Heroes Season 3 DVD Review

Posted by Michael Weyer on 09.12.2009

The much-criticized one-time TV darling has a season with ups and downs at the start but reminds you how amazing it is in its second half and packed with slews of extras.

Heroes Season 3
Six Disc DVD set
Universal Studios
1020 minutes



　
　
I’m used to taking stances with some sci-fi properties that can be unpopular ones. I prefer Return of the Jedi over Empire Strikes Back, I think the last Indiana Jones movie was pretty good, the prequels aren’t that bad and Firefly is rather overrated. I’m devoted to many shows but can still recognize their poor turns from Lost to 24 and more. But it still annoys me when people can turn so suddenly on a show that still has great potential.

Few series in history have had fan and critical reaction change in such a short time as Heroes. The first season was a sensation as with little hype, the series exploded with great storytelling and a great cast and became a major hit. There was talk of spreading it out with a spin-off but when the second season began, the fervor cooled. The producers have acknowledged they made mistakes such as assuming fans would want the same “spread them out and slow build” of the first season and also didn’t introduce the big threat of a killer virus until the seventh episode. But folks were still jarred that the season didn’t seem as wildly awesome as the first one had been. It was clear the groundwork was being laid for a big plotline but then the writer’s strike hit and by the time it was over, NBC decided it was better to wait until fall to bring the show back.

That bad reaction to season two continued with this new season as well as suddenly, bashing Heroes became the “in” thing to do on message boards and websites. Entertainment Weekly, which had championed the show in its first year did a cover story on how to “save” the series. In all this bashing, it was overlooked how the season, judged as a whole, is still damn good entertainment with a fine cast and while some stories are over the top, others balance it out to deliver a good package.
　

The Show

The season is divided into two volumes, each with their own vibe. Volume 3: “Villains” is the first half, beginning from the rushed second season finale in which Nathan Petrelli (Adrian Padsar) was about to reveal to the press the existence of super powered humans only to be shot. It turns out the shooter is a future version of Peter (Milo Ventimiglia) who was trying to stop his brother as apparently Nathan’s reveal leads to major disaster down the road. Recovering from the shooting, Nathan believes he’s been chosen by God and becomes a Senator while having visions of the late Linderman (Malcom McDowell). While split personality Nikki (Ali Larter) was killed in season two, a woman looking exactly like her comes on the scene, Tracy Strauss, a Washington player who’s interested in Nathan. When a reporter confronts her with suspicions she’s Nikki, Tracy is shocked when she freezes him solid and tries to figure the truth behind herself. Meanwhile, serial killer Sylar (Zachary Quinto) is on the hunt again and manages to steal the healing power of cheerleader Claire (Hayden Panettiere) although Claire does manage to survive. Bored with running his family business, Hiro (Masi Oka) opens a safe containing a formula that’s stolen by super-speedster Daphne (Brea Grant). The formula is apparently to give abilities to normal people and during one of his journeys to the future, Hiro sees his best friend Ando (James Kayson Lee) use powers to kill Hiro moments before a massive earthquake ripped the planet in two. Also working on a version of the formula is Suresh (Sendhil Ramamurthy) who foolishly injects himself with it, causing him to mutate. Noah Bennett (Jack Coleman) is forced to help the Company when Sylar causes a breakout of inmates at a special prison, one of which is Peter stuck in the body of another man by his own future self. Noah is forced to work with Sylar as part of a grand scheme by Angela Petrelli (Christine Rose). However, Angela is unaware of how someone else from the past is pulling the strings and leads to some major developments.

The first half of the season is, to be honest, rough at times. It’s a case of how some characters can make some dumb choices, notably Suresh who may well be the stupidest brilliant scientist in TV history. It’s also a bit annoying to see retcons to past history such as how in the first season it seemed Nathan was meeting Linderman for the first time but flashbacks show them having a longer history. Also, it seems a bit wild that the first season was centered on Sylar stealing Claire’s powers but here, he gets them and she’s not much the worse for wear. Some ideas sound better on paper like how Matt (Greg Grunberg) has a vision of the future where he sees himself married to Daphne and tries to woo her in real life. It also would have been nice to have more on some characters like the convict Peter is stuck in with the ability to issue sonic screams or the lawyer who has the fitting ability to always know when someone’s lying.

