Continuity is our friend...really
Mar. 2nd, 2007 10:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityvixenI've been rewatching some early Heroes episodes.
The premiere, "Genesis," was better paced than I'd given it credit for. The mystery of Niki's ability/psychosis was wonderfully set up; the twist ending to the Peter-wants-powers drama a truly great surprise (I know that it's Nathan who can fly, and I rewatched the episode and Peter falls and Nathan flies and I went ZOMG! again anyway); and Hiro's energy was super refreshing to recover from all the seriousness around it.
The problem I have, however, with the way the show started, is that the continuity is fucked as regards its main villain and its narrator-cum-audience-insertion character, who--isn't this a coincidence?--just happen to be on a road trip together right now. Mohinder's waffling isn't even the most irritating thing. Actually, revisiting the beginning and knowing what comes later, his indecisiveness, his vacillating fondness/devotion to and hatred/rejection of his father kind of make sense. It doesn't mean that any of the crap Mohinder says makes sense (the science! Oh my science!), just that I can swallow the waffling a bit better.
The trouble is with Sylar and Papa Suresh's original deal. Suresh Sr. had a theory, a way of using donated blood to extrapolate DNA sequences that might lead to discovering people with abilities. Fine! So far, I'm with you, even if it's ridiculous, you haven't violated your own logic. Mohinder makes off with files that detail abilities Suresh has looked into--notably, Claire's, Matt's, HIro's and Nathan's--along with a copy of the map pinpointing where each of the supers are. Most important of all: a pin in the map for Queens, New York; a reference to a "patient zero;" and Sylar's name connecting the two.
Okay, begin the "huh-wha?"
-If Suresh has files on abilities, shouldn't he know the abilities people will have before he meets them? As a matter of fact, we know he does know some abilities people will have before he gets there because the post-it that Sylar stole outed Brian Davis as a telekinetic. Even if Suresh has one in ten of these powers down, Mohinder, having those files, should know what some of these people can do before he gets there. It should get him a foot in the door.
-"Patient zero" implies that there is a stressor or selection event that results in an explosion of genetic change. Actually, it's used almost exclusively, far as I know, with people who are the first to succumb or are carriers for explosively infectious disease--another casualty of them not having a science advisor on this show; them not commiting to the one explanation for the supers' abilities; or a mistake on the part of the guy who supposedly knows the most about the supers' abilities outside of Mr. Bennet's organization? All are fairly stupid ways to have gone.
If the genetic code is responsible, and the original mutation could be tracked back to one organism, that organism would have to be biologically connected to all the supers. For that to be possible, given their far-flung, world-wide distribution, "patient zero" would be long, long dead (or else a genius sperm donor and then all of the supers are related and eeewwwwww incest is everywhere, not just in fandom). If this mutation arose more than once, spontaneously (which does happen; in fact, the disease that I research is caused by just such a de novo mutation), then there is no "patient zero." Stupid show!
-Sylar's apartment cannot have belonged to the same man who is now ripping heads off left and right. For starters, it looks like Gabriel Gray's apartment before he hooked up with Papa Suresh...if Gabriel had kept a demonically possessed transient in the back room. No, seriously, the front hall as Gabriel's, I buy. The back room with the words painting and scribbled fanatically, the biblical references and frantic pleas for absolution? Does that sound like Sylar at all? From murder one, Gabriel Grey was a sick son-of-a-bitch--remorseless, manipulative, cunning, and determined. He killed to get back into Suresh's good graces and to stay close as more supers were discovered--exactly as he's doing with Mohinder now--and continued the ruse...well, it's not really a ruse. I mean, he has one, but his intentions are frighteningly clear at all times (Mohinder, in another apparently genetic abnormality, cannot detect this just as his father, to his death, could not).
And how the hell did Sylar's map get more pins on it than Suresh's? As far as we've seen, what with how Bennet's company sent him back to cozy up to Mohinder and chat about working together, no one is supposed to know better how to find these people. It explains how Sylar knew to find Zane Taylor and Claire Bennet (though not why he skipped Claire; if he'd known she was the super because of his more detailed map, even with Jackie's press, he should have gone for her. Then again, if this were making sense and Sylar were ever in New York for a lengthy period, there's no reason he wouldn't have gone after the most prominently displayed photo on the map, which would be Nathan's). It leaves open to question what the fuck he's doing wasting time with Mohinder.
