodes were written too quickly, too many rough edges in the writing.

Hey to the poster before, we all have our opinions. I am not digging the new writing style so far. It distracts my Heroes experience when you don't have good enough writing.

I don't see how "Dialog" is a stupid thing, considering this is a television series.


What I am thinking is that the storylines were all being written separately. It felt like it at least. And along with the odd special FX used on the plan bombs...I also think there was a sort of rush on this episode, which explains some of the stuff we are a little meh about.

I come to these forums to discuss the show, but when people hear a piece of dialogue they don't like and call it "out of character" or a "plothole" I want to punch the computer screen. Hearing people trash episodes because someone's accent is a bit off or that Heroes totally blows because someone isn't acting the way they think they should, I despise coming here.

You can call it taking this way too seriously or say "LOL IM A FAN TOO BUT I WANT IT MY WAY" then I just feel like raging. What is wrong with you people?

FAIL. This one was written by Smallville and BSG vet, Mark Verheiden. Give the guy a break, he just started on the show with Volume Four. A pretty damn good first episode if you ask me. Better than 3.08 'Villains'. I'm going out on a limb here saying that this is in my top five episodes. And if you're going to complain about aspects of the plot like the REBEL thing, don't blame the writer. Blame the WRITERS. They decide upon these things as a whole, outline it as a whole. The credited writer is merely responsible for all the details and dialogue and such.

Dear ChaosTheory09,
I understand your anger since I have been a long time fan for awhile and seen people complain and complain. You have probably been a fan for a while as well. When people discuss Heroes, they also talk about everything involved in the Heroes world including who wrote the episode, how well or badly the episode was written, and who directed it, how well it was directed. So we can talk about how amazing episodes are, but we cannot discuss episodes that we do not feel are amazing? If we are all actors on the stage of the world, as Shakespeare once said, then I argue that we are all also each other's critic. We cannot deny that some episodes will be amazing and some won't be as amazing. In order for the writers to maybe work on making their episodes the best they can, they need criticism. Besides, we are all entitled to our opinions and we all have the ability to speak as we feel. In my defense, this was the only episode I noticed these things in and I strongly noticed them. Since some people agreed with me, that tells me that I am not the only one that feels this way. I want to be able to have the complete Heroes experience and if I feel something is getting in the way of that, I will search and ask around until I come to my conclusion. Notice in my title I didn't say "This was the worst writing in any episode yet.", but instead I left a question mark at the end in order to see how others felt. Everything is either opinion or fact in this universe of knowledge and truth.

Thank you,
superman22

Agreed. I have faith in the writers though that the episodes will get better. I know this is all just my opinion since in all the opinion polls, people did like this episode, but I guess I was expecting more and was disappointed to find it was a filler episode. So then maybe I tried becoming picky, but I definitely did sense something off in the acting (I have to I am trying to become an actor myself.). As I said, I think in the end the entire episode was rushed because they have some exciting episodes to come ahead.

The ONLY problem I had with this episode was the way Tracy said she knew how Nathan did things, even after they ONLY knew each other for a week. I didn't sense anything out of character, I didn't care (or notice, for that matter) that Hiro's accent was off. People should focus on more important things, like the story. If you were concentrating on picking up Hiro's accent all the time, then of course you didn't enjoy the episode.

Okay what about this:

Hiro MUST be alive! Because Ando kills Hiro in the future! (Yeah right a future where everyone can get an ability because of the formula) That future is long gone!!
But still if its gonna be that way, than I can also say:
Daphne isn't going to die, because she and Matt are going to get a baby in the future!!!

That's what the characters think, TheHaitianGuy.

I've enjoyed the writing for Vol 4 so far. The writers are going in a new direction and it is easy to see. If this continues, which I believe it will, than we will be in for a very good volume.
Yes, sometimes things are a little off, so what, these things happen in stories.
I see Claire not being whinny. I see Peter getting tougher. These are good things.
About Ando and his thinking; It got him to hope again that Hiro was not dead. Doesn't matter that he's not being logical. He thinks the best thing about being a super-hero is that he might be able to on a date with a girl. (laughing)
Next we'll be hearing that it was a bad episode because we were at the Bennet house and didn't see Mr. Muggles.