Yet for those pitfalls, the show still manages to click at times and throws in some nice touches. For example, while she survives Sylar’s attack, Claire finds herself losing the ability to feel pain and relates how that was what kept her feeling human whenever she healed. She starts to throw herself into hunting down fugitives alone, getting into trouble and to help her out, Noah has the great idea to bring back her birth mother, the fire-wielding Meredith (the great Jessalyn Gilig). This leads to a terrific episode in which the two, along with Claire’s adopted mother Sandra (Ashley Crow) are held captive by Eric Doyle (David. H. Lawrence XVII) who can control bodies in a very tense standoff. Afterward, another cool idea is Meredith becoming Noah’s new partner. Another interesting touch is when Claire briefly loses her powers while suffering a gunshot wound and becomes massively infected because her system doesn‘t have the immunities a normal human body builds up through sickness and injury. Panettiere handles it all well, her future self truly disturbing as she wrestles with wanting a normal life despite being as abnormal as can be.

Another good touch is for Peter who often come off too powerful with his ability to take on others’ powers. They solve that here by having him first lose his powers and then get them back but with a catch: He has to touch a person in order to borrow it and can only hold one power at a time. This really does make the character easier to relate to which is needed since Milo can sadly make him a bit whiny at times. It is fun seeing the older and darker Peter who has to tangle with a darker (in hair and attitude) Claire while Padsar is also good as Nathan embracing his darker edges. Larter makes Tracy an intriguing character, more world-wise than Nikki, dealing with the guilt over causing a man’s death but by the end of the volume becoming a bit more conniving.

Still, I sense the frustration of fans when you see stuff like Hiro regressed to an adolescent mind and other plots that don’t click. It also seems sometimes the writers assume fans have read all those online comics of the show as they’ll throw in plots from it like the Haitian (Jimmy Jean-Louis) dealing with his dictator brother. There’s also the feeling that the writers may be responding too much to the complaints of how the second season was slow and thus respond by rushing a lot of big twists and such. I also think there’s some trouble with the creative staff. Jeff Loeb has a great comic writing past but his work in the last few years, especially his horrible Hulk run, hasn’t been that good (personally, I suspect the death of his son in 2005 took a lot out of him) and this somewhat haphazard way of storytelling effects the show. We still get cool ideas but it seems they’re retreading season 1 stuff like an episode flashing into the future and another to the past.





Still, the cast makes it work overall and it’s good to see Kristen Bell back as the psychotic electricity-bearing Elle. She gets a nice push as Elle loses her father, who was the one keeping her in the Company, is killed and she’s cast out. Her powers start to get out of control and she enlists Claire for help, the two having great chemistry together. Bell also works with Quinto as she and Sylar bond (helped by a retcon explaining that Elle played a part in Sylar’s journey into madness) although it does end bloody. The problem with the volume, as noted, is that the producers go overboard with plots and jam too much into it from Sylar’s parentage to the idea of the army trying to create a brigade of super-soldiers. This takes its toll on the climax, which is too rushed to really be effective as it could be and I can see why a lot of fans had a sour taste in their mouths from it all.

However, volume 4, “Fugitives,” does make up for it big-time. The plot is that Nathan, convinced by the actions of everyone in the previous volume that the super-powered humans are a danger, tells the President (Michael Dorn, aka Worf from Star Trek the Next Generation) of their existence, leaving out that he’s one of them. This leads to the government dispatching a force designed to round up all the meta humans and imprison them “for the public safety.” When a plane carrying them all crashes, the various heroes have to race around the country, staying out of sight while taking the fight to Nathan and are aided by a mysterious figure called “Rebel.” Given a free pass due to her relationship with Nathan, Claire tries to help out on her own while Noah wants her to have a normal life. Meanwhile, Sylar is on the hunt to find his father and figure out his own path.

