S4E12: The Fifth Stage (Alternative review from popwatc.ew.com)

“This whole night was like a bad Fellini film,” was how Gretchen summed up the most recent episode of Heroes. Okay, she was actually talking about her and Claire’s night in the Sullivan Brothers carnival. But either way, she was wrong, because a bad Fellini film would have been perfection compared to last night. Federico Fellini made plenty of bad movies, but his bad movies were never boring, mundane, or static. They were completely bats—. Just look here. Or here. Or here. Or here. Context doesn’t help! I’ve seen Satyricon five times, and I still can’t tell you what the hell is going on ever. (The movie’s also got a minotaur fight and a hermaphrodite heist; seriously, go watch Satyricon!)

If you ask me, Heroes could take a page from Fellini. Because considering the fact that this is a show about people with superpowers, it never really feels all that crazy. It feels like the most sanitized way to make a dark entertainment; like someone walked out of Batman Begins and said, “We want that, but nicer!” The only character who ever seems to have any fun on the show is Sylar, and what’s funny is that he’s not even really the villain anymore. He’s basically just there to keep things spicy. Instead, we keep getting a faceless parade of Big Bads with shadowy motivations who literally seem to be improvising their entire existence every two minutes (Bob Bishop, Papa Petrelli, and now Samuel Sullivan.)

Really, the show almost seems to be punishing Sylar for having any fun. Last night, yet again, somebody pulled the ol’ power drain on Sylar. “What the hell did you do to me?” Sylar asked. That’s practically his catchphrase. Peter spelled it out for Sylar/us: “You remember our Haitian friend?” A Haitian friend? I don’t think I remember him. What are his character traits? Where’s he from? I think I would remember having a Haitian friend. Does he have any nicknames?

Let’s run down the three plotlines:

Noah and Lauren: Detecting Detectives

Samuel had a task for a Carnival minion, a fellow with the ability to project copies of himself. (I marked down “Duplicater?” but Lauren later called him a “Multiplier,” which unfortunately recalls the Michael Keaton film Multiplicity.) Samuel: “I want you to go to the home of a man named Noah Bennet, and steal a box marked Primatech.” It’ll be right next to the box marked “Top Secret” and the safe marked “My Life’s Savings, the combination is 1-2-3-4, Stay Out Please.”

Noah was busy getting ready for his date with Lauren. Lauren showed up, they exchanged some banter (He: “I skipped over the sexual revolution.” She: “Who said anything about sex?”), but when he figured out that Claire stole his magic compass, they sprung into old-timey Company action to track her down. Bennet decided that now was the best time to tell Lauren about their retcon affair of the heart. (Line of the night: “I Haitianed myself?”)

Then Michael Keaton, sorry, the Multiplier attacked. I thought that his power meant that he actually duplicated himself, creating twins and then triplets (etc), but when Noah shot one of him, the body disappeared like a dead body in the PS2 Grand Theft Auto games, so I guess the copies aren’t autonomous beings? Noah and Lauren fled to the bathroom to plan a counterattack, but by the time they came out, Michael Keaton had already ran off. And he took the box marked Primatech! Noah hit himself in the head. Should’ve put those files in the box marked “Totally Unimportant Stuff,” they would’ve never looked in there.

Nathan and Peter: The Least Twisty Death Twist Ever

I’m going to skip over the vast amount of stuff that happened in the land of the Petrellis this week, because most of it was bad. Okay, okay, quick recap: Mama Petrelli had a complete personality makeover and told Peter to just move on already about his dead brother. That’s last year’s news, Pete! Yesterday’s tweet, you feel me? Peter wouldn’t have it, though: he wanted his brother back. Sylar surprised him in the hospital elevator, and because extras cost money, him and Peter fought on the one abandoned floor of the hospital. Peter totally Haitianed Sylar, and then nailed him into the ground, and then Haitianed him some more, until Sylar morphed into Nathan.

Peter was happy to have his brother back, but Nathan just looked miserable. “I’m tired, Pete.” Peter tried to cheer him up by bringing him back to that same old rooftop from way back in season 1, the one that Peter fell off of, right before Nathan learned that he could fly. I can still remember that moment – it was the show’s first cliffhanger, and it ended the first episode with a moment of zippy revelation. You felt like anything, absolutely anything, could happen on this show.

So I got a genuine pang of nostalgia during this scene. How could you not? Especially since so much of what Nathan was talking about – regret, exhaustion, a fond yet sad remembrance of better times – feels just about right for a show this far into a downward spiral. Even the dialogue had some of that season 1 pop! Nathan: “I told you we could both fly.” Peter: “You denied it.” Nathan: “It was an election year.”

Nathan decided to throw himself off the building. Peter grabbed him, and as they held hands, Nathan literally yelled out every Go On Without Me cliché in the book. “Tell Mom I love her! Take care of Claire! You can do anything, Pete! I gotta feeling the world ain’t seen nothing yet!” And down he fell.

Here’s the thing: even though the shot of him falling looked silly and green-screeny, there was something addictive about it. As he fell, he slowly morphed into Sylar, and even though the specifics of it all didn’t make much sense, the beautiful weirdness of the image – seeing Nathan’s reserved, peaceful face fade slowly into Sylar’s dark grin – was, frankly, breathtaking. I wish the show were brave enough to do more things like this: real emotion, instead of aimless plot teases that go nowhere.

The Carnival of Shadowy Motivations

Speaking of shadowboxing! Over in the Carnival, nothing was making any sense. Samuel didn’t seem worried at all that Hiro disappeared into thin air last episode. Nor did he seem concerned that the Tattoo Lady knows that he killed his brother. Nope, the Morality Switch on Samuel’s back was switched to Good this week, and he spent the episode in full-on Santa Claus mode.

He welcomed Claire and Gretchen into the Carnival like a practiced Ringmaster. “Free passes! The whole night’s on me! Everything!” The bulk of the episode was spent on Claire learning all about the Carnival. And what did they learn? Well, I’m still kind of sorting it out. The treatment of the Carnival changes every other week on this show. One week, it’s a safe haven for harmless superhumans who just want to live in peace. The next week, Samuel calls up any one of his random minions and says, “Go, do crime!” and they do it, no questions asked. The next week, Samuel seems to have an incredibly fragile hold on his people. The next week, he seems to be their unquestioned emperor.

I’m genuinely interested in the Carnival, and I’m willing to admit that, in this one situation, the writers might possibly be a bit smarter than us. So let’s examine this like we believe the truth won’t turn out to be stupid. Samuel says that the point of the Carnival is for his folk to live out in the open, and “To make money, the most honest way we can.” This seems to be like flawed logic, based on the workings of the carnival. We saw a telekinetic guy purposefully ruin a loutish former Minor League pitcher’s throw in the old Milk Bottle game, but then give a cute girl some help so she could win a pink unicorn.

Why would a loutish former Minor League pitcher care about a pink unicorn? And more importantly, isn’t that just another form of dishonesty? It’s not as if any of the carnival folk are really living “out in the open,” as Samuel regularly suggested; they’re allowed to show a bit more of their powers, but only because they’ve trapped themselves in the carnival. Heck, as we saw, even the subtle use of telekineticism was enough to incite violence: the loutish former Minor League pitcher gave Samuel a good beating.

If I’m to understand the end of the episode, Samuel’s big long-term goal is to build a Promised Land for superpowered people, which, again, isn’t the same as living out in the open. A Promised Land is great if you want to hang out with earthy pseudo-hippies and follow the orders of anyone named Sullivan, but what if you want to live anywhere else on earth?

Listen, one of the hardest things in serial narrative television is believably filling the actual existence of a society of characters who were invented to seem mysterious. For the first two seasons of Battlestar Galactica, the Cylons mostly existed as space phantoms with spider-like ships who could jump into orbit at any moment, plus a few sleeper agents who looked just like us. In the third season, the show worked hard to establish a believable system for Cylon society, and it changed the entire central conflict of the show.

Conversely, on Lost, the third season took the viewer into the society of the Others, another phantom band of villains, and the result was ruinous, because the whole society made no sense. The Others seemed to run on a system of government based half on Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery and half on Beneath the Planet of the Apes. The show only really recovered when it sent the Others to the Temple for the entirety of the fourth season. (Unfortunately, the fifth season was all about the Dharma Initiative, another shadowy organization that made hardly any sense at all when some light was shined upon it.)

Based on the end of last night’s episode, we’re only going to see more of the Carnival folk, and I’m cautiously optimistic that, with a bit of actual narrative forward momentum, they might become a bit more sharply focused than they have been so far. But let’s be fair; this half of the season ended pretty miserably. Samuel was back at his brother’s grave, giving a speech that was practically a carbon copy of the speech that started this season. As if daring us to turn away, the show then did a mid-season finale montage of all our favorite characters, including a completely non sequitur shot of Hiro running with Mohinder and Ando through the woods. Oh also, that deaf girl who sees sounds was playing some music. I forget if we saw Parkman, but I’m sure that when the show returns he’ll be useless yet incredibly important for some random reason.

I’m trying to think of something nice to say, but honestly, Nathan Petrelli was my favorite character. I’m having a hard time trying to be optimistic. I hope that Claire turns evil, because that would be crazy. I hope that when the show returns, all the Heroes will join together against Samuel. I hope that the show’s narrative can become more focused. I hope that Sylar never has to suffer from power blockage, memory loss, or any other power the Haitian comes up with to sap all the energy from the plot. I hope that Mohinder will die again, this time for real. I hope.

Ratings Up for Final '09 Heroes....but not much

As Heroes takes their holiday vacation, the final episode of 2009 has an increase in viewers thanks to reruns on CBS and and uncharactaristic slip for the Grinch on ABC.

