Product Description
Experience all the intrigue and suspense of Heroes: Season 4 in this 5-disc set that includes all 18 gripping episodes from the fourth season’s volume, Redemption. As the Heroes mourn fallen friends and face dangerous new foes, prepare for a wild ride — filled with shocking twists and turns — through an ominous funhouse that culminates in a Brave New World. Then step right up and explore hours of exclusive, behind-the-curtain magic with the show’s writers, s… More >>
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Season four of Heroes has the show nearing season one quality again. After the disaster of the past two seasons, the show titled this season “Redemption” to try and earn some respect back. In my mind, they did earn redemption. This season wasn’t as good as season one, but Heroes was fun to watch again. Heroes hasn’t been fun at all since season one. This season finally started to organically develop the characters again and introduced many new characters I enjoyed.
This season starts a few months after season three, and all of the characters are dealing with the repercussions. (spoiler) For instance, after pushing Nathan’s mind into Sylar’s body, Sylar is now trapped in Matt’s head. Sylar for the first half of the season tried to get back into his body, and along the way insults Matt in the most hilarious ways possible. (end spoiler) These guys together was one of the best parts of the season. The new characters this season are all very cool, which is something that hasn’t happened for a long time with Heroes. We get to see the main villain Samuel Sullivan (played by the ever charming Robert Knepper) develop over the season and we see how and why he develops his evil plan near the end of the season. My favorite new character this season was Emma, a deaf file clerk at Peter’s hospital who develops synesthesia (the ability to see sound as color). Her and Peter’s relationship was another highpoint of the season. I really liked how this season focused on the characters instead of another generic “Let’s save the world again guys!” story like they’ve been doing for a while now.
The story also slowed down this season into something smaller and digestible. Instead of trying to cram everyone’s storyline into one episode, this season only included about 2-3 in each episode. This allowed the individual stories more time to develop and slowed the pace down to something enjoyable. When watching this season on TV it seemed slow when there was a week in between each episode, but I recently streamed the season on Netflix and the pacing was much better when watched back to back. There are a few really slow episodes from episodes 12-14 that kill a lot of the momentum that the season had been building before then. These episodes seem like filler, but after them the season picks right back up and finishes with the best season finale of the show yet.
I don’t want to spoil this season for those who haven’t seen it yet, but suffice to say the turn around Heroes has done in quality this season is almost unbelievable. For a while there Heroes was one of the worst shows on television, but this season managed to crank out material that was lots of fun to watch. If it wasn’t for that slowdown in the middle, I would say this season almost equals season one in quality. The people giving this season one star have stopped caring for Heroes long before season four started. These people are suffering from disappointment, which is worse than being bad at first and then getting better. Heroes was great at first, and people invested time and money in it expecting it to get better. However, Heroes got worse and worse. People are now bitter about the show and aren’t willing to give it a chance. If you are willing to give this season a shot, you will see how much better Heroes has gotten.
Update 05/16/2010: Heroes has been canceled. While it’s sad the show has been canceled on its rebound, it’s not surprising considering how awful the second and third seasons were. In the second season, the characters puttered around and things moved very slowly. In the first few episodes a lot of nothing happened. It slowly picked up as the season went along, but then the writer’s strike hit and they gave us a crappy wrap up as a result. The worst part was (spoiler) they forgot Peter’s girlfriend in the future. I know she was probably erased or something when the timeline changed, but it made no impact on Peter what-so-ever in the third season. (end spoiler)
In complete contrast, the first volume of the third season had the characters running around at a frantic pace doing everything under the sun. The worst part about it was that they didn’t have very good continuity between episodes. It produced entertaining individual episodes, but as a whole the volume made no sense. The second volume of season three was much better than the first. It had a central storyline to focus on and slowed the pace down. On the flip-side it took a few episodes to find its feet, and the finale was god awful. (spolier) They focused on Claire and the door during the huge Sylar/Nathan/Peter fight?!?! You teased us in the first season finale, but now you actually have it and do the entire thing off screen? There is no excuse for something that stupid. I almost quit Heroes when they had that as the “big climax” of the season. Thank goodness I didn’t. (end spoiler) In the end, although it was much better than season two and first half of season three, it only managed to be decent.
