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Celebrating 25 Years Of The West Wing

Volume I: Genesis (S1)

Meredith Quill

By Meredith Quill
in Heroes [V]

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MarkHB

MarkHB

Where does it come from — this quest, this need to solve life's mysteries, when the simplest of questions can never be answered?

 

Rewatch Week 1: February 8-14, 2015

 

Chapter I: Genesis

In this episode, we are introduced to Peter Petrelli, a young man who dreams of flying, and his brother Nathan, a ruthless politician who thinks that Peter is dreaming his life away. Meanwhile, ordinary people from all around the world are starting to suspect that they have abilities beyond those of normal humans. Artist Isaac Mendez believes that he is painting the future, high school cheerleader Claire Bennet is suddenly able to recover from any wound almost instantly, Japanese businessman Hiro Nakamura tries to convince a friend that he can bend space and time, and single mother Niki Sanders starts seeing strange things in mirrors.Upon learning of his father's death, genetics Professor Mohinder Suresh begins to look into his research for a clue to why he was killed. When he follows his father's trail to New York City, however, Mohinder learns that someone else is on the trail of the same research.  Someone who may kill to protect the secrets of the next step in human evolution.

 

Chapter II: Don't Look Back

Los Angeles Police Officer Matt Parkman is working crowd control at a murder scene when he alone begins to hear the muffled cries of a little girl somewhere in the house. Claire's heroism brings her unwanted attention. Peter comes closer to learning the truth about his and Nathan's powers. Hiro finds a comic book which leads him to Isaac.

 

I still remember how shocked I was when the man we would come to call HRG turned out to be Claire's father, and the reveal of Isaac's bomb painting / floor mural.  I didn't have an HDTV when this season first aired, but this time I'm watching on BluRay so I'm getting its full glory.  I do, however, have the original DVD's I recorded off of the DVR, with the unedited version of Claire's hand in the garbage disposal.  The original broadcast showed the "In-Sink-Erator" brand name on the flange around the drain, but Emerson (the manufacturers) filed a lawsuit on the grounds that it was defamatory to insinuate that putting one's hand in a garbage disposal while it was running could do serious damage (I know, right?). The settlement involved scrubbing the brand name off any further broadcasts or releases.

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IWantCandy71

IWantCandy71

I have done the rewatch of the first four episodes, I just haven't had the time to come in and leave any comments. I will do so in more detail tomorrow hopefully.

I will say that I watched both the unaired pilot and the aired first episode. There was a line by Adrian that may have been ad libbed, either that or they just chose to cut the line out of the script for the actual aired episode. In the pilot, at the police station with Angela, Peter and Nathan, Nathan has a wonderful line where he says something about the press printing that Angela is a crack whore.

Adrian's dead pan delivery is just perfection. So much love.  :) And can I just say that I love how subtle the unveiling of Nathan's love for Peter is? Sure, he sometimes talks to him in not nice ways, and does harsh things. But the man bends over backwards for Peter when push comes to shove. And it's so slowly spelled out in small ways(like agreeing to meet his brother at the crack of dawn in a vacant alleyway), that the finale of season one is at once expected and yet....still wonderful with the brotherly love.

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Lantern7

Lantern7

I hate to echo every other critic out there, but this show peaked in the first season. Or maybe it's because I like my Hiro to be a goober. Also: Christopher Eccleston. Hard to top his guest appearances as Claude, especially after Claude pushed Peter Petrelli off the roof of a tall building. That was awesome.

 

ETA: Also, this was back when I didn't think of Mohinder as "D'ohinder."

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IWantCandy71

IWantCandy71

I know I said I would come in and post my thoughts. Truthfully, I made notes and everything for the first six shows and then got busy with other stuff. So I'm getting back on the horse, so to speak. I haven't forgotten ! :)

 

My mom and dad were actually the ones who told me when Heroes Reborn starts up. LOL I got them hooked. But I do hope to have the whole season down and rewatched before HRB starts. Which means I'm going to be watching mostly Heroes Season one in the next few weeks. :)

Which is fine, I'm not really watching anything else important right now !

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Jenniferbug

Jenniferbug

I'm rewatching this as I have time, which is slow going. I'm jotting down some notes as I watch, so i don't forget but it's hard not to jump around in my head with plot and future seasons! Random disjointed thoughts:

The Petrelli family is all kinds of messed up. I think it's really odd how they portray Angela acting out after Arthur dies because they've been married so long, etc and then try to reconcile that with the Arthur who shows up in season 2 (or 3?). How did those two even get married? Were they just trying to breed super powered children? It really does not make sense to me. They did finally state that Sylar wasn't their kid, right?

