by Julius Albert Custodio

Created on: February 19, 2009   Last Updated: April 21, 2009

Alas, Heroes has finally lost its magic.

No amount of superpowers can save this show from imploding upon itself. After 3 grueling seasons, I finally saw through this TV shows extra-shiny facade. I will be blatant about this so if you're a rabid fan, I pray that you will forgive me.

I just can't stand the hype surrounding this TV show. "Heroes" is another X-Men rip-off parading as an "original" concept. It didn't live up to my expectations and to tell you frankly, that's just me being "nice". For a TV series which relied heavily on gimmicks, it actually started out quite well in the first two seasons. Unfortunately, it just went downhill from there.

Don't get me wrong, I didn't have any problem with the tried-and-tested, albeit cliched, "Save the World" plot at all. It's almost a given that superheroes will have to save the world, whether or not that plan includes saving a cheerleader in the process. It just didn't sit well on me when the writers decided to add more characters to the roster.

What's wrong with the current set of characters anyway? For me, it was pointless to add more. We already have Hiro and Ando the token funny guys, Peter "hey-look-at-me-I'm-so-emo" Petrelli, his brother Nathan "hey-look-at-me-I'm-so-serious" Petrelli, Claire the hottest undead chick ever, Nikki the hotter chick, Matt the boring cop, Mohinder the even more boring one, and the rest of the gang. This is a mishmash set of multi-racial characters, they make the United Colors of Benetton look racist in the process. They are already enough to keep me watching. What used to be a potential winner quickly became a convoluted soap opera of sorts.

There's nothing bad about adding two or three characters every season, in fact, it may even pique the curiosity of previous non-viewers. For instance, by adding the Kristen Bell character they will get the Veronica Mars fans to take interest on the show. That being said, I think they went overboard with the whole idea. I still can't forgive them for killing off my favorite heroes early on. Introducing new characters, however cool their back-stories and powers are, will never soften the blow.

What made it worse is that they toyed with the idea of reviving dead characters without any hesitation. It would've worked if there was some sort of grand scheme behind all of this but what they had was just some silly plot-device, a deus ex machina, if you will.

I never expected anything that would raise the shows credibility, after all this was a modern fantasy story and the shows writers can get away with anything. But when you see the whole story going nowhere to the point of being redundant, you'll probably give up on it as quickly as I did. To wit, there was no chance to suspend my disbelief because there was nothing to get excited about in the first place. This was basically an exercise in futility!

At this point, I don't think there's anything they can do to salvage this show. They can play around with the plot some more, add a whole alternate universe or even get big stars to join the cast. It won't matter anymore.

For what it's worth, Heroes is dead to me.

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