It has been said time and time again, but it is true: Heroes had huge potential but wasted a lot of it. From characters dying and coming back to life inexplicably (How many times did Nathan die?) to running around in circles for storylines (they held on to that future painting gimmick for a seemingly endless amount of time), Heroes just never lived up to what it wanted to be. Seasons one and four are good, and the second half of season three is OK, but the rest is just garbage.
I’ll probably do a more complete review of Heroes as a whole when they release a complete series box set, but this is already a good summary of what went wrong with Heroes. Despite being canceled, Heroes isn’t quite dead yet. NBC is making plans for a two-hour TV movie to wrap up the series, so we will get more closure than the season four finale offers (which does serve as a decent series finale if the TV movie falls through). Although Heroes is gone, which most people would say is for the better, it has undeniably left a mark on sci-fi television and pop culture in general.
Rating: 4 / 5
So a few years back this show called “Heroes” was getting all kinds of hype, I finally sat down to watch it (on DVD)…and though I liked certain aspects of it, I eventually found it tedious and pretty much stopped about 1/2 way through.
Then I heard snippets of the plot line of Season 3, and then I managed to start watching season 4 (simultaneously) and I have to say, just when the show seems to keep losing more and more viewers, it seems to be getting better and better.
Part of what makes season 4 a particular treat is the way that the creators and writers really expanded on the more universally applicable concepts of “belonging,” “fitting in,” “people curious and admiring that may turn to hate,” and “redemption.” Although this is full of “specials” and great ability clashes and sequences, this season is really rather character focused and humanistic.
The bi-curious relationship of one of the main characters, the continuing complexities of everyone’s favorite charasmitic “Villain” Sylar get even more deliciously satisfying, and the “other” villain of this season, a mysterious man named Samuel Sullivan, (who is only much later revealed for his true plan and power) serves as a capable, driven, obsessed, if somewhat over-the-top adversary.
Season 4 kept things rather tight tidying everything up, leading into the next volume in a succinct 18 episode story arc. If you’re like me and gave up on “Heroes” early on (or like many others, during season 2) give this season and season 3 a chance, the show has really matured and is worth a watch.
Rating: 4 / 5
After the surprise ending of Season 3, I went into Season 4 a new fan. I watched the first season and the show never caught on for me. I can back after seeing Zach Quinto in Star Trek, and fell in love with Heroes.
Season 4 had great characterizations. Yet again, the writers had their hands tied with a season cut short by the Olympics. Therefore some parts feel rushed. The slam bang ending we were expecting never happened. And even with inconsistencies, the carnival added to the story. If only there weren’t soooo many characters, the writers could concentrate on the core people.
Now I hear there may be a Season 5, but if so, it will again be truncated. I only hope the writers can do the show justice in 13 episodes.
PS–despite what the haters say, Sylar is a fabulously layered character. Don’t count him out now that he wants to be good. And Peter, with Nathan gone, has become a stronger character, not a weaker one.
Rating: 5 / 5
It’s obvious that the show runner never knew how to followup season one and you can tell as each season has gotten progressively bad. Skip this show and watch something better written. The dialogue and scenes all became beyond funny and that’s why this once great show was cancelled. Viewers got tired of the Producers saying, oh, it will be good again. That never happened.
Rating: 1 / 5
I’ve been a fan of heroes since the first season. Quite honestly I think the show is going downhill fast. The problem? Quite a few.
Plot twists became a daily event…One day this character is with the bad guys…the next with the good…the next with the bad… It gets tiring. You can’t really root for anyone.
Also plot points are simply dropped and not followed through on. That was the most frustrating part of this season. I suppose you are along for the ride and not supposed to think.
Prime example: Quite a few episodes focused on Hiro dying cause he used his powers. He was so week he couldn’t do much, blood shooting out his nose every which way, then suddenly gets better magically and is fine the rest of the season pretty much. Why? huh… Why dramatically build something up if you’re just gonna drop it?
The carnival was never explained either…its a magical carnival only some can see, and why we didn’t run into all of this crap in previous seasons who knows… That isn’t as bad as its the basis for the season and was atleast semi interesting.
Lastly, Nathen dying. Don’t kill off characters and then just bring them back. It takes all suspense out of everything. Yea Sylar can die…20 times over but he’s never dead. He just gets back up, as with pretty much all characters on this show. .
I really can’t see how anyone could mark this as a 4 to 5 star season. It pretty much sucked.
Rating: 2 / 5