But it was not by much:

Fox was first at 8 p.m. with a 4.8 for “House,” followed by ABC with a 3.0 for “Grinch” (2.9) and “Shrek” (3.2). NBC was third with a 2.5 for “Heroes,” CBS fourth with a 1.9 for repeats of “How I Met Your Mother” and “Accidentally on Purpose,” Univision fifth with a 1.4 for “El Nombre del Amor” and CW sixth with a 1.1 for “One Tree Hill.” Source: http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman2/publish/Overnights_50/ABC_s_Grinch_special_takes_a_tumble.asp

As a matter of fact if you look at those numbers, Heroes was actually in SECOND place against Big Greenie.

Last week, Claire and the Carnies did a 2.3. This does not include DVR viewing.

Next Heroes will be Jan 4th as they move back to 9/8 central following the return of Chuck.

S4E12: The Fifth Stage (Recap)

Claire and Gretchen make their way to the carnival. In hopes of finding a place for Claire to fit in, they decide to spend the night at the carnival at Samuel's insistence.

Peter is determined to find Nathan and get rid of Sylar forever. Despite Angela's concern, Peter leaves to find Nathan only to be ambushed by Sylar at the hospital. The two spar until Peter's newly gained power (from the Haitian) disables Sylar's abilities. Peter tortures Sylar until Nathan comes back.

Noah confesses his feelings for Lauren when one of Samuel's henchman attacks the pair. Noah and Lauren are unharmed, but the multiplying man leaves with Noah's files.

Upon seeing the carnival's benevolent acts, Claire's conviction begins to falter. When a human attacks Samuel, Claire drives the man away and displays her power. At the end of the night, Claire decides to spend the weekend at the carnival and Gretchen leaves.

Nathan confides in Peter that he is losing the battle with Sylar. The brothers go to the rooftop where Nathan first displayed his power. Despite Peter's insistence on Nathan's existence, Nathan jumps off the rooftop and Sylar's persona takes over.

(This is the last Heroes for 2009. After a one month break, Heroes returns on Jan 4th at 9/8 Central, after the return of Chuck)

More ratings info...

This was posted on http://www.9thwonders.com/. Interesting:

Yesterday, someone at NBC Universal replied to an inquiry I made and explained to me where the Spotlight section is now and where the TAMi should be.

After loading http://www.nbcumv.com/, you go to "Network/Programs" and then to "NBC Entertainment". There is then a big flash window that displays ads for three NBC shows on its first page. The Spotlight section is on the second page of that window.

Currently, the second page has another two ads for NBC shows and an ad for the "Weekly TAMi posted on October 7, 2009". However, when I click to download the TAMi, I'm taken to a non-existent page.

I've replied about this, and will post here what I find out.

UPDATE> My contact confirmed that the link was broken and that it should get fixed shortly. In the mean time, I was forwarded the TAMi file, so here's the relevant data for Heroes (also posted to HeroesWiki):

Season Four (as of 10/07/09)

Airdate--------Episode(s)---------Mobile / VOD / Downloads------ISV-----------Television-------Total
9/21/09--Orientation / Jump, Push, Fall-------228,484-------4,386,597------12,089,000---16,704,081
9/28/09-----Ink----------- ---------------------113,402---------1,879,620-------8,441,000----10,434,022
Season Average------------------------------------170,943-------3,133,109------10,265,000----13,569,052

Season Total----------------------------------------341,886-------6,266,217------20,530,000----27,138,103


TWENTY-SEVEN MILLION VIEWERS!!!!!!
Source: http://boards.9thwonders.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=69658&view=findpost&p=858484

S4E11:Thanksgiving

It's a rocky Thanksgiving for the Bennets, the Petrellis and the Carnival, as the chips start to fall.

Ratings Trends Hopeful For Heroes??

Short term (4 week) ratings trends indicate the renewal prospects for Castle, The Good Wife, Heroes, Parks & Recreation and Law & Order have improved.
Since I am keeping individual show episode ratings this season (unlike in past years when I just relied on Nielsen averages), I’d been meaning to look at short term ratings trends explicitly at some point (instead of just eyeballing them). I meant to start including them in the regular posts this week, but the Nielsen power outage delay made that impractical. However, in preparation for next weeks posts, I set up the spreadsheet and did the calculations for this week, so I figured I would post them (not color coded).
Remember that on a season average basis, an Index of below 0.92 has in the past indicated a scripted show is in danger of cancellation. On a short term Index basis, I haven’t checked the history. And to be honest, there’s likely more in these numbers than I’ve drawn out from my cursory scan, but shows with 4 week Indexes over their season Indexes would seem to have improving chances. Whether that turns out to be the case, we shall see.

(since this is HEROES centric, we'll limit it to NBC shows)

Program
Renew/ Cancel Index
4 Week Renew/ Cancel Index

Law & Order (F), (P)
0.54
0.63

Trauma (P)
0.69
0.75

Mercy (P)
0.71
0.71

Parks & Recreation (P)
0.75
0.85

Community
0.83
0.85

Heroes (P)
0.92
0.99

Law & Order: SVU (P)
0.97
1.09

30 Rock (P)
1.14
1.25

The Office (P)
1.56
1.71

The blue Renew / Cancel Index numbers are calculated the same as they always have been. A show’s season average adults 18-49 rating divided by its networks season average adults 18-49 rating. The 4 week Indexes divide a show’s 4 week running 18-49 ratings average by the networks running 4 week ratings average. The number of repeats during a short period can cause misleading results. Not sure if I can do something simple to show that or not.

For all the nets and numbers: http://tvbythenumbers.com/2009/11/19/recent-ratings-trends-are-hopeful-for-castle-the-good-wife-heroes-parks-recreation-and-law-order/34075#more-34075

S4E12: The Fifth Stage (Preview)

Samuel starts to see his vision take shape — H.R.G. is greeted by some unexpected visitors and Samuel's grand plan begins to come to fruition. Meanwhile, Peter struggles to accept the truth and takes extreme measures to get what he wants. Elsewhere, Claire's journey leads her to an unexpected destination...

S4E11: Thanksgiving (Recap)

Before touching Parkman’s hand and no doubt ending up with unintended consequences in Heroes Season 4 Episode 10, Nathan decided that he doesn’t exist any more because he’s becoming Sylar. Meanwhile, Suresh had his own trouble. He wasn’t killed, but he was locked up in the nuthouse.

Samuel’s got his hands on the film that he wanted now. He’s watching the part where he’s being born, a disaster waiting to happen.

Hiro wants to know where and when Charlie is. Samuel is not ready to play just yet, and Hiro can’t make him since it’s not like he can just kill the only person who knows where to find Charlie. But smile, it’s Thanksgiving.

HRG runs into Lauren at the supermarket, where he checks out some yams before inviting her for dinner.

Peter goes to visit his mom, who says that Nathan’s dead body was a shapeshifter, and Parkman is unbalanced and can’t be trusted. Not buying this story, the question is simple. Is Nathan really dead? Yeah, Nathan would like to know the answer to that, too.

Claire’s surprised to find that her dad brought a date. No, not a date. Just an old friend. Mom will understand.

Hiro is not quite ready to enjoy Thanksgiving. First of all, they don’t celebrate that in Japan. Second, Samuel is a liar liar pants on fire. If he did fix the past, though, that would lead some to believe that Joseph should still be around. They fail to realize that Samuel’s goals were more selfish than that. That said, Lydia wants to go back to eight weeks ago so she can see what happened to Joseph.

Angela tells the boys that they really did see Nathan’s body, although his mind still lives on in his current body.

As if Thanksgiving dinner isn’t awkward enough, Sandra’s boyfriend Doug suggests going around the table and saying what they’re thankful for. This can only end badly. When they get to Claire, she’s just not feeling it. She’s thinking about dropping out of school.

Back to the night Joseph died. He warns his brother that he has the power to kill millions. Because of that, he has to be controlled. It’s then that Samuel learns that Suresh was instructed to burn the film. Furthermore, a man from the government is coming to take Samuel in. Well, that’s about all that needs to be said before Joseph gets killed by his brother, which Lydia and Hiro witness.

Doug tells Claire this will all blow over. Stuff like this happens to everyone. Really? So she grabs a knife and slits her arm. Perhaps a visit from Gretchen will cheer her up.

Nathan informs his family that Sylar’s in there with him. Then a freaky light show happens. No need to get an exorcist, though. Sylar’s back. What’s for dinner?

Samuel just learned that the person who killed his brother is there sitting at the table. Edgar speaks up… Samuel is the one who murdered Joseph. The time traveler saw it. Hiro denies seeing anything. Perhaps, then, Edgar killed Joseph. Before Samuel can make Edgar suffer the same fate as his brother, Hiro freezes time, telling Edgar he has to run away to live to fight another day.

Sylar finds out that Nathan’s not so dead after all. He can control Sylar, just like Sylar controlled Parkman all that time.

After her visit with Gretchen, Claire tells her dad she’s going back to school. What she’s really doing is taking the compass she stole from him and seeing where it leads.

Peter promises his mom that he’ll find a way to get his brother alive again.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of Heroes Season 4 Episode 12 The Fifth Stage, which airs Monday at 8/7c on NBC.

Thanksgiving Dinner: Heroes Style

The cast talks about the Thanksgiving episode....and their own Thanksgiving experiences.

Jack Coleman aka HRG



Heyden Pennetiere aka Claire "The Cheerleader"



Ashley Crow aka Sandra



Meanwhile, at the Carnival

'Heroes' tumbles to 5.1 million

Heroes hit a new series low Monday night, according to the latest viewing figures.

The 8pm instalment pulled in just 5.07m for NBC, down around 280k on last week's performance.

It was beaten in the hour by CBS comedies How I Met Your Mother and Accidentally On Purpose, which logged 8.44m and 7.76m at 8pm and 8.30pm, and Fox's House, which had 12.95m. The CW's One Tree Hill was last for the hour with 2.63m.

