DonnaK:  Well… to say I was disappointed by this week’s Heroes would be an understatement. The spark that I saw in the first two episodes of the season were gone, the plot lines I found the most compelling were gone, the direction mundane and… you guessed it… inconsistencies throughout. I have no idea why it seems so damn difficult for Heroes to keep their plots and details straight, even within the same f’n episode, but it simply seems that consistency is something that Heroes just doesn’t do. I don’t think any of you reading this need another lecture from me about how much I despise inconsistencies, so let’s just move on to the list of things I liked, was ambivalent about, and disliked.

THINGS I LIKED:
—The return of Angela Petrelli. Watching Christine Rose play Angela is always a treat, and I loved her interactions with Nathan this week. If Parkman refuses to help ensure that Sylar remains buried, the job is left to Angela, and it was a masterstroke to bring him a box of Nathan’s old things so Sylar would create/restore Nathan’s past. Very clever plot and beautifully acted, as always, by Christine Rose. Bonus points for having that beautiful scene with Rose and Swoozie Kurtz - those two grande dames work so well together.
—We got at least a glimpse of the Carnival. I know we can’t have the Carny on every week, so I was happy when we got at least a small taste of the Sullivan Brothers at the end of the show. Something’s better than nothing, right?

THINGS ABOUT WHICH I WAS AMBIVALENT:
—Tracy Strauss getting her life back. While I’m VERY happy to see Tracy back on the scene (I’m still hoping she turns into a super bad-ass), I was just “meh” about this storyline. Yes, I know that this season is about the heroes attempting to fit back into their lives. But… does it have to be so damned boring? I knew what was going to happen with Tracy’s whole storyline from the opening scene - it was obvious and telegraphed. Why make me sit through a long, drawn out explanation of “you can’t always go home again?” Was there no better way to do this? Hrmmm.
—The meeting of Nathan and Peter. So… we finally have our answer to the burning question of whether or not Peter would instantly know on touch that Nathan was actually Sylar. By establishing last week (when Peter touched Samuel and felt nothing) that Peter has to “look” for powers in those he touches I understood why Peter didn’t recognize Sylar on touch. It’s what happened in the rest of that meeting that’s bothering me. Say you’re Peter. Nathan shows up and shows you he suddenly has telekinesis and object memory. If you’re Peter and can search people for powers… why wouldn’t he touch Nathan again to see what the heck was going on with Nathan’s powers? Those revelations would warrant a touch-test, don’t you think? I know I would want to browse around and see why my brother was suddenly developing multiple new powers, and so would power-happy Peter. This didn’t jibe with me.
—What happened to our new hero? Hey, remember Emma, the deaf woman who could see sounds as colors? Me too. I guess we’re the only ones because we’ve seen hide nor hair of her since then. Why introduce a new hero unless you were going to use them right away? By the time they get back to Emma I’ll have forgotten her or just care even less than I do now. I don’t get this storyline at all.

THINGS I DISLIKED:
—The whole Hiro story arc. I’m sorry, I don’t buy any of this shit for a single second. You cannot go back and change the past without having some kind of ripple effect. This was my argument from episode one and I stick by it. By changing the past so that Ando and Kimiko became a couple so many things would be been affected. Ando would have spent more time with Kimiko than with Hiro. He would have sided with Kimiko in disagreements. He wouldn’t have had so much time to partner up with Hiro on adventures. The whole dynamic of those two would have changed, and yet it didn’t. BULL. It was the same this week - you can’t change one event and have only that one thing be affected. It’s not a time-travel model that holds any water and I’m extraordinarily disappointed that Heroes is doing this. Add in the fact that Hiro *knows* that changing the past is wrong and has disastrous consequences and I don’t get why any of this is happening at all. Not good, sir.
—No more Claire! I’ve had it up to *here* with Claire at this point. We can’t have any Parkman, Sylar, or Samuel… but we can work more boring Claire in? Sorry, I’ll pass, thanks.
—Where are the good storylines? No Parkman, no Sylar, no Samuel, no action… all this week had was a whole lot of talking, and very little of it was interesting. This is a mistake Heroes keeps on making - they cram all the action-packed/fun/best storylines into one episode and leave the dregs for another instead of spreading things out more, and I’m getting sick of it.
—INCONSISTENCY! Maybe I’m being petty, but when the Hiro storyline centers around Hiro jumping back in time to disable a copier and get smeared with toner ink… I EXPECT HIRO TO BE SMEARED WITH TONER INK IN ALL THE SHOTS. His toner smudges were actually missing on more than one occasion and changed in others. Come on! This is simple detail! You can’t tell me this is THAT hard to get right! And how about the jumper telling Hiro in one breath that he hasn’t told anyone he was fired and in the next telling Hiro how ashamed his family was when they knew he was fired. HUH? Did he fool them for a month or didn’t he? The two sentences were maybe thirty seconds apart. They can’t be consistent for thirty seconds? This is me, banging my head on the wall.
—The direction. Last night I watched House before Heroes and spent that hour remarking on how amazingly well House has been directed this season. House - a procedural dressed up as a drama - had become quite visually arresting, with last night’s episode being particularly so. Then I watched Heroes, which was directed hap-haphazardly with little to no flair or style. I should NEVER find House more visually arresting than Heroes. NEVER. And yet I did. NOT ACCEPTABLE.

I’m sorry, but with all the problems I can’t give this episode more than a 2.5 out of 5 stars. It was boring, slow, visually dull, and had no real action or movement. I don’t think this bores well for the season, I really don’t. If Heroes is going off the rails this quickly I really don’t see much hope for it. *sigh*