I think you are reading way too much into that line. It was the characters way of rationalizing the fear that Hiro may be dead and coming up with any reason for him not to be.

Really? I must have missed that one...

As a whole, I don't have a problem with either of the episodes so far. Are there a few things that could be improved upon? Im sure there are, but for me anyways its nothing that actually distracts me from the show.

And as far as the whole Tracy not knowing Nathan thing, I also kind of found it weird, but then I came to the conclusion that they are a lot of like and that that was what she was referring to.

Exactly. I didn't have a huge problem with the way this episode was written per say (I had some issues but I think they were more personal/nitpicky) but it was the dialogue that set me off. I think the writers were trying for ominous with those text message but it ended up sounding grandiloquent.

It's just that a lot of what was said in this episode by the various characters sounded . . stupid.

And if Hiro is still learning English, how the heck did he know what 'redneck' meant? I thought it would have been funnier (and made more sense) if he actually put that shirt on and Mo or Matt told him to take it off.




Like for example complaining about complaints?

I just think they had a tremendous amount of character development to explore in too little time. We KNOW what Peter is destined to turn into from various futures where specials are hunted. How can anyone who watched him glide to a landing and start barking orders at the others to "ditch their phones" etc, NOT see the transition from wide-eyed optimist to toughened vet?!? I really saw it as our favorite characters pushed to the breaking point and forced to evolve their thinking. If it seemed rough, that's only because they didn't have enough time to display all the emotional churning that obviously went on. Seriously, some of you need to cut back on the hatorade and try some yea maybe..

Hiro has spent quite a bit of time in the US. I think we forget that sometimes.


I mean, I will say it again. My opinion is that there was some sort of rush on this episode. It explains some things, like the awkward explosion special effects. Perhaps something else we have to consider is that it took everyone a little while to get back into the Heroes zone.

Like I said, I'd rather an episode with shaky parts and excellent parts to one that is just "good". It means they just have to feel out which parts are really working and which aren't.

Wow, well allow me to respectfully disagree about the writing this volume. People are complaining about how dull or stupid the Mohinder/Hiro conversation was. But let's be honest, if they had said anything else, people would've been complaining about how inconsistant the characters are and how out of character they were there. In fact, all the characters have actually been staying in character for once, which is a breath of fresh air from the flip-flopping of volume 3. The dialogue may not be perfect, but it could be a lot worse. I expect certain characters to say certain things to react in certain ways. I expect that HRG is trying to protect Claire. Why? Because that's who he is. That's his character. Company man or not, his character lacks much purpose without Claire. In fact, if HRG was helping Nathan for any other reason, I would get upset. Claire and Peter are actually becoming useful again. People complain about Matt's reaction to Daphne. That's really stupid. Matt forced the guards to kill themselves after they killed someone he loved. That's a perfectly human response. Matt didn't really have time to react afterwards. Ando's accent change is stupid, I admit, but Hiro's isn't. I didn't even really notice a change. This certainly isn't the worst written episode yet or even the worst dialogue yet. I think some people nitpick a little too much.

Okay, I'm done ranting now.

This is where the problem lies when it comes to negative/positive reviews. There have been other episodes where I found the dialogue to be a little bit cheesy but I just shrugged my shoulders and moved on because it was so minor. This is actually the first time where I found it to be so bad that I chose to reply in this thread and agree that (maybe not the worst) the dialogue in this ep was pretty atrocious. But my opinion still gets wrangled into the 'people who complain too much' category and I'm sure this is the case for many people who say something negative about the show.