At 9pm, Two And A Half Men and The Big Bang Theory put in 14.07m and 13.49m respectively. Trauma interested 5.16m for NBC, 7.8m watched Lie To Me on Fox, and The CW's Gossip Girl had 2.24m.

ABC's Dancing With The Stars averaged an impressive 18.74m between 8pm and 10pm.

At 10pm, CSI: Miami took 13.49m for CBS, 10.86m tuned in for ABC's Castle, and The Jay Leno Show grabbed 4.46m for NBC.

S4E10 Brother's Keeper (Full Episode)

Still holding Charlie, Samuel sends Hiro back in time to do some dirty work, and Sylar finally gets his day of reckoning. Or does he?

S4E10 Brother's Keeper (RECAP)

Original Air Date: Nov 16, 2009

Brittany D. – Staff Writer
brittany@thetwocentscorp.com

Dear NBC: Let’s not spoil your biggest cliff hangers of the season anymore in your previews for the next week’s episode, okay? It’s just a helpful suggestion!

Hiro is still trapped in the circus, and it’s because Samuel wants him to go back in time eight weeks ago to get Coyote Sands research film from Mohinder before he destroys it. We flash back to nine weeks ago and see that Mohinder is in India teaching, and he has a girlfriend who urges him to trash all of Chandra’s old research, and Mohinder obliges. Of course he goes and gets it once his girlfriend goes to bed and watches a tape reel labeled ‘Samuel’. In it, Chandra says that when more than one person with abilities is in the same room with Samuel, it causes his ability to increase in power. From the research, Mohinder is able to create a compass like the one Samuel has. Mohinder’s girlfriend says that if he disappears, she won’t wait for him. So of course…

…Mohinder goes to carnie town and talks to Joseph, who tells Mohinder that he’s kept Samuel in the dark about his ability, that he’s never told him how powerful it could be. He advises that the reel should be destroyed, and we cut to see Samuel eavesdropping on the entire conversation. He confronts Mohinder in a hotel room, demanding to know what was on the reel, but Mohinder says he’ll never tell. Samuel smashes a rock and flings the remains into Mohinder’s body and leaves, but Hiro has already appeared on scene and fitted his old pal with a bullet proof vest after switching out the reels. Mohinder says he won’t disappear for eight weeks so that Hiro can get Charlie back, so Hiro somehow gets him into a loony bin in a padded cell wearing a straight jacket, where the doctor’s mistake him for another patient and dope him unconscious.

Giving the reel to Samuel, Hiro doesn’t get Charlie back right away, and Samuel leaves to go meet with Tracy.

Nathan/Sylar is back in D.C. and Peter is with him, trying to figure out why he can’t remember a week of his life. His mother apparently smoothed things over at the office by telling everyone that Nathan was simply on vacation, but the Haitian shows up to tell Peter the truth about his brother. The Haitian gives Peter directions to a storage facility and tells him to GO ALONE, but no one in this show ever listened to directions, so of course he takes Nathan. In the facility, they find the real Nathan’s dead body. Nathan/Sylar touches his dead body and has a flash of Sylar and Matt. After figuring out that Matt is in a hospital, Peter and Nathan go to Midland and Peter heals him. Matt tries to tell them what happened, but Sylar takes over Matt’s body and tells Nathan that with a touch, it can all be over and he can be whole again.

A touch happens, but it’s just a brush, and Nathan flies away with Peter after accidentally knocking him out. He flies them to the Grand Canyon…or some Canyon, and Peter tells Nathan that he’s not leaving him alone, and they fly off together. Meanwhile, Matt is healed and mind warping a cop into giving him his clothes so that he can escape the hospital. Back in Peter’s apartment, Nathan has a sad moment when he realizes that all Peter is going to see when he looks at him is Sylar, but we never really establish what’s going on inside his head with Sylar being there.

Tracy is contemplating running away to join the circus while drinking coffee in a diner, when she gets so agitated that she accidentally freezes her coffee mug. She goes to Bennet’s but instead of finding HRG she finds Claire. Tracy’s power is going haywire, and she keeps freezing things. She freezes the steaming hot bathwater she was in, then accidentally freezes Claire solid. She breaks off Claire’s foot while trying to move her to the tub, but Claire heals and unfreezes and they share a good laugh. Tracy explains that she’s really thinking about heading to carnie town, and Claire tells her she should do it, if she thinks that’s what’s best for her. HRG walks in with groceries, sees Claire’s still frozen foot on the table (she’s since grown a new one) and asks how their day was. It really was the best part of the episode.
(Have not seen, but this is what Heroes has been sorely missing, humor and sight gags based on the abilities).

As previously mentioned, she does meet with Samuel, hoping to run away from her old life to a place where she’ll be accepted.

Okay, bottom line – I want to stop time hopping and get to the bottom of these two story lines of Nathan/Sylar and Samuel. Can I please just get Sylar back to his badassness? No more of this Nathan stuff. And unless the Samuel story line is going to be wrapped up in a really cool twist, it doesn’t seem like it’s going to have much more to offer. And, sorry Hiro, but I’m pretty sure that Charlie is somewhere else: a place called FOX on a show called Glee.

Kate Vernon Becomes a Hero

It seems that sci-fi fans can expect a familiar face on a hit NBC series sometime this season. Heroes star Greg Grunberg revealed on his Twitter account today that Battlestar Galactica alum Kate Vernon will appear in Heroes sometime this season.

Kate Vernon from BSG is now on #Kate Vernon from BSG is now on #Heroes -- can't wait for you guys to see her. The 5th!! -- can't wait for you guys to see her. The 5th!!While it wasn't clear what kind of role Vernon would be playing in the series, yesterday Grunberg posted a picture of Vernon and new Heroes castmate Robert Knepper, who plays the nefarious Samuel, ringleader of the mysterious Carnival. We're not sure if this means Vernon will be the latest member of the Carnival or not.We'll be sure to keep you posted on any and all updates on Heroes and Kate Vernon's new involvement in the series as well.

V S1S2 There's No Normal Anymore (recap)

http://www.hulu.com/watch/108493/v-recap-theres-no-normal-anymore#s-p1-sr-i1

GET TO KNOW YOUR NEW ALIEN INVADERS — ER, NEIGHBORS!
In advance of the main course of recap, I offer an appetizer platter of observations — three things we learned about The Visitors in last night's V.

THEY'RE EARLY! Gone-native alien Ryan (Morris Chestnut) — needing a patch for the painful rip to his human skin suit sustained during last week's ill-fated resistance confab — sought help from a fellow incognito ET named Angelo. As the mechanic-cum-surgeon squirted Fasting Acting Miracle-Gro Flesh gel into Ryan's gash with a Flash Gordon cocking gun, their conversation turned to the monolithic star destroyers parked in Earth's atmosphere. Newsflash! Those mothers ain't supposed to be here… yet. The timetable was accelerated. Why?

THEY'VE GOT THEIR OWN GITMO! Marcus (Christopher Shyer), second in command to alien leader Anna (Morena Baccarin), tortured a would-be member of The Resistance at an undisclosed, dramatically lit location. The Vs' version of water-boarding: stripping you down to your bulging cod piece, then strapping you to a giant porcelain birdbath (or bidet; you choose) and casting illusions of your worst fears on your tummy. In this poor rebel's case: snakes. The lingering question: Is Anna aware of these clandestine renditions and black site beat-downs — or is Marcus running a conspiracy behind her exquisitely dressed back? Bolstering the latter possibility:

ANNA AND MARCUS DON'T SEE EYE-TO-FLUTTERY EYE ON HOW TO SERVE MANKIND Anna had a sharp exchange with Marcus while flipping though a holographic catalogue of Earthly couture. She selected a white kimono and coolly noted, '''I'm told in Japan this both conveys the respect of tradition and the allure of submission.'' Marcus: ''I'm not sure that's the message you want to send.'' Anna shot him a withering gaze. ''You still don't understand humanity.'' Talk of ''submission'' is the kind of thing we'd expect to hear from diabolical reptilian monsters intent on dosing mankind with paralyzing kindness and then eating us alive for dinner. But if you believe as I do that Anna is a sincere reformer determined to improve our woeful condition, we could also interpret her to mean that engaging Earthlings and coaxing them to change requires tact and deference. Regardless, Marcus didn't agree. My guess is that he regards humanity as a planet of damn dirty apes that need to whipped and rifle-butted into being obedient little monkeys. Schism! Shades of: The Jacob/Man in Black debate about rehabbing and managing unruly, sinful man in the season finale of Lost. [This recap's obligatory forced Lost connection has now been fulfilled.]

Having dazzled us last week with extravagant spaceships and enticingly exotic extra-terrestrials, V's second episode scaled back the pricy pseudo-cinematic ambition and shifted to a more sustainable gear — a Trust No One paranoid thriller like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, tailored for a culture coached to worry about sleeper cells in the suburbs. (Be honest: How many of you really sweat that?) Where the pilot was briskly paced and meaty with ideas, ''There Is No Normal Anymore'' was slow and small and missing much of the Big Picture musing on the Vs' global impact that gave this otherwise ho-hum alien invasion yarn its promising point of distinction. Yeah, there was a throwaway line here and there about an alien-inspired psychotherapy boom or geopolitical significance of the United States, but I wanted more, and I was disappointed. All week, ABC promoted V with the Muse song ''Uprising,'' which I thought was a perfect fit: this new V should be mythic and melodramatic, politically charged and comic book fantastic, brilliantly produced and raucously thrilling. Alas, ''… No Normal Anymore'' didn't quite get there. This show needs to be more interesting, more fun — Battlestar Galactica, but with less bleakness. (Not that bleak can't be fun. In fact, in my more pessimistic moods about V, I nurture the fantasy of NBC pulling the now-complete BSG out of mothballs and putting it up V. If broadcast TV is really that interested in politically charged, philosophically provocative humans vs. aliens sci-fi saga, why not show them — and V — how it should be done?)