I need to rewatch Gabriel Grey's introduction to the series as Sylar to be sure, but I wasn't sure at all that he'd been living and working in New York when Suresh found him, either. And, as Papa Suresh had known him as Gabriel first, there's no reason to surmise that he would have written "Sylar" or addressed him as "Mr. Sylar" in any of his records. On the answering machine at Suresh's apartment, Suresh and Sylar talk and Sylar says that Suresh made him a killer--that he woke Sylar up to his true potential. Okay, that jives, sorta; maybe Gabriel got freaky on Suresh and got him to call him Sylar and then got his ass dumped by the professor. Then why would Suresh be excited at having found patient zero...who happens to be named Sylar? If he wants nothing to do with Sylars of any sort, why be excited at the possibility that Sylar was patient zero?
Man, I'm harping on the "patient zero" thing, but it's a seriously weak point, and the confused timeline of Sylar's involvement is fucking annoying.
I'm up to about episode four in rewatches now, and I stopped where Hiro and Ando cheat in Vegas. Because this story makes me sad. It's the first total waste of time spent with Hiro, which has, sadly, become something of the norm for his storyline of late. It's especially aggravating because I can see the boring ensuckitude coming, and I've just left behind the pilot with all its promise. Alas.
The premiere, "Genesis," was better paced than I'd given it credit for. The mystery of Niki's ability/psychosis was wonderfully set up; the twist ending to the Peter-wants-powers drama a truly great surprise (I know that it's Nathan who can fly, and I rewatched the episode and Peter falls and Nathan flies and I went ZOMG! again anyway); and Hiro's energy was super refreshing to recover from all the seriousness around it.
The problem I have, however, with the way the show started, is that the continuity is fucked as regards its main villain and its narrator-cum-audience-insertion character, who--isn't this a coincidence?--just happen to be on a road trip together right now. Mohinder's waffling isn't even the most irritating thing. Actually, revisiting the beginning and knowing what comes later, his indecisiveness, his vacillating fondness/devotion to and hatred/rejection of his father kind of make sense. It doesn't mean that any of the crap Mohinder says makes sense (the science! Oh my science!), just that I can swallow the waffling a bit better.
The trouble is with Sylar and Papa Suresh's original deal. Suresh Sr. had a theory, a way of using donated blood to extrapolate DNA sequences that might lead to discovering people with abilities. Fine! So far, I'm with you, even if it's ridiculous, you haven't violated your own logic. Mohinder makes off with files that detail abilities Suresh has looked into--notably, Claire's, Matt's, HIro's and Nathan's--along with a copy of the map pinpointing where each of the supers are. Most important of all: a pin in the map for Queens, New York; a reference to a "patient zero;" and Sylar's name connecting the two.
Okay, begin the "huh-wha?"
-If Suresh has files on abilities, shouldn't he know the abilities people will have before he meets them? As a matter of fact, we know he does know some abilities people will have before he gets there because the post-it that Sylar stole outed Brian Davis as a telekinetic. Even if Suresh has one in ten of these powers down, Mohinder, having those files, should know what some of these people can do before he gets there. It should get him a foot in the door.
-"Patient zero" implies that there is a stressor or selection event that results in an explosion of genetic change. Actually, it's used almost exclusively, far as I know, with people who are the first to succumb or are carriers for explosively infectious disease--another casualty of them not having a science advisor on this show; them not commiting to the one explanation for the supers' abilities; or a mistake on the part of the guy who supposedly knows the most about the supers' abilities outside of Mr. Bennet's organization? All are fairly stupid ways to have gone.
If the genetic code is responsible, and the original mutation could be tracked back to one organism, that organism would have to be biologically connected to all the supers. For that to be possible, given their far-flung, world-wide distribution, "patient zero" would be long, long dead (or else a genius sperm donor and then all of the supers are related and eeewwwwww incest is everywhere, not just in fandom). If this mutation arose more than once, spontaneously (which does happen; in fact, the disease that I research is caused by just such a de novo mutation), then there is no "patient zero." Stupid show!
-Sylar's apartment cannot have belonged to the same man who is now ripping heads off left and right. For starters, it looks like Gabriel Gray's apartment before he hooked up with Papa Suresh...if Gabriel had kept a demonically possessed transient in the back room. No, seriously, the front hall as Gabriel's, I buy. The back room with the words painting and scribbled fanatically, the biblical references and frantic pleas for absolution? Does that sound like Sylar at all? From murder one, Gabriel Grey was a sick son-of-a-bitch--remorseless, manipulative, cunning, and determined. He killed to get back into Suresh's good graces and to stay close as more supers were discovered--exactly as he's doing with Mohinder now--and continued the ruse...well, it's not really a ruse. I mean, he has one, but his intentions are frighteningly clear at all times (Mohinder, in another apparently genetic abnormality, cannot detect this just as his father, to his death, could not).