This volume has some good acting spotlights with Rose showing Angela’s dark past and guilt and Ashley Crowe gets a terrific showcase with the episode of Sandra helping Claire out with a guy on the run, showing humor and depth denied her in previous volumes. She and Coleman work well together with Sylar using some newly acquired shape-shifting abilities to cause a wedge between them. Better is when Bennett pretends to be Sylar posing as Bennett and Coleman does a great impression of Quinto. While the about turns for Nathan and Tracy in the volume may seem sudden, the actors are able to make it work, Padsar good showing Nathan’s desire to do the right thing despite the hard circumstances. Another nice bit is how in volume 4, roles are reversed with Hiro powerless and Ando with a power and the actors continue to show the nice humor of their parts to carry it on with their friendship. Grant does suffer a bit as Daphne isn’t as fleshed out as one would hope (although the explanation behind her speed is a fun touch) and the romance with Matt feels strained. To its credit, the show does acknowledge that at the end as the character gets a nice send off and gives Matt a new edge wanting payback while also bringing back his infant son.




A major reason this part of the season shines can be summed up in two words: Zeljko Ivanek. The Emmy-winning veteran is an inspired choice for Emile Danko aka the Hunter, the government agent chosen to lead the round-up for heroes and does so with an intensity that puts Inspector Javert to shame. Always cool and confident, the man is willing to do most anything to see the job done, no matter what. When an official (Moria Kelly) who doesn’t believe in the existence of the super-powered threatens to shut the operation down, Danko arranges for Tracy to escape from her cell and freeze a guy right in front of Kelly, convincing her of the danger the met humans pose. Nathan calls out Danko for setting it up and the man just shrugs that war requires sacrifices. His suspicions about Nathan set up some big conflict but Ivanek also shows some deeper sides to Delko. It’s shown how the man’s life is empty without his job and when Matt tries to find someone close to him and it’s a prostitute who thinks Ivanek is a normal salesman with a family, the normal life the man wants but denies himself. Ivanek still makes the character truly dangerous, setting up some big twists with Sylar.

On that, a recurring complaint among fans was the arc of Sylar this season. Yes, the first half muddied things up with his supposed parentage and looks at his past but the second half is unique with him searching for his father and trying to find his own path. The subplot where he becomes a mentor for a dark young man with his own power has promise but doesn’t pay off as well as one hoped for. But Quinto still makes you see the way Sylar wrestles with his dark nature, his desire to make an impact with his life like his mother always wanted. His final confrontation with his dad (a well-cast John Glover) is excellently done as Sylar realizes he can’t find his answers in the past but has to make his own path. I don’t get why so many fans were complaining about him being “softened” as he’s still the twisted figure who will kill if he wants to. It’s as if people were fine with him as just a one-dimensional killer but when they tried to show who this man was and add layers, fans turned on the idea which makes little sense. Through it all, Quinto’s amazing acting carries the character on his voyage and makes him immensely watchable.

Another reason the season picks up is the welcome return of Bryan Fuller, who left after the first season to produce the all-too-short-lived Pushing Daises. His return is immediately felt with the excellent “Cold Snap” episode that brings Tracy’s arc to a dramatic close and you can feel his influences on episodes like “1961” where Angela reveals the dark secret behind the company and her own past, explaining a lot of her actions. Through it all, we get the nice touches to powers like when Claire drinks a bunch of frat guys under the table as her body instantly replaces any brain cells and liver damage. The big season finale does have a cool story to it with a wild twist involving two characters that brings the arc to a dramatic close and also paves the way for next season. A major help is that the show still boasts the best special effects on network TV. They range from the subtle ones like how a guy breathes underwater to bigger effects like Tracy’s freezing, especially in the “Cold Snap” episode and the amazing effect in the premiere where Hiro freezes time as Daphne runs through an office and we see the tunnels of air she leaves in her wake. Hands down the coolest effect is the fate of season 2 baddie Adam Monroe (David Anders) when his ability to instantly heal is taken away and his body remembers it’s over 400 years old. In a tour de force sequence, we see the life literally sap out of the man as he grows pale, weak, wrinkled and in seconds transforms to ash as his suit collapses around him. Better is how you see his eyes still pleading through it all, terrified of ending like this. It’s a great example of how the effects merge with the story and give you a great punch.