For now, I watch on faith, buoyed by glimmers of hope. Elizabeth Mitchell can make me believe in anything. The Visitors — embodied by inscrutable Anna — continue to be a metaphor and mystery worthy of parsing and theorizing. My take: Anna is sincere about wanting to bring peace, love, and universal health care to the world — but her advisors are conspiring against her. (A lengthy elaboration of this theory, complete with time travel head-hurtyness, can be found at the close of this recap.) And has the subject of V's much-discussed political subtext shifted? Forget the Obama allegory. After last night, I'm now wondering if Anna = NaIve Commander-in-Chief and Marcus = Hawkish Vice President Who's Puppet-Mastering His Boss From His Secret Torture Chamber Bunker. I'm not trying to ruffle Left or Right feathers — I'm just saying that I suspect V is engineered to reflect the political energies of the whole decade, not just the past year.

NEXT: A priest and an FBI agent walk into a bar...
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20318975,00.html

V S1E1: Pilot

Beginning now, we are expanding our scope to programs like Heroes that strecth the imagination and challenge the viewer. It is why we are inclucing shows like V. But remember, no matter what, this site will ALWAYS be HEROES F1RST!
..........................

The Visitors arrive and say they come in peace, though some are skeptical of their intentions.



http://www.hulu.com/watch/106763/v-pilot#s-p1-so-i0

However, when you add the DVR watchers...

Last post shows that Heroes last night hit a series low. But that is not the whole story.

For, though, Heroes has been languising in the 60's in the as-the-program-airs Nielsens, Heroes is the 10th most popular program on DVRs. SO when you add the DVR numbers to the season-to-date on-air numbers, Heroes total numbers shoot up 30.8%! That's the second biggest increase to on-air numbers in that top 10 (the biggest was FOX's Fringe.)

So...how do we get people to watch HEROES FIRST?

Full numbers are here: http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman2/publish/Television_44/Huge_DVR_lift_for_Fringe_and_Dollhouse.asp

A series low.

It looks like the clock is ticking for our specials...

At 8 p.m. Fox was first with the 5.1 for “House,” followed by ABC with the 3.4 for “Stars.” CBS was third with a 3.2 for “How I Met Your Mother” (3.5) and “Accidentally on Purpose” (3.0), NBC fourth with a series-low 2.3 for “Heroes,” Univision fifth with a 1.4 for “El Nombre del Amor” and CW sixth with a 1.2 for “One Tree Hill.”

Full ratings for the night here: http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman2/publish/Overnights_50/Fox_edges_out_CBS_for_a_Monday_win.asp

S4E10 Brother's Keeper

Next week, a whole lotta people show up for their final checks!

S4E9 Shadowboxing

Claire courts trouble after the sorority attack; Matt vows to destroy Sylar at any cost; Peter helps Emma start a new life. (...and a network gets revenge?)

S4E9; SHADOWBOXING (RECAP)

Another week, another episode! Previously, Sylar switched places with Matt so that he’s in control of his body, Peter got a nifty new healing ability, and Gretchen was almost murdered by Rebecca who is part of carnie town.
Gretchen and Claire lie to their new sorority sisters when they freak out after seeing Claire heal and Becky disappear right in front of them. Their lie: That the hazing must have included drugging their water. Gretchen and Claire are left alone, and the former says that she is definitely not okay with trying to be killed. Claire calls her dad who brings along the Haitian and wipes the sorority girl’s minds while Gretchen stays alone in the dorm room. The Haitian tags along with Claire while HRG searches Rebecca’s room, and Claire gets to the dorm in time to see Gretchen packing a bag. It’s all just a little bit too freaky for her and she leaves; the Haitian following to make sure she’s safe. As soon as Claire’s alone, Samuel shows up.

Samuel tells Claire that it’s easier to relate to people when they’re just like you, which is why he started the carnival. At the same time he tries to recruit Claire, HRG is confronted by Becky. She tells him that he killed her father while she hid under the bed and watched the whole thing go down. She says that she wished that no one would find her and that was when her ability to turn invisible manifested itself, but she never understood why she couldn’t wish for her dad to be okay. In revenge, she’s going to hurt both HRG and Claire. Before she can, someone comes looking for her and she disappears. HRG leaves and makes it back to Claire’s dorm just in time to meet Samuel and hear his pitch to Claire.

HRG winds up taking Samuel into custody (can he do that now? Where was he even planning on taking him?) so that he can get answers about the compass. In all likelihood, it points people in the direction of the carnival, but before we can find out for sure Becky shows up. She’s going to try and kill HRG, but Samuel tazers her. HRG literally pushes Claire to the ground, but she begs him not to hurt Becky and Samuel, and together they run away. Claire gives HRG that look. He walks her back to her dorm and that night she looks longingly at Gretchen’s side of the room. Did I mention she’d told her roommate that she was too important to lose and that everything’s been charged with what the writers hope is unresolved sexual tension? Yeah.

Sylar is taking Matt and his body to New York. Sylar taunts Matt, but it’s Matt who has the last laugh because he’s planted his service revolver in his suitcase. The metal detector goes off, and Sylar tries to use Matt’s ability. “You may be able to control my body but I will NEVER let you control my ability.” Sylar is taken into custody screaming that he’s a cop. Four hours later they’re on their way only to get a flat tire. Matt’s getting a little too confident in his razzing of Sylar though, and when a nice guy pulls over to help them, Sylar kills him. Matt rages that Sylar just killed a man, and Sylar turns the tables: “No, I didn’t. You did.” He tells Matt that he’s in charge and can kill anyone, anywhere, so no more roadblocks on the way to find Peter Petrelli for answers.

They stop at the Burnt Toast Diner and Sylar tells Matt that he tried to kill a waitress there once, and when Matt won’t tell him what happened to his body, he decides to start killing people. Matt finally relents at that prospect and tells Sylar everything while Sylar doodles on a napkin. Sylar says that now he’s going to find Nathan, then kill everyone involved with his body swap. Before he can do that, the police show up. Matt used his ability to make Sylar doodle that he was going to kill everyone. In order to keep HRG, Angela Petrelli et al safe, he makes Sylar motion to draw a weapon and the police shoot him about six times in the chest, killing him.

(THANKS, NBC PROMO DEPARTMENT FOR THAT SPOILER ALERT. SURE WAS NIFTY.)

There’s been a massive train crash, and Peter is going around saving lives, but every time he heals someone, it drains his energy. Emma watches the chaos in the E.R., and when doctors get to be too busy, she starts stitching a patient up, much to Peter’s surprise. She tells him he should stop using his ability if it effects him this way, and he scoffs that then he’d just be ordinary. She finally confesses to him that she dropped out of med school after her nephew drowned while she was babysitting. After she saves a little girl’s life, Peter convinces her to give med school another chance. When Peter gets home, Sylar/Nathan shows up, having woken up in carnie town with Nathan’s face and flying out before anybody saw him.

Charlies Gives Heroes Ratings Glee!

Jayma Mays boosts 'Heroes' ratings
Tuesday, November 3 2009, 12:16pm EST
By Dan French, TV Reporter

Jayma Mays' return to Heroes helped to boost the show's ratings, overnight viewing figures show.
The episode, which saw Hiro travel three years into the past to try to save Charlie from the hands of Sylar, pulled in 6.2m for NBC in the 8pm hour - the best figure for season four so far. The previous high of 6m was achieved in the 'Redemption' opener.

After Heroes, Trauma and The Jay Leno Show logged 6.2m and 4.3m at 9pm and 10pm respectively.
How I Met Your Mother and Accidentally On Purpose put in 9.1m and 8.5m for CBS during the 8pm hour, then 13.6m watched Two And A Half Men at 9pm. The Big Bang Theory followed at 9.30pm with 12.7m.
Over on ABC, a two-hour episode of Dancing With The Stars managed 16.2m at 8pm, then 9.7m tuned in for Castle at 10pm.

One Tree Hill and Gossip Girl interested 2.4m and 1.9m for The CW at 8pm and 9pm respectively.
Fox's coverage of the World Series Game 5 averaged 17.1m between 8pm and 11pm.

(All this shows that Heroes is not fully in the grave yet, that with solid FOCUSED stories, the show can survive and thrive. -Don)

S4E8: Once Upon A Time In Texas (recap)

From http://www.hitfix.com/:

When "Heroes" deals with ordinary people dealing with extraordinary abilities, the results are hit and miss. But when it deals with the intricacies of time travel, it almost always rushes headfirst into a brick wall of fail. Tonight's episode, "Once Upon a Time in Texas," shows another version of the fateful day before Peter Petrelli saved the cheerleader and (temporarily) saved the world in Season 1. What transpired tonight was unfortunately little more than another example in the ever-expanding saga of "Hiro Never, Ever Learns."

The best part of tonight's episode? (Besides learning Samuel killed Mohinder, singlehandedly turning him from the show's villain to Ultimate Champion?) Charlie calling Hiro out for his selfish behavior in trying to go back in time in order to save her life. We (as well as Hiro) already know about her aneurysm from Season 1's "Six Months Ago," in which his original attempt to save her life lost to her brain clot. How that death means she's alive in this particular iteration of the past is anyone's guess, as "Heroes" has never much subscribed to the "whatever happened, happened" theory that "Lost" tends to espouse. Theirs is more, "whatever happens this week, happens this week."