And how the hell did Sylar's map get more pins on it than Suresh's? As far as we've seen, what with how Bennet's company sent him back to cozy up to Mohinder and chat about working together, no one is supposed to know better how to find these people. It explains how Sylar knew to find Zane Taylor and Claire Bennet (though not why he skipped Claire; if he'd known she was the super because of his more detailed map, even with Jackie's press, he should have gone for her. Then again, if this were making sense and Sylar were ever in New York for a lengthy period, there's no reason he wouldn't have gone after the most prominently displayed photo on the map, which would be Nathan's). It leaves open to question what the fuck he's doing wasting time with Mohinder.
I need to rewatch Gabriel Grey's introduction to the series as Sylar to be sure, but I wasn't sure at all that he'd been living and working in New York when Suresh found him, either. And, as Papa Suresh had known him as Gabriel first, there's no reason to surmise that he would have written "Sylar" or addressed him as "Mr. Sylar" in any of his records. On the answering machine at Suresh's apartment, Suresh and Sylar talk and Sylar says that Suresh made him a killer--that he woke Sylar up to his true potential. Okay, that jives, sorta; maybe Gabriel got freaky on Suresh and got him to call him Sylar and then got his ass dumped by the professor. Then why would Suresh be excited at having found patient zero...who happens to be named Sylar? If he wants nothing to do with Sylars of any sort, why be excited at the possibility that Sylar was patient zero?
Man, I'm harping on the "patient zero" thing, but it's a seriously weak point, and the confused timeline of Sylar's involvement is fucking annoying.
I'm up to about episode four in rewatches now, and I stopped where Hiro and Ando cheat in Vegas. Because this story makes me sad. It's the first total waste of time spent with Hiro, which has, sadly, become something of the norm for his storyline of late. It's especially aggravating because I can see the boring ensuckitude coming, and I've just left behind the pilot with all its promise. Alas.
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Skewed perspective...
Date: 2007-03-02 10:30 pm (UTC)Okay, two things:
A) When the hell did they do that? Was it before Mohinder started the show talking about evolution and genetic destiny or after?
B) What the F are you talking about? "Psychic" mutation?
Sylar's need to open up people's skulls is the best example of this, but there was a passing reference given by papa Suresh hinting that the brain was key
Well, it would need to be, seeing as all ethers manipulated by abilities that are the result of a genetic mutation would be controlled by the brain, since that is the seat of conscious and unconscious thought. You're not really disagreeing with my outline of the genetic mutation theory, either. You're saying that all the mutations do is change the brain and the brain changes from there. I dunno that I believe that has to be true in all cases (Nathan, for example, might just have an anti-grav liver for all we know, and his brain controls its density relative to the rest of the Earth).
Where you're really losing me is when you talking about the progenitor having been an "psycho-pharm" experimental subject. Psychotropic pharmacology can alter the brain's chemistry; it cannot mutate neurons. Neurons are rarely dividing cells, moreover, so you'd have a better chance of success transfecting an embryo with a mutagen than you would of trying to cram mutagens into a finished, grown product that would then pass it on. And even if you could mutate a person's brain--selectively, and fifty years ago--that would be a somatic mutation. It wouldn't affect that person's gametes, which, if still viable after all the experimenting upon and some such, would pass on the genes he or she started with.
I'm still confused by the "psychic" mutation thing. If you're implying this has something to do with the horseshit Mohinder was spewing at the beginning about us using only 10% of our brains....dude, no way is that true. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/medicine/story/0,11381,847758,00.html) If you mean only that the genes affected are neuronal in nature, that's fine. Otherwise...buh?
Re: Skewed perspective...
Date: 2007-03-03 07:16 am (UTC)He's talking about the Stephen King novel "Firestarter", which was written in the 70s. Human subjects were experimented on to give them psychic abilities. Two of them, a female (a very weak telekinetic) and a male (who had mind control) had a daughter - who wound up possessing telekinesis and pyrokinesis. So I'm wanking here that the subjects experienced both somatic AND germ line mutations. Oh my brain hurts.
Where are you watching the old eps? Netflix or a website? When I went to check the Heroes site only the most recent 12, and "Genesis" were posted.
Re: Skewed perspective...
Date: 2007-03-03 04:28 pm (UTC)As for the eps. I'll see about that...
Re: Skewed perspective...
Date: 2007-03-03 07:17 am (UTC)Re: Skewed perspective...
Date: 2007-03-03 04:30 pm (UTC)