HEROES Notes: the not-so-Merry-go-round!

Is it just my imagination or has Heroes run out of ideas. To me the series just seems to be going around in circles. Like a merry-go-round who’s operator has fallen asleep at the controls. Each week now it is just a never ending cycle of Danko catching the ones blessed with abilities, and then the power-blessed ones escape. Danko catches one or two and they escape. One of the blessed heores loses and ability, then gets it back… round and round we go, but like being on a merry-go-round, we never actually get any place!

In fact the only characters that keep me watching are HRG and Sylar. At least there is still mystery surrounding them. I mean we still don’t know what Sylar is up to (if anything). Is he going to come and wipe out everyone?

And HRG… who’s side is he really on? Or is he just doing what he always does; protecting his family!

Who knows really… and if Heroes doesn’t improve soon, who will really care!

HEROES NOTES: It’s all about HRG

Confession time; if it wasn’t for Noah Bennett, Hiro or Sylar I would probably not watch Heroes again. Those three are like the holy trinity of the superhero soap opera that is Heroes. They are the reason I continue watching.

So imagine my joy this week when this week’s episode “Cold Wars” focused on Parkman poking around inside the vessel that is HRG’s mind. It was pure Horned-Rimmed-Glasses joy! However, I do wish Parkman had probed a little deeper, discovered more about the man who we affectionately call HRG… Parkman though has never been very prudent when it comes to doing his job properly though, so I guess I will have to do some poking of my own, and discover just who this guy really is, what’s he all about… Let’s go find out!

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Noah Bennett Fact File

• Noah is known by many names; Noah Butler, HRG and Glasses are the most used.
• Noah is believed to have been born on August 6, 1962. 1962 is the same year the Primatech Paper company was founded.
• Noah is a family man, he has a wife Sandra and two children, Claire and Lyle.
• Noah currently resides in Costa Verde, California. He previously lived in Odessa, Texas and New York, New York.
• Noah is an Agent of Homeland Securities, but formerly worked at Copy Kingdom, and the Primatech Paper company.
• Noah takes his name from the biblical character Noah who collected animals and put them in an Ark, which had five levels. Noah like his namesake is a collector of Heroes, which he used to put on Level 5 of the Primatech facility.
• Noah’s last name Bennett, means blessed. Noah and his wife had trouble concieving a child, and then one day he was blessed with a baby, Claire.
• Noah’s first name was a mystery until the final episode of Volume 1 when he revealed it to Peter.
• Noah started wearing his famous glasses when he was 41, Noah’s father also started wearing glasses when he was 41.
• Noah speaks fluent Japanese and Russian.
• Noah can fly a plane.
• The quote that sums up Noah best is; “I’m comforatable with morally gray”.
• Noah is played by Jack Coleman.

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For a more detailed look at Noah Bennett, click here.

Information for this entry was taken from the Heroes Wiki.

HEROES Notes… What is Building 26 and who is Alex

**Readers Notes**

As a person obsessed with stats I have noticed that nobody seems that interested in a recap of individual episodes of Heroes, so I have decided to take the Heroes Notes in a different direction, instead I will just discuss a different Heroes related topic each week. I hope you find them enjoyable!

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Building 26

Now that Primatech and Pinehurst have been blown to dust the series needs a new building to house the captured Heroes. Building 26 is just the place. It is sparse, grey, and not the type of place you would think of looking for people with extraordinary abilities.

Something tells me though that Building 26 will probably also be blown to little bits by our gang of fugitive heroes, but that is just conjuncture.

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Introducing Alex

This week we also met a new hero, a geeky boy who works in a comic book store. Like Westley who appeared in the last series, Alex doesn’t seem like much, and his ability is pretty useless, he can breathe under water, like a fish. I am not too sure how this will help him, unless he can summon fish using rings from his head like Aquaman. Actually come to think of it Aquaman was a pretty crap superhero as well. Anyhow, Alex is Claire’s new little friend so we just have to wait and see if his ability comes in useful for anything other than the 200m butterfly!

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For a full recap of this weeks episode Building 26 click here.

HEROES Notebook… everybody run!

Let me begin with an error my geek mate Lenny noticed in the last episode A Clear and Present Danger. In the scene near the end when Peter freezes the side of the plane and the superstructure breaks apart it takes some 30 seconds or so for the plane to decompress. Apparently, it should take only around 6 seconds for a plane that size to fully decompress, and from that point it would only be a bit windy inside the plane… OK!