Attending to Hiro's potentially apocalyptic lovelorn mission is Samuel, sent back in time by a dying Arnold to make sure Hiro doesn't render the time-space fabric asunder and create the type of horrific world in which dogs and cats cohabitate. (Mass hysteria, I hear.) Samuel intuits the loopholes created by Hiro's meddling, and helps the Nakamura correct those errors so that Hiro can achieve his dream of living happily ever after. What follows is a complicated set of cause-and-effect, by the end of which roughly eight Hiros were one step behind the other, each making sure to pick up the slack left by the previous iteration. It's like "Primer" with subtitles and Knight Rider t-shirts. No wonder time travel gives Hiro and Arnold tumors: I'm developing one just trying to understand what's going on.

Hiro's plan to save Charlie? Tease Sylar with tales of the future in exchange for the removal of Charlie's aneurysm. I must confess that seeing pure, unadulterated, Season 1 Sylar again made me more than a little happy. The way he mentally toyed with Charlie early in the episode reminded me a touch of Adelle Dewitt in the latest, greatest episode of "Dollhouse," slipping in menacing threats amidst nominally banal conversation. But I don't need to pour through my Season 1 DVDs to know that Sylar at this point was more of a "slice first, ask questions later" kinda guy. While I enjoyed Hiro using his power to counter Sylar's telekinesis, Sylar's agreeing to help Charlie reeked more of weekly plot need rather than consistent characterization. Would a later iteration of Sylar agreed? Probably. But that Sylar's a long way from the Burnt Toast Café.

Similarly, Charlie's forgiveness of Hiro for his "selfish" actions in saving her at the expense rang false. Her earlier condemnation? As mentioned before: totally accurate, and completely earned. Charlie would be unable to live with the guilt, and would want to distance herself as far from him as possible in the aftermath. Hiro's stunned to learn this, somehow forgetting her peace with death in "Six Months Ago" in much the same way that Hiro always, always forgets the most important warnings about his God-like abilities. Rather than accept the (borrowed) moments they had, Hiro has now condemned her to a life quite literally stuck in time. What time? Only Samuel knows, using Arnold's dying breaths to put her somewhere only he knows in order to control the younger, more powerful time manipulator. (My guess? In the plague-filled future along with Peter's Irish girlfriend, Caitlin. OK, that's not so much a theory as fanfic. But the line's sooo close, you know?)

So Hiro's now stuck working for Samuel, undoubtedly a hell for him. And since I had to spend nearly a third of this episode watching Elisabeth Röhm's Lauren making moon eyes at Noah Bennett, I can speak about hell from a personal perspective. I'm guessing her character is single because she thinks things like "handing a guy a motel room key 37 hours before his daughter is destined to die" is a smooth move. I'm not the biggest Röhmaniac or anything, but I don't think any actress could have taken on this character and made it non-groanworthy.

Now, I'm all for filling in the gaps through the clever revisiting of familiar scenes. But seeing Noah Bennett recontextualized so brilliantly in "Company Man" made this particular iteration all the more painful. I get that the stress of his dual life made his home life difficult, and clearly these flashbacks were designed to foreshadow the domestic problems that he faces in the show's present. But would the same man that begged (and then forced) Isaac to paint the future high then spend precious Sylar-seeking minutes telling a fellow Company employee the equivalent of, "It's not you, it's me"? Exactly. All filler, no killer.

At episode's end, we're left with our first substantial glimpse into Samuel's actions: his apparent murder of Mohinder. Now, you might rightfully ask, "Does the show seriously want to think that this entire volume is about saving one of the show's most historically loathed characters?" It's doubtful that Samuel feels guilt over Mohinder's death, except as insofar as Captain Voiceover's brain probably contained the only cure for that which afflicted and eventually killed Samuel's brother, Joseph. If I have this right, Samuel needs Hiro to take him back to keep Mohinder alive so that Joseph may live. Which means more Mohinder is on the way. Plus more time travel. It's like a geeky, anti-Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.

It's hard for this volume of "Heroes" to get much momentum if it's constantly skipping around in time. The past few weeks actually built up a little bit of steam, but this episode just stopped the whole mess dead in its tracks. If, as Charlie said, 300,000 people die each day, why does Joseph's matter so much? Is Samuel simply selfish, wanting his brother back by his side? Hopefully not. It's one thing to humanize a villain by giving him a recognizable motivation. It's another to make his concerns so small that watching him tear down the world to achieve it seems the height of overcompensating.

In short, We're risking going from "Save the Cheerleader, Save the World," to "Save The Brother, Save the Carnival." Not exactly the most compelling rewriting of history.

S4E7 Strange Attractors

Matt tries to get rid of Sylar; Claire and Gretchen get hazed; H.R.G. and Tracey team up to save a teen from the consequences of his unchecked ability.

With CBS in Reruns, Claire and the Carnies talke advantage

These are last night numbers for 8-9 ET:

At 8 p.m. ABC was first with a 3.4 for “Stars,” followed by Fox with a 2.6 for
“Dance.” NBC was third with a 2.5 for “Heroes,” CBS fourth with
a 2.3 for repeats of “How I Met Your Mother” and “Accidentally on Purpose,”
Univision fifth with a 1.4 for “El Nombre del Amor” and CW sixth with a 1.3 for
“One Tree Hill.”

As you can see, Heroes is really closer than one would think, with only 0.6 separating Heroes and the D-List Dancers.

Heroes also remains NBC's top Monday show, with Truama slipping to 1.9, and Leno wishing he'd never left late-night at 1.3.

The who story is here: http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman2/publish/Overnights_50/With_CBS_in_reruns_ABC_rises_to_No_1.asp

Heroes - Episode 4-7 Review

By Matt Basilo - October 27, 2009 Email the author
If there was ever a “filler” episode of Heroes, this was it. However, “filler” is decidedly different from “stalling,” so I’ll chalk this up as the lesser of two evils. Normally episodes such as these are a necessary evil when it comes to properly pacing the season, however with such a large cast with so many stories going on, it’s admittedly a bit tough to defend.

I suppose if there was any “A” story, it was Sylar’s continued haunting of Parkman. I will admit that I found it somewhat funny that this entire time Parkman has been pretending to be a recovering addict, and then in the end alcohol ended up overcoming his proverbial demon. And, actually, I enjoyed the climatic reveal that Sylar had officially taken over Parkman’s body. However, I can’t help but be disappointed that they’ve really missed out on the fun dichotomy of Sylar’s consciousness living in Parkman’s body, and Nathan’s consciousness living in Sylar’s body. Instead, we’ve just got this massive overexposure of Sylar. He is just all over the place.

But man, did I ever cringe when Parkman called Mohinder.

I’ve repeatedly stated that Ali Larter is the weakest link of the Heroes cast. For whatever reason, they just can’t make any of her characters work in the series. But, as I’ve noted, I’ve really, really enjoyed this progressive bond between her and HRG (yeah, you heard me). After all, these are pretty much the only two characters who are expressing the “redemption” portion of this volume. They’ve been a pretty fun pair. And, for the most part, I still feel that way. However, this whole thing with Tracy getting drawn to the carnival is a tad too reminiscent of what we saw last season, with Tracy joining up with that volume’s lead antagonist, Papa Petrelli. As I’ve indicated with Sylar, we don’t need to see the same characters having the same struggle over and over again.

And that’s why I continue to dig HRG – he’s one of the few characters that legitimately seems to grow as a person. I buy that he wants to make up for his past mistakes, and I thought his performance this week was really strong. He genuinely wanted to help Jeremy, and you could really feel HRG’s pain when he discovered Jeremy’s body.

Not much to say about the Claire/Gretchen thing, except that four girls seems like an awfully small pledge class, doesn’t it? Seriously, though, I was a bit relieved we didn’t have to sit through Claire and Gretchen going through some super duper awkward phase where they avoid each other and pretend like nothing happened for a gabillion episodes. No, I don’t think Claire will end up being a lesbian, but I was glad she handled the situation with such straight forward maturity.

I’d hate to sound overly negative, but I’m having a lot of trouble getting into this whole carnival thing. Personally, I’m more interested in the redemption aspect of this season, instead of force feeding a plot point that will eventually bring the characters together. This is one of the cases where the build has been a bit too slow. We’re a few episodes in, and I feel like I have no real understanding of who these people are. Or their motivations, for that matter. They may be manipulative, but are they decidedly evil? And without that distinction, I don’t find myself particularly invested in who does and doesn’t decide to join them.

What I think we need is a “Company Man” type episode that focuses solely on the carnival crew. And we need that soon.

Matt Basilo has been writing for Inside Pulse since April 2005, providing his insight into popular television shows such as Lost, 24, Heroes, and Smallville. You can visit his blog at [a case of the blog].

Columbus Day Numbers

Full details:

Time Net Show 18-49 Rating/Share Viewers (Millons)

8:00 FOX House 5.0/13 12.91
CBS How I Met Your Mother 3.5/9 8.61
ABC Dancing With the Stars 3.3/8 16.10
NBC Heroes 2.4/6 5.64
CW One Tree Hill 1.2/3 2.62

8:30 CBS Accidentally on Purpose 3.0/7 7.83

9:00 CBS Two and a Half Men 4.6/11 13.89
ABC Dancing With the Stars 3.7/9 16.82
FOX Lie to Me 2.8/7 7.81
NBC Trauma 1.8/4 5.52
CW Gossip Girl 1.2/3 2.51

9:30 CBS The Big Bang Theory 4.8/12 12.78

10:00 CBS CSI: Miami 4.0/11 12.94
ABC Castle 2.4/6 9.99
NBC The Jay Leno Show 1.5/4 4.91

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You can see TV ratings from other recent Overnight ratings reports here.

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All numbers are Live+SD.

Nielsen TV Ratings: ©2009 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved.

Claire & Gretchen: Concentrated

Here is the C&G part of last nights Heroes....without all of the other stuff.