 

Speaking of Sylar, did we ever find out what he did with the brains? Or how exactly his power worked? I wish they would have stuck with how they originally showed Sylar, before he actually materialized on screen. His apartment that Mohinder and Eden go to is legitimately creepy, and I think the religious overtones were interesting there too. For some reason, I always had the impression from that that Sylar was more middle aged, and then he showed up as Zach Quinto who looked like he could have been a Petrelli and it seems like they altered his characterization a bit. Also, I don't care how lovely Zach Q is as a person, they should have written him off after the first season, never to return. His continued presence on the show was a major reason I gave up watching in it's initial run. 

 

I still hate Simone every time I watch. She was so annoying and useless. Did they ever hint that she had an ability? I remember her father did- something to do with dreams, right? That love triangle was the worst, and dragged every character in it down. I liked Isaac, and wish they would have kept him around. He didn't need to be a major character but I think he would have been useful as a guest star from time to time. Ditto for Eden- I liked her and thought her power was interesting. She didn't need to be a main character either, but I think this show made mistakes in killing off a lot of secondary characters when they could have had them fade into the background instead (like the Haitian used to come and go). And they kept around a lot of other characters who really weren't that interesting- Nikki comes to mind, though I guess that's subjective. I'd add Matt to that list too, even though I love Greg Grunberg. I also wish they had explored Lyle Bennett a little more. There's a deleted scene where he says both he and Claire are adopted, so I always wondered if he would manifest a power. In fact, it would be interesting to have him show up in the new series but they seem to have forgotten that HRG ever had a son. 

 

That's all I've got for now, but may post more as I watch more. 

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blueray

blueray

(edited)

 I just started a rewatch since I remembered that I liked season 1 and watched when it was on TV. I feel like while I'm still entertained by it, each episode doesn't really move the plot forward. And especially the first half of the season is like watching four different shows. You have:

 

Peter/Nathan/Isaaq's/Malhinders storyline which is kind of the main plotline. I would say Hiro is sort of in theirs though he is also having his own road trip stuff with his friend.

 

Claire: has her own sci-fi teen show going on.

 

Matt: has his own cop show going on.

 

Nicki and family: Honestly I remember hating her storyline the first time through, so I've been fast forwarding it.

Edited by blueray
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DigitalCount

DigitalCount

Simone had no power. Charles Deveraux had telepathy, which is why he was able to sense Peter's presence during his dreamwalk. To be honest, I wondered--once Charles' ability was discovered--if Peter accidentally traveled through time at that point, and then he was just using invisibility in the past.

 

Also, I'm pretty sure that Nora Zehetner ended up having a schedule conflict or something, so given that they probably needed to increase Sylar's menace and have a shocking casualty, it made sense to have him kill Eden.

 

And yes, Sylar was eventually revealed not to be another Petrelli brother. His father was freaking Lionel Luthor (although I will say they managed to make him a different kind of evil and dangerous than Lionel was on Smallville, and of course John Glover is John Glover).

 

I agree that the show was a bit disjointed at first, which...I think that's more an effect of how TV was at the time than anything else. This hyper-serialization (that's actually good) didn't really start until people started playing Follow the Leader with LOST. For me, Volumes 4 and 5 were actually better than Volume 1, but no one was watching by then.

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Jenniferbug

Jenniferbug

I did a lot of binge watching of the original series while out sick from work. This is the first chance I've had to sit down and type some of it up. 

 

Was it ever revealed what happened to Hana Gitelman/Wireless/Stana Katic? I remember they had online comics about her origin, but I don't remember them ever referencing her after her brief appearance on the actual show. 

 

I love Claude. I would still really like to know who he was hiding and why, since it caused the company to turn against him and he seemingly spent the rest of his life being invisible. 

 

I remember how much I loved "5 Years Gone" when it first aired. Does anyone remember what happened in the comic books that told the story of the "war" they all reference? I know I read them, but don't remember anything. Too bad they're not still online somewhere. It was also interesting to watch this episode knowing what's going on in Reborn with Evos being tracked, etc. In this ep, President "Nathan" tells Mohinder that they've outlawed them breeding, are tracking them, confining them, and their population is still increasing. It also seems like instead of the NY explosion causing all of this, the Odessa explosion lead to similar results. 

 

I know a lot of people really hated the finale of season 1, but I actually liked it. I enjoyed them converging together and attempting to fight. The end kind of went downhill with Sylar crawling away and Hiro teleporting himself so far back in the past, but up till then I enjoyed the episode. Of course then season 2 happened...

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MarkHB

MarkHB

Wireless, IIRC, wound up on a doomed satellite and essentially merged with the Internet and became a sort of spirit guide for the Heroes Evolution / Heroes 360 online VR stuff... the tracker files at primatechpaper.com, etc. All of that happened offscreen / in the online materials.

 

I don't believe the war from 5YG was ever explained.  I know that Kring, et al have said that the badass Hiro everyone wanted to see wound up being from an alternate timeline that didn't exist once the bomb was diverted from destroying Manhattan.

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