So while there are faults in the early half, the season is nowhere near the train wreck a lot say it is. It strikes me that a lot of people elevate season 1 to near perfection, overlooking that too had a lot of bumps on the road to winning folks over. Indeed, considering how a lot of those folks say “I gave up midway through,” they didn’t see the bounce back to the show’s great balance of action and insight. It may not always succeed but the show isn’t afraid to take chances and try to do different things with their characters. The writing, even in poor eps, is still good and the excellent cast handle it all well, puling you into the action. The twists work well and the top-notch effects add to the comic book atmosphere. For those who haven’t experienced it, ignore the naysayers and enjoy the saga. For those who say they gave up, watching it all in one go puts it in better focus and lets you enjoy a show that still gives a wild ride for any genre fan.

Rating: 8.0 out of 10.0
　

Video: 1.78:1 Anamorphic widescreen. The show was always shot in a high-def filter and the DVD just enhances the excellent quality. The effects shine bright and clear and even softer scenes come off nice as well, giving you a great picture throughout.

Rating: 9.5 out of 10.0
　

Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround with subtitles in English, French and Spanish. The audio is as clear as the picture with no need to do volume adjusting. Given the various sound effects and the great music, it’s important to hear it all clearly and it succeeds there nicely.

Rating: 9.0 out of 10.0



　

Bonus Features: Say what you will about the season itself but NBC has gone beyond the call of duty with extras on this set. It starts with the fact that every episode boasts an audio commentary:

“The Second Coming” with Tim Kring and director/writer Allan Arkush.
“The Butterfly Effect” with director Greg Deeman, James Kayson Lee and Brea Grant.
“One of Us, One of Them” with Christina Rose and Milo Ventimiglia.
“I am Become Death” with Greg Grunberg and Jamie Hector.
“Angels and Monsters” with director Anthony Hemmingway and writers Adam Armus and Kay Foster.
“Dying of the Light” with Sendhil Ramamurthy and writers Christopher Zata and Chuck Kim.
“Eris Quod Sum” with director of photography Charles Liberman, Editor Scott Boyd and Lee.
“Villains” with Lieberman and Blake Shields (Flint).
“The Eclipse part 1” with Beeman and Ramamurthy.
The Eclipse part 2” with Rose and Grunberg
“Our Father” with Masai Oka and Grant.
“Dual” with Zachary Quinto and visual effects supervisor Gary D’Amico.
“A Clear and Present Danger” with Kring, Ventimiglia and director Greg Yaitanes.
“Trust and Blood” with Arkush and writer Mark Verheiden.
“Building 26” with art director Sandy Getzler and production designer Ruth Ammon.
“Cold Wars” with Jack Coleman and Ramamurthy.
“Exposed” with Ventimiglia and Grunberg.
“Shades of Grey” with David H. Lawrence XVII and visual effects artist Oliver Grigsby.
“Cold Snap” with Okai and Bryan Fuller.
“Into Aslyum” with director of photography Nate Goodman and co-producer Joe Poyaski.
“Turn and Face the Strange” with writers Verheiden and Rob Fresco.
“1961” with editor Joe Koslowsky and director Adam Kane.
“I am Sylar” with Goodman, Foster and Armus.
“An Invisible Thread” with Lieberman and editor Donn Aron.
　
As you can imagine, the commentaries offer a slew of insight to the series. A common theme, especially in the early ones, is how they had to shift the plans for volume 3 due to the shortened volume 2. That includes some regrets on Dana Ramirez as her much maligned Maya was going to be a major part of the plague plotline but when that was dumped, they didn’t have anything for her to do. There are nice bits like Grant revealing that she once waited on Kristen Bell’s table and they go in depth on a lot of the challenges of shooting with all the effects and stunts and a lot of behind the scenes chatter. They also discuss some ideas that didn’t make it into the final episodes and how some plots were reworked as being better on paper than shooting. Some observations are good such as them discussing the much-criticized moment in the finale where a big fight scene literally happens off-screen. On the track, they basically say they felt there was no way they could live up to expectations of the fight and thus thought it better to leave it up to the viewer’s imaginations. While a bit self-congratulatory, the tracks are packed with amazing details that offer hours of insight to enhance your watching the season.