The bleeding has slowed....but there's still bleeding.

Can to kissing lesbians....at least one superpowered...save Heroes? We'll find out next week.

Meanwhile, Heroes continues to struggle on Monday nights. I don't know what it would take to move the show to a less competitive night, but at least the bleeding has slowed. Last night's overall numbers were only .03 less thna last week, and in the 18-49 demo, the numbers have not changed.

As a matter of fact, Trauma did better in Heroes old spot last night...though not by much.

It is appreant that Heroes is no longer working on Mondays at 8/7. Still it is one of NBC stronger performers, it can move to, say Tuesday or Friday nights and possibly do better. (I mean, do we REALLY need 2 hours of The Biggest Loser?)

Here's the wrap up from hitflix.com:

Fast National ratings for Monday, Oct. 5, 2009.

The season is young, but a Monday pattern is emerging: "Dancing with the Stars" makes ABC nearly unbeatable overall, but FOX and CBS are happy to battle for demographic supremacy.
Among adults 18-49, FOX won the night with a 4.1 rating, just ahead of the 3.8 for CBS. ABC wasn't far behind with a 3.6 rating in the key demographic, leaving NBC in a distant fourth with a 1.8 rating. The CW's 1.0 rating trailed.

Overall, of course, ABC averaged an estimated 15.7 million viewers to go with a 10.1 rating/15 share. CBS was a solid second with a 7.2/11, with FOX's 6.2/9 close behind. NBC wasn't really all that competitive in fourth with a 3.3/5. The CW's 1.5/2 was fifth.

ABC dominated the night's first two hours, starting at 8 p.m. with a 11.4/17 for "Dancing with the Stars." FOX's "House" was second with a 7.6/11 and won the hour in the 18-49 demo with a 5.1/13. CBS' "How I Met Your Mother" and "Accidentally on Purpose" finished third, averaging a 5.1/8 between them. "Heroes" had a 3.3/5 overall and a 2.3/6 rating in the demo. The CW's "One Tree Hill" trailed with a 1.5/2 overall.

"Dancing with the Stars" held steady at 9 p.m. for CBS. Second place overall went to CBS' "Two and a Half Men" and "The Big Bang Theory," which averaged a 8.0/12 overall and barely won the hour with a 4.4 rating in the demo. Two struggling dramas -- FOX's "Lie to Me" and NBC's "Trauma" -- battled for third, with FOX's entry holding steady with a 4.7/7 and NBC's new drama slumping to a 3.6/5. The CW's "Gossip Girl," featuring guest appearances by Tyra Banks and Hilary Duff, didn't get much of a lift and was fifth with a 1.5/2.

CBS moved into first at 10 p.m. with a 8.5/14 for "CSI: Miami," which also did a 3.9 rating in the demo. ABC's "Castle" was second with a 7.5/12. Third place, as per usual, went to NBC's "The Jay Leno Show."

S4E5: Hysterical Blindness (NBC Promo)

This trailer is notable for a few reasons. For one, NBC's Voice-of-Doom Promo Guy is nowhere to be found on this. The other notable thing is coming up.

First we have Emma walking backwards into the path of a bus. Peter goes into Speedster mode and saves her and does the prerequisite "what-the-hell-are-you-doing" thing.

Is it me, or does Emma seem a bit too old for our Peter?

Well, Sylar is back from the dead....thanks ClaireBear....only now he's pretty much Gabriel...and in trouble. He's taken in and questioned.

Hell Ernie Hudson, welcome to party. Last time we saw you you were Ghostbuster #4. Hint...you should have brought along your backpack.

Any the BlackBuster get telekinesis'ed by 'Ol 'Sy. I feel there will be some serious double work for ZQ, for there is still Sylar-in-the-head for Matt.

Now think for a moment. ZQ and Grunny on a soundtage. Together. Same scene. DEAR GOD, THERE HAS TO BE A BLOOPER REEL!

Back at college, Claire meets her new nemesis, a pert, my-crap-don't-stink Black girl name Becky who juuuuust found out that Claire was a cheerleader. From who.....? Retchen Gretchen, course.

Which brings us to the OTHER notable thing about this trailer. It's really appearant, so I won't mention it.....except it should have happened last season. With another actress (think of the letter between K and M).

With that in mind, the you know what was the phoniest you-know-what between two women I've seen. Especially since we understand La Hayden is sort of a fan of you-know-what. Still, I am warning to Madeiline Zima's Gretch, and I pray that they don't turn her into Lisa Sheridan. I kinda like that vibe of Claire's Daphne to Gretch's Velma.

What is also intresting is the end shots of HRG, Sy, and what looks to be Nathan in flight.

If you think Nathan's dead......don't bet against the Senator.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBcTnncs4wY

S4E4: Acceptance (Recap)

The cliché, “Those that forget their past are doomed to repeat it,” got a solid work-out in a surprisingly solid episode of “Heroes” tonight. Then again, once one saw the phrase “Written by Bryan Fuller” come on-screen during the opening credits, many a fan’s eye lit up from their dull, habitual gaze and perked up for the first time since…well, since Fuller last wrote an episode.

Is Bryan Fuller the answer to not only quality television, but global warming, the Middle East conflict, and Nickelback’s reign of terror atop the Billboard charts? Unlikely, despite what many a critic might have you think. But he knows how to breathe life into the characters of “Heroes” that eludes the majority of the show’s writing staff. His scripts take stale characters and invigorate them to the point where you remember when you couldn’t wait to see the outcome of the previous cliffhanger. And tonight’s episode, “Acceptance,” featured one hell of a cliffhanger.

I’m taking what they’re giving/Cuz I’m working for a living

Tracy and Noah find themselves in the unfortunate place of being unemployed during these tough economic times. And yes, they do seem to exist in our world, courtesy of a quick mention of the economy on Claire’s behalf. A simple move to place the show’s world into ours, it was a nice touch to remind the audience of the show’s original conceit: a look at super powered people in our own world.

Both are simultaneously overqualified and underqualified. Noah mockingly calls himself a “company man” (a nice shout-out to the show’s best episode, the Fuller-penned “Company Man” in Season 1), but reminds a supportive Claire that his vast experience in Primatech Paper couldn’t land him a job at Dunder Mifflin. As for Tracy: she’s got brains, but all Governor Malden cares about is going upstairs and “mak[ing] each other happy.” Apparently, Governor Malden learned his pickup lines from Borat.

Both characters are driven by their professional ambition, but both realize that the professions they have inhabited no longer fulfill them. In fact, their previous jobs disgust them. I could have gone without Tracy’s life almost literally going down the drain during an emotional meltdown, but overall I bought the connection between these two much more than in the volume’s opening hours. Tracy and Noah hopefully will have new purpose going forth, a prospect that seemingly frightens Big Bad Samuel. Good. I remember when Noah wasn’t Noah, but HRG. HRG used to scared me. Happy to see if he can do it again.

(Also, kudos to “Heroes” for containing scenes involving Claire that didn’t make me want to bang my head against the wall repeatedly. That’s a super power in and of itself.)

If you fall I will catch you, I'll be waiting/Time after time

Oh, Hiro. Season 1’s audience on-screen conduit to the fantastical has devolved into fanboy punching bag over the years. Too many antics, too much grating behavior, and too many times where he violates common sense in order to give the show some sort of conflict. So what happens this week? He gets humanized, and I feel for the character for the first time in ages.

Now, I’m not a fan of Hiro’s sudden desire to micro-manage the past in order to achieve results on an individual level. (See: “violates common sense.”) But since the show’s already sent Hiro down Route Sixty-Suck, presenting the potential futility of this tactic was a fantastic way to insert humor into Hiro’s storyline without making him a pathetic clown. His constant attempts to prevent a fellow coworker (Tadashi) from self-destructing fail, leading to 47 timelines in which Tadashi manages to photocopy his posterior using company property.

For Hiro, the answers lie in the past. After all, if one redirected Slurpee yields love for Ando and Kimiko, why couldn’t other redirections yield beneficial results? However, Hiro’s “Groundhog Day”-esque quest only ends when he accepts Tadashi’s intrinsic nature, not habitually fighting it at different points in the past. He correctly diagnoses Tadashi’s fetish as a cry for new employment, a revelation that sends Hiro to the one place he’s avoided: Kimiko’s office to tell her of his terminal illness.

Props to “Heroes” for showing us the introduction to that reveal, but not the actual revelation itself. The scene played more powerfully through Ando’s eyes that it would have up close, a moment of rare restraint for a show that not only tells instead of shows, but usually uses giant blinking neon signs when telling. After Hiro’s confession, his eyes go blank and he disappears, leaving Ando to clue his wife-to-be onto the source of Hiro’s malady.

Nightswimming…deserves a quiet night

Let’s liken Hiro’s decision to subtly change the past despite having first-hand evidence at just how catastrophic that could be to, say, a beer. Using that as our base point, Angela’s decision to cage Sylar inside the mental and physical likeness of her deceased son Nathan is a keg. A big, frothy, stupid keg of stupidity. I fashion Fuller for a whiskey guy myself that looked at the crappy keg and decided to kill it before leaving the show for greener pastures in the land of development deals.

In order to reboot Sylar’s brain into more of a Nathan-centric perspective, she brings a box to his office containing mementos from Nathan’s childhood. Since his shapeshifting ability works based on absorbing memories from physical objects, the mementos do a nice job of shoving actual memories into Sylar’s brain. Unfortunately for all involved, one of those memories details a dead woman floating in a pool, surrounded by chlorine and blood.