I had to post this because, well it's spot on. It from TV tropes (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HomePage), it under the "Fandumb" page it talks about all the amazing ways fandom criticism can go off the rails:

"The Toxic Visionary: Arguably the purest distillation of fan stupidity, the Toxic Visionary resembles the Toxic Genius in that he uses his perceived intelligence as a weapon, but the difference is that the Visionary believes he's smarter than creators. The operative phrase here is "I could've written it better" said without irony. Telltale signs include picking over the work for Subtext that doesn't exist and overestimating the significance of 'hard' fandom as a whole. Thankfully, they usually keep to themselves."

Sorry to the OP but you made your bed, LOL.

FYI list from TV Tropes encompasses about 98% of the posts to this forum in one way or the other.

Yeah I hate it when there's a bunch of people getting their panties in a twist over trivial matters because then, when there actually is something to complain about, everybody ignores it or calls it being 'too picky'. Trust me, this is nothing. You'd be endlessly facepalming if you read what some people had to say about this show on other sites like 'as soon as I saw the plane was crashing, I realized they were just trying to rip off Lost'.



I must have missed the part where he suggested he was smarter than the writers or that he could do a better job as the majority of the quote you posted implies.

Not sure I would say worse ever, there was one episode during Villians that completely negated itseld and wound up being pointless. I have to figure out which one that was but I guess this one would be right up there.

I don't know if this is the WORST writing but Hiro seemed a-bit off.
Like his lines?
Felt like they had a new writer writing for him who was trying waaaay too hard. XD

I didn't mean you specifically, I just meant that in general, some people nitpick too much without much reasoning. I didn't mean to just categorize your opinions like that.

Nothing felt natural and organic. All of it felt read off a page.

I dunno if it was the writing, the direction... or whatever... but after 5YG this was my least favorite episode.

It was still written pretty badly

I don't know if its listening to input from us, or exec's at NBC dumbing down **** but its really creating a huge pile of hot garbage.

and yeah I did blame the writers, here's exactly what I wrote earlier in this thread:



They better start stocking up quick!

superman22 - I'm not a big fan of post-Genesis Heroes. There have been some standout episodes ("Cautionary Tales" and "Our Father" come to mind) since the end of the first volume, but for the most part the show has been suffering. So I can sympathize with anyone who is willing to express their dissatisfaction with Heroes' more recent offerings.

That said, I found myself trying to make sense of your original post in this thread, but I really couldn't do it. You use the phrase "out of character" or some variant thereof half a dozen times, but not once do you provide a quick blurb describing how their past behavior conflicts with the way they're being written in the here and now. You mention Hiro's accent, and that's definitely part of his character, but it has nothing to do with his emotional development, nor the development of his (currently absent) abilities.

Nathan's character is certainly problematic. He's switched allegiances so many times (without decent buildup or motivation on a few occasions, most notably in last volume's finale, "Dual") that I'm wondering if it's possible to pin down what "in-character" means for the Senator.

In most of these cases, though, without any attempt at elaboration on your part, I'm left to feel that you're just throwing around the phrase "out of character" because you think it has a lot of weight. Specificity might help your cause, here.

[quote name='ShinyHunter' post='795389' date='Feb 11 2009, 06:31 PM']Yeah I hate it when there's a bunch of people getting their panties in a twist over trivial matters because then, when there actually is something to complain about, everybody ignores it or calls it being 'too picky'. Trust me, this is nothing. You'd be endlessly facepalming if you read what some people had to say about this show on other sites like 'as soon as I saw the plane was crashing, I realized they were just trying to rip off Lost'.

I've been here from the start and it's become a sad whine fest, we should be distributing tiny violins. Believe me I don't think you have to worry about being too picky it would take a gargantuan effort to top what we've all seen posted in this forum and your sentiment has been expressed on this board like a thousand times, I get it, we have to focus on the small things and the large alike, yawn.


I must have missed the part where he suggested he was smarter than the writers or that he could do a better job as the majority of the quote you posted implies.

Honestly I was reading through the list that was quoted in my post about the forum poster archetypes and it didn't line up to what you were saying as I read back through it. Sorry it's just the funniest thing I've seen in awhile as it is relavent to about 98% of the posts on this forum and 100% for the forum members.[/quote]