TV Detail:
Heroes Review. Season 3 Premiere "Villains"

Heroes looked to put its sophomore slump behind it and return to its first season greatness last night. Aside from last year’s additions of Maya (Dania Ramzírez) and Elle (Kristen Bell), it also looked like a return to the original cast and, to some extent, the original plot (save the planet from a future giant explosion). Despite the fact that the first half of the new season is called “Villains,” the two episodes that aired back-to-back last night, “The Second Coming” and “The Butterfly Effect” relied on Sylar as the bad guy until the jailbreak towards the end.

But even with the new villains, it’s not entirely clear who’s a hero. The show opens with a future Claire (Hayden Panettiere) trying to kill her uncle Peter (Milo Ventimiglia) who then travels back to the present to try to kill his brother Nathan (Adrian Pasdar). A future Ando (James Kyson Lee) tries to kill his best friend Hiro (Masi Oka), who apparently starts the chain of events that’s going to destroy the world because his boredom and curiosity demand an adventure worthy of his powers. Niki (Ali Larter) seems to have adopted a new full-time personality Tracy and murders a journalist who’s uncovered Niki’s past. And Mohinder (Sendhil Ramamurthy) seems less interested in helping cure Maya’s tendency towards accidental homicide than in a breakthrough that could give everyone, especially himself, special powers.

The one new character who's given any real screen time is The Speedster (Brea Grant) who steals part of a chemical formula from Hiro. When Hiro slows time, he and The Speedster move at the same rate. It’s the cleverest new device added to Hiro’s storyline, which has always been the most interesting of the show.

Creator Tim Kring’s original plan was to keep the cast rotating, shifting to new characters with new powers, but last season’s negative reviews seem to have re-shifted his focus to trying to recapture the magic of Season One. But most of the characters have gotten less likeable as they’ve gotten more complicated, and the most purely good character from last year Monica (Dana Davis), is nowhere to be seen. There are new villains on the loose. What’s needed for this season to be great are real heroes.

Related Links:
Heroes Episode 303 "One of Us, One of Them" review
Heroes Episode 304 "I Am Become Death" review