Trust and Blood Recap:

• Now that our Heroes are back on the ground following the plane crash, it is time for them to run, and for most of them, that is all they did for most of the episode… for Daphne though, her running days have now ended, but I am getting ahead of myself!
• HRG captures Peter, and then lets him go, just as any evidence of the plane crash gets blown-up by the guy from Damages, who killed himself.
• Matt gets crazy eyes again and goes in search of a pen… he also has developed the power of being able to see that African dude. After finding some art supplies, Matt draws the future, and it doesn’t look too promising!
• Sylar is back to his evil ways, which makes me happy. We find him capturing the girlfreind and son of Special Agent Simmons, who is keeping quiet about the whereabouts of Sylar’s daddy. Sylar figures  torturing Simmons is not getting him any information then maybe a bit of that special Sylar magic on a woman and boy will get Simmon’s tongue wagging.
• Claire meanwhile is having trouble with her two dads, both are trying to capture her for her own protection, but Claire just wants to help her friends.
• *GREAT SCENE* Claire, Daphne, Matt, Ando and Hiro are all on a hilltop trying to escape when they are ambushed by snipers. Daphne unfortunately gets filled with holes before Claire can step in and use her gorgeous cheerleading body as a shield. Parkman having just seen his speedster girlfreind become swiss cheese using his mind control powers to make all the snipers turn on each other… SCENES LIKE THAT ARE WHY I LOVE THIS SHOW!
• Later, Tracy makes a deal to turn over Peter to Nathan in exchange for her own freedom. Really though it is supposed to be a trap, but as it turns out the trap is actually Nathan’s who captures Tracy… Peter of course gets away after stealing Nathan’s flying power… personally I am getting a bit bored of these Nathan/Peter showdowns, I wish one would just kill the other and be done with it!
• Sylar discovers the boy he captures has a lot in common with him. He is evil, he has no friends and he has an ability. The boy is a human microwave! He can cook things with his hands, and he demonstrates his power by cooking the special agent… he then leaves with Sylar… and now they both have friends!
• The episode ends with Nathan, Matt, Mohinder, Ando and his boyfriend Hiro realising that they are fugitives from society now. No money, no homes, but a whole lot of revenge on their minds…

Twitter with HEROES

OK Twitter fans, all week Outside the Box has been searching the some 25,000,000 users on the Twitter site to find you all your favourite television characters to follow, and today I found a number of your favourite Heroes lurking about on Twitter for you to follow.

Heroes to Twitter with:

• Hiro Nakamura
• Peter Petrelli
• Claire Bennett
• Sylar
• Nathan Petrelli (he hasn’t updated for a while, perhaps he is too busy chasing down the Heroes).
• Daphne
• HRG, Noah Bennett
• Mohinder Suresh
• Matt Parkman
• Meredith Gordon
• Tracey Strauss
• Linderman
• Jesse
• Ando
• Adam Monroe

HEROES Notes – a clear and present danger

Heroes is back on our televisions after a short winter break, so as the series moves from Volume 3 to Volume 4 (don’t ask, it is still series three) Outside the Box is back with another edition of Heroes Notes, to help you keep up with everybody’s favourite superhero soap-opera.

Series 3, Episode 14 - A Clear and Present Danger.

Months after explosions destroyed Pinehurst and Primatech, the Heroes are trying to begin new lives. Now powerless, Hiro tries to train a reluctant Ando to be a true superhero. Suresh tries life as a taxi driver, Peter is saving lives as an Ambulance technician, and Daphne and Matt are trying to live as a normal couple. Claire’s  attempt to live a regular life though is cut short when she uncovers a deadly plot by Nathan to track down and capture those with abilities. Meanwhile, Sylar begins the search for his real father using methods only Sylar could use!

[CLICK HERE FOR A FULL RECAP]

Watercooler Poll:

Me and the guys at work were talking about the show and we are split on my assumption that Hiro is gay… yes I believe our little Japanese friend has the hots for his friend Ando, so I have to ask “Do you think Hiro is Gay?”

Bryan Fuller… too good for television?

Series two of the fabulous Pushing Daisies has not even gone to air here in the UK, and already I am mourning… yes I am sad, because news from the States indicates that ABC have axed the series (idiots!) and are not even going to air the last episode (asshole idiots!). So the news of yet another wonderful Bryan Fuller series going the way of the Dodo, makes me wonder; is Bryan Fuller too good for television?

I mean here is a television producer who not only creates wonderful things to watch (according to me, and the millions like me, but not according to TV execs) but also creates TV that is fresh, original, and sometimes a bit weird. Yet all his shows have been cut down before they have had a chance to bloom… with the exception of Heroes of course.

I mean just look at the viewer ratings of his shows on the IMDb and you will see that people love his work:

1. Wonderfalls – 9.0/10
2. Dead Like Me – 8.9/10
3. The Amazing Screw on Head – 8.2/10
4. Pushing Daisies – 8.4/10
5. Heroes – 8.4/10

So why is it then that all his shows are cut down in the prime of their lives? Simple; Bryan Fuller is too good, too creative and too original for conventional American television audiences. Americans don’t want to come home and watch television that may engage their brains. They want Jerry Bruckheimer and three different versions of CSI. Audiences know where they are with CSI; guy gets killed, police use science to catch baddie, baddie goes to jail, happy days!

Americans work hard, they don’t want to have to think when watching television, they want to relax… which is why they have a commercial break every 7-10 minutes, because even watching TV is too much for some. (If you have never been to America, TV there is littered with constant advertising, which is why a 40 minute episode of Heroes takes on hour to air.)

So this make me wonder, what is Bryan Fuller to do? Make films (let’s hope) or my personal preference would be come to England and spin his craft over here. British television audiences are a bit more willing to watch things that don’t involve the police, but sadly for Fuller the pay would probably be a lot less!