Turns out that woman is the daughter of Angela’s friend Millie Houston, a character briefly seen last season during “Fugitives.” Awesome to see Swoozie Kurtz used for more than a bizarre five minute scene. While Angela used the Haitian to wipe the actual Nathan’s mind from this memory, the Sylar-as-Nathan felt compelled to rip open the scab of history through what Peter calls “psychometrics” to triangulate his own guilt, reaffirm Millie’s long-held suspicions, and land Sylar-as-Nathan stabbed, shot, and buried alive thanks to a hit ordered by Mama Houston. Well, you know what they say about no good deed…

…but wait! Not unlike the poor in “Monty Python and Holy Grail,” Sylar’s not dead yet! It was cool enough when a hand stuck up through the ground, but to see Sylar’s face appear next? Groovy. Not sure if this means the end of Adrian Pasdar on “Heroes” or not, but it was a fantastic reminder of just how insanely cool the cliffhangers for this show used to be. I’m not sure any of this makes a lick of sense, but for the first time in a while, I’m just anxious for the next episode. It’ll probably bring me back down to earth, but at least for one week, I’m happy I’ve stuck with this show for so long.

What way is the compass pointing for you when it comes to “Heroes”? You sticking to the path, or have the circus already long left town?

Wireless Rec-connected?

Will Hana Giteleman be revived from the dead?

Possibly.

Well, lets just say that she could be available.

It all depends on what ABC does in the next few weeks.

TV By The Numbers crunched the figures on the first few weeks of the season. Now Stana Katic co-star on the romantic detective comedy Castle on ABC. Katic, as you know, also starred as Hana "Wireless" Gitleman, former Isreali soldier and mistress of all thing internet on Heroes.

Well, it don't look good for Stana. According to thier cancellation index, Castle may not make it to January.

Now we know that Hana "died" in an online graphic novel on www.nbc.com, but our little birdie says that a HUGE reset button may be thrown on Heroes before the Olympics.

So if Hana DOES come back, Stana Katic would be available.

Stay tuned....

Is Heroes Safe? Maybe

For the last few weeks, there has been a lot of talk about how to save Our Favorite Show.

Maybe we are panicking too soon.

TVBy The Numbers, which tracks primetime and ratings, has anylized NBC's scripted fare over the past few weeks. And despite falling numbers, TVByTN says that Heroes stands a good chance of surviving to 2011, along with The Office, SVU, and the new Chevy Chase comedy Community.

Not looking good is Mercy. And although it was not listed, Trauma may be in the crosshairs as well.

The two that look like sure cancellations are Ame Poehler's Parks and Rec and the original Law & Order, though out of respect for 20 years, NBC may allow it to stay on until May.

TV By The Numbers' Renew / Cancel Index predicts potential renewal or cancellation for scripted broadcast primetime shows for the 2010-11 season:

• Likely To Be Canceled By May, 2010(***)
• Some Danger Of Being Canceled By May, 2010(**)
• Likely to Be Renewed For The 2010-11 Season(*)

Program	Renew/ Cancel Index
Law & Order (F)	***0.45
Parks & Recreation	***0.68
Mercy	**0.86
Law & Order: SVU	*0.94
Community	*1.01
Heroes	*1.05
The Office	*1.46

Numbers down even further

I wont go through the whole sad story, but here is enough for you to know:

At 8 p.m. Fox led with the 5.7 for “House,” followed by ABC with a 3.5 for
“Dancing with the Stars.” CBS was third with a 3.3 for “How I Met Your Mother”
(3.6, down just 6 percent from last week's series premiere) and “Accidentally on
Purpose” (3.1), NBC fourth with a 2.5 for “Heroes,” Univision fifth with a 1.5
for “El Nombre del Amor” and CW sixth with a 1.2 for “One Tree Hill.”
http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman2/publish/Overnights_50/Fox_wins_Monday_with_CBS_on_its_tail.asp

So here is the question:

To save Our Favorite Show should NBC:

• Move the show to another night...say Friday?
• Kepp it there....its just a blip?
• Make some major changes...like a more episodic format?
• Or just allow it to die at the end of the season?

S4 E3 Ink (Episode and recap)

Sylar pushes Matt to his limit, a grieving Samuel ventures beyond the carnival in search of Peter, Claire resolves to be truthful, and a new hero discovers her unique ability.



Last week I praised the arrival of Peter Petrelli: Working Class Hero. This week I bemoan the return of Peter Petrelli: Pretty Boy Tool. Seems like Samuel has a particular interest in Peter due to his own brother being an empath himself. At least, that's the impression I got after watching that subdermal compass go all a flutter an episode's end.

It's clear Samuel just doesn't let any ol' superpowered person into his fold. Instead, they have to pass what amounts to a moral test in order to be deemed worthy of inclusion. One man's morality is another man's depravity, so all things are relative. But Samuel, like all villains worth giving a damn about, doesn't actually consider himself a villain. Until recently, that might have even approximated the truth from an objective perspective. But it's clear that Joseph's death has sent him over the edge upon which he danced for so long.

So Samuel establishes a false lawsuit against Peter, stores up some specially made Sullivan Brothers Psychic Ink, and goes to work on Peter's mind. Then again, Samuel didn't have to manually Photoshop himself into one of Peter's pinned-up articles in order to make Peter doubt his own brain. I'm sure a Sudoku would have broken him just as easily. In any case, Peter apologizes to Samuel, unaware that the apology is itself "proof" for Samuel that he's found a suitable heir for his brother's ability.

Before heading back to the circus, Samuel makes a quick visit back to the home in which he grew up. Turns out he and Joseph lived in a carriage house, the offspring of a wealthy family's hired help. When denied entrance to his old home by the current tenant, he does the sensible thing and sinks the freakin' house. In case you didn't get it, this was the "Our Villain's Only a Villain Because People Didn't Love Him Enough as a Child" move they pulled on Sylar last year. And we all know how awesome THAT worked out.

As for the compass itself: it's unclear what it actually points towards, nor why empaths in particular are appropriate vessels for it. The show already has Lydia as its human version of Cerebro, so I'm unclear what added value is gained by the compass itself. My initial guess is that while Samuel creates ink out of earthen materials he can manipulate, there's something about an empath's power that focuses it and makes it usable for a specific purpose. Does the compass point to a place? A person? A cohesive plotline that won't have me banging my head against the wall by mid-volume? I'll let you, gentle reader, weigh in below.

Two-time touch and broken bones/Mirror in the bathroom

I can't even tell you how sick I am of the on-again, off-again relationship between Noah and Claire Bennet. It's this show's version of Ross and Rachel, but with much less making out. There's no earthly reason these two should re-hash the same talking points over and over again. And yet, on a seasonal basis, these two come together and split apart for the sole purpose of once again placing Claire in a position of danger.

Essentially, we're supposed to swallow that one game of "Guitar Hero" means Claire can call Gretchen her BFF. Well, my wife and I own "Rock Band." We play it all the time. And she doesn't even know as much about me as Gretchen now knows about Claire. We're literally weeks removed from the end of a plot in which superpowered people were sent to internment camps, and we're supposed to be OK with Claire revealing herself to someone who is essentially a stranger?

If you've seen this story before, and trust me, you have, then you know Noah's whole "I trust you" speech is a big fat lie. Unfortunately, 1) this makes us not like Noah, who is lying to his daughter, and 2) not like Claire, because we understand that Claire's judgement cannot be trusted. And meanwhile, it's only a matter of time before Gretchen's posting her own YouTube videos of her new roomie healing after cutting herself in the shower. I'm sooo looking forward to more "Single White Superhero," trust me.

Church of the poison mind/I think I'm paranoid
OK, let me just say that all my Evil Parkman dreams started to come true tonight. While I'm preparing myself to be disappointed in the eventual outcome, and wish the show focused more on Samuel as this Season's Big Bad without diluting the evil pool with Sylar's continued presence, I really enjoyed everything inside that dilapidated house.

When deployed properly, the ability to alter a person's mind is perhaps the most potent (and terrifying) power of all. You can argue until you're blue in the face that Sylar is actually the Sylar we know or just a byproduct of Parkman's guilty conscience, but you can't deny there was a realness to the cold look in that dead girl's eyes under the stairs. The fact that she was only a delusion should have taken away the power of the scene, but instead only validated the depths to which Parkman's mind can sink. This was one fake out that "Heroes" did deliciously.

The only problem with this storyline? I'm worried about its connection back to the carnival plot. Sure, we saw Sylar's face on Lydia's back next week. Does that mean that a psychic inside the carnival is working his/her mojo on Parkman in order to break Sylar-as-Nathan free? Seems like a complicated way to go about that change. Easier to just mind-frak the faux Senator back to life (back to reality), right?

Parkman's dark side is a fantastic little story, but only ultimately works if it ties into the volume as a whole, not as a stand-alone piece. The show may just be taking its time in allowing Samuel to gradually recruit all existing heroes one by one, but it needs to assure us that each piece of the seemingly disparate puzzle indeed connects. Moreover, it needs to explain sooner, not later, exactly why Samuel needs so many new members in his faction.

Ultraviolet (light my way)/Good vibrations

A possible way to tie everything together into one melodic whole? Emma, the show's first deaf superpowered character. Say what you will about the show's quality, but you can never fault their diversity in casting and in character. She's just developing her powers, which seem to manifest themselves in the realm of sound vibrations and the electromagnetic spectrum. Maybe these powers will develop into something cool, but for now they resemble something akin to an iPod commercial.

However, her ability to intuitively play the cello might also play a part in countering the effects of Peter's compass. I'm probably reading waaaay too much into this, but in Emma's ability to emit a sort of siren call with her music, I got a strong Mother Abigail vibe from her. The compass can't draw people in; it can only point to their direction. Samuel has to go TO those he wishes to find. It's possible that Emma will be the end of the rainbow for the side of good as the battle lines are drawn in "Redemption."