There are 36 deleted scenes spread out mong the discs. These are mostly filler and some alternate stuff (like the theater showdown with Hiro, Ando, the Haitian and Claire) but others are big deals. There’s the explanation as to what happened to the doctor who manipulated Tracy and Nikki; a nice Cliare/Sandra scene emphasizing their connection; Miach questioning Noah’s motivations in helping the Heroes out and a funny scene with a drunk Nathan and Claire taking on the frat boys. A big series of scenes shows the background of the thug Knox and his surprising link to one character while another explains what happened to the young Molly.
　
The Super Powers of Heroes focuses on Tim Gilbert, the stunt coordinator for the show. It runs down a lot of the stunts of the year with shooting on set and making it all work. They emphasize how a lot of the cast likes to do their own stunts and Gilbert often lets them as it enhances the drama and makes it easier for the cameras to get reactions. Christina Rose is shown having fun being locked onto a harness for the first time and they show how for the “1961” episode (which took place outdoors away from the studio) they had to use cranes to make the stunts work right. Overall, a nice focus on how the show enhances reality.
　
Completing the Scene looks at the visual effects of the show with supervisor Eric Grenaudier getting the most screen time. He explains how every episode requires about 20-25 hours of meeting to plan things out properly and the challenge is to figure out how to make it all look as real as possible. They show how the flying effects have improved as they’re able to better show the characters in flight rather than just appearing and vanishing in and out of nowhere. A big look is the destruction of Tokyo in the season premiere and how they went into detail showing the chaos while “Cold Snap” required five different 3-D artists to make the big scene work.
　
The Prop Box has James Clark giving a tour of the prop department for the series. It’s quite huge as Clark notes they never throw anything out since you never know when a flashback episode is coming so they still have stuff from season one in there. They touch on Reba Rosenthal who creates all the maps for the show and the various swords used with some secrets behind them.
　
Alternate Stories collects two of the webisode series of the show. “Going Postal” was shown during season two, focusing on a mailman being hunted. “Nowhere Man” focuses on Doyle as he tries to live a normal life but his ability to control people wears him down as he faces hardships at his job. Sadly, the DVD leaves off “The Rookie” series although I do understand that one is on the Blu-Ray set.
　
Genetics of a Scene is divided into four parts:
*Exploring Claire’s Mind
*Speedster Steals the Formula
*Throwing Thoughts
*Lights, Camera, Beeman

Each one focuses on a different segment of an episode and creating it. The first looks at the body casts they use for some corpses and bodies, the emphasis on the fake head worn by Claire for when Sylar cuts her head open. The speedster part looks at creating the amazing sequence of Hiro and Daphne in the office and how they made the stopping time stuff work so well. It touches on how the producers caught Grant on Friday Night Lights and kept writing Daphne to fit her with Allan Arkush finally suggesting they just hire her for the part. The final part has Beeman directing a key scene with Sylar, Nathan and Delko and the long process involved. There’s fun bits like how the script says Sylar drags Nathan across the room by hand but Quinto suggests that it’d be better to telekinetically pull him which they agree with and set it up. The process is long but worth it in the end to pull the tricky scene off.
　
The Writer’s forum has Kring with Armus and Aron Eli Coleite talking about the season overall and how they made it work. They address how they had certain plans for when it started, to explore the choices between hero and villain and the flipping of some characters played into that. The idea of the big bad behind volume 3 had been around since the beginning of the show and this was the perfect time to explore it. They touch on Sylar’s quest and how they wanted to explore his depths more and relate that the original plan for volume 4 was four episodes of them hunted, four of them fighting back and then the last four trying to escape from a super prison. However, as they planned it out, they realized that letting the characters run loose was more intriguing (plus, they couldn’t quite figure how to make that prison work) and used the prison idea for the “1961“ episode. The naysayers may be thrown by how they all say they don’t do this for themselves but always think of the fans when writing the episodes out. It is notable how Loeb is absent and they do ignore some of the problems of the early going but still a good insight to the process.
　
We also get a gallery of the artwork of Tim Sale used through the season and a fake commercial for Primatech. It might have been nice to talk about the various web comics that fill in gaps of the season and characters but still a great set of bonuses to enhance the season.

Rating: 9.7 out of 10.0
　

The 411: Unfairly maligned, Heroes manages to overcome problems in its first half (which isn't all that bad) and becomes a great thrill ride in its second. With top notch effects and a great cast, the show continues to give a better mix of laughs and thrills than most other network shows. The amazing array of extras enhance the set and might win over doubters while the faithful can see how the show still is a fantastic ride.

Final Score:  9.2   [  Amazing ]