Or, you know, she'll get a job working Disney's Electric Light Parade. With "Heroes," nothing is ever truly out of the realm of possibility. Even if we desperately wished it could be.
http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/2009-1-13-monkeys-as-critics/posts/recap-heroes-ink

S4 E1/2: Orientation/Jump, Push, Fall (Full Episode)

The ringmaster of a very special carnival seeks revenge for the death of his brother; Tracy resurrects, hell bent on revenge; Claire starts college; Sylar's personality threatens to disrupt Nathan's life, while wreaking havoc in Matt's mind.



http://www.hulu.com/watch/97009/heroes-orientation--jump-push-fall#s-p1-so-i0

S4 E1/2: Orientation/Jump Push Fall (Recaptlet)

We apologize for the snark. The regular recap was not ready yet, so we had to settle for the cynics at www.televisionwithoutpity.com


Remember when back-to-back episodes would have been something to get excited about? Yeah, me neither. Anyway, Claire sees her roommate dead on the ground and insists that it is murder, not suicide. Her strange new friend Gretchen, who has an unhealthy obsession with dead bodies, says that they should try the age old Jump, Push, Fall test to determine the real cause of death, if only they could find a cadaver. Claire naturally leaps from the window herself, and new pal Gretchen sees her ribs sticking out and whatnot and is notably wigged out.

HRG gets a call from Tracy, who swears she didn't kill Danko. Instead, HRG determines that speedy knife guy must have wanted something, and after some digging in Danko's guts, HRG pulls out a key. The key leads to a safety deposit box, and HRG enlists a reluctant Peter's help to get it. Peter's the muscle in this scenario. Go ahead, laugh. I'll wait. Done? Nope? Yeah, it's a pretty hysterical concept. Anyway, they eventually find the box, containing a broken compass, and then speedy knife guy shows up and tries to kill them. Peter steals his power and they battle all blurry for a while, while HRG stands to the side and does literally nothing. Then knife guy runs off. The compass works for Peter, so HRG asks Peter to be his partner, but Peter turns him the hell down. Later, Peter gets called in for an emergency and it's a sliced up HRG who just got his little compass stolen. Then Tracy weirdly goes to the hospital and now she's friends with HRG or something and it is just strange.

Also strange, Hiro accidentally sends himself back to the carnival, but doesn't stop his young self from going to get his fortune told. However, T-Bag (also known as Samuel, apparently) encourages him to make another small change that won't rip the fabric of time apart or anything. Except that it sort of does as Ando and Komiko are dating now. Hiro sees this as a good thing (because even though he's not a pre-teen any more, he's still an idiot) and decides to go back to undo everything he's done wrong in the past. Well, that should take a long, long, while.

Meanwhile, in the storyline I just can't stand, Matt Parkman is hallucinating Sylar, who is looking for his body. Matt tries to ignore him, as he's apparently gone power-free for six weeks and isn't looking to get addicted again. There's group therapy, an annoying interrogation scene where Matt tries to do whatever job he's got this week, and then way too much of Matt's wife, who is having an affair with the water delivery boy. Matt finally caves and uses his power to send water boy away, and Sylar is delighted because now Matt will help him... in theory. Also, Nathan is having weird facial ticks, which is gross and apparently just there so that we realize the internal conflict going on inside him. Subtle.

Aside from taking advantage of stupid Hiro, who is apparently on tap to replace the ailing old time-traveling guy, T-Bag and crew need to take up a collection of heroes for some sort of mission. The tattoo seems to be of Peter, Sylar and Claire... for whatever unknown and presumably nefarious reason.
http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com/show/heroes/jump_push_fall.php

First ratings...

I won't bore you with the details, but it doesn't look good for our Heroes...

...NBC limped out of the gate on the first night of the new season with its combination of the two-hour fourth season-premiere of tired Heroes (3.4/ 5 from 8-10 p.m.) and week two of The Jay Leno Show (#3: 4.4/ 7 at 10 p.m.). Comparably, Heroes dipped by 11 percent from its 9-10 p.m. overnight average (3.8/ 6) from last March and April.
Take a look at the half-hour breakdown:

Heroes (NBC)
8:00 p.m.: 3.7/ 6 (#4)
8:30 p.m.: 3.5/ 5 (#4)
9:00 p.m.: 3.2/ 5 (#4)
9:30 p.m.: 3.2/ 5 (#4)
http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/content_displa...aa3a407d60e3eb3


When I saw that people taped the show, but watched something else FIRST (Like Dancing with the D-Listers), it did not bode well.

PEOPLE, REMEMER.....ALWAYS.....HEROES F1RST!!!!!

S3E24: An Invisible Thread (Season Finale)

+ Recap of last few episodes and key points of all the incidents that occurred to each character.
+ A short Mohinder soliloquoy occurs as we see Matt on a bus riding to Washington D.C., Hiro and Ando outside of Building 26, and Angela, Claire, and Mr. Bennet in a car driving.
+ Mr. Bennet figures out that the Agents know where they are as he drops Claire and Angela off and tell them to find Nathan.
+ Mr. Bennet gives Claire a phone and drives off.
+ Mr. Bennet arrives at a checkpoint as a truck filled with agnts arrive behind him and surround the car.
+ The same ending scene of last week's episode where Sylar is stabbed in the head by Danko replays over again.
+ Sylar is getting up like he did in the last episode and pulls out the knife from the back of his head as he tells Danko that its because of his shapeshifting ability he was able to survive.
+ Sylar traps Nathan in the bathroom in order to absorb his memories later.
+ Danko becomes TK'ed to the wall as Sylar tells him his plan to meet with the president and he transforms into Danko and kills another soldier outside of the room.

COMMERCIAL BREAK!!

+ Angela tells Claire that Mr. Bennet got caught because he was doing it for Claire.
+ Angela tells Claire to go find Nathan as she tells her that she needs to find Matt Parkman in order to save Nathan from harm.
+ Sylar is dressing up in a suit as he tries to wake Nathan up in the bathroom in order to get information about his past.
+ Nathan's secretary walks in as Sylar is turned around and tells him that his daughter is there to see him.
+ Sylar tells Claire that he is planning on stopping 'Sylar' from meeting the president
+ Claire questions Sylar if he really is Nathan and through the use of his powers figures out a way to convince Claire that he is Nathan.
+ Nathan and Claire are already on their way to meet the president.
+ Danko is being transported as Hiro and Ando are outside discussing a way to get inside.
+ They start arguing over Hiro's power and the effects its having on his body.
+ Danko is being transported down the hall as everyone sees him and stares at him, he gets throuwn into a room with a single table and Mr. Bennet standing around.
+ Mr. Bennet says, "Fancy meeting you here."

COMMERCIAL BREAK!!

+ Nathan wakes up in the bathroom as Peter finds him knocked out in the bathroom and tells Peter that they need to stop Sylar.
+ Mr. Bennet and Danko are discussing Sylar and the fact that they can't kill Sylar anymore because he moved the spot and how they got there.
+ Mr. Bennet tells Danko that he would have became exactly like Danko if he didn't have Claire and that they need to do something to escape.
+ As they are about to shake hands, Hiro and Ando freeze time and appear.
+ Ando finds pictures of themselves and takes them off a wall.
+ Hiro's ears are bleeding as Ando notices that Hiro is straining himself.
+ Hiro says "Holy Crap" as they find everyone in the containment center drugged.
+ They grab all the agents and replace them with all the people who have powers.
+ Mr. Bennet figures out that Hiro must have stopped time because the door is open and that there are no guards.
+ Mohinder is checking Hiro out and figures out that his powers are having an adverse affect on his body and that he can't use his powers anymore.
+ Nathan meets with a colleague as Claire starts picking up on all these hints that Nathan isn't who he really is.
+ Danko is about to betray Nathan and stab him with a tranquilizer as Hiro freeze time and uses it on Danko.
+ Hiro collapses as Mr. Bennet runs off to meet with Nathan.
+ Mr. Bennet calls Claire as it becomes obvious that Sylar is now impersonating Claire and tells Mr. Bennet that he is Sylar.

COMMERCIAL BREAK!!

+ Sylar is controlling Claire to open a bottle of wine and makes her move slowly towards Sylar and controls her every movement to serve wine.
+ Sylar is telling Claire that they have a lot in common as he makes her drink wine.
+ Claire tells Sylar that she would continue to hunt down Sylar continuously as Sylar starts telling Claire that they may eventually fall in love with each other.
+ Peter and Nathan arrive at the hotel and Nathan tells his colleague that Sylar is the one upstairs and shows him his power.
+ As Peter and Nathan enter the suite, Claire is thrown through the doorway as Nathan and Peter fly in to confront him.
+ Claire watches him from the hallway as Nathan and Sylar flew out the window and Peter and Claire run off to confront Sylar.
+ Nathan gets thrown through the window and Sylar cuts his throat as he says, "Claire will be so mad at me."
+ Sylar transforms into Nathan and walks off, leaving Nathan dead in a chair.

COMMERCIAL BREAK!!

+ Angela finds Matt Parkman and tells him that he has to come with her to find Nathan and save him.
+ Mr. Bennet arrives and finds Claire and Peter as the agents stop them as they warn them that the president is in danger.
+ Matt and Angela arrive at the hotel and finds out that Nathan died and Angela starts questioning her dreams.
+ Sylar arrives in the basement as Nathan and takes over a body of Nathan's colleague and starts going after the president.
+ Sylar gets in the car with the president and shakes his hand as Sylar figures out something is wrong and gets stabbed by Peter with a tranquilizer through the bottom of his neck.
+ Sylar is knocked out as Peter lays back and says, "I bet you never thought that I took that one from you."

COMMERCIAL BREAK!!

+ Mr. Bennet lays Sylar on a couch as Mr. Bennet and Angela is trying to convince Matt to mind control Sylar into becoming Nathan and telling the president that everything that occurred was a mistake.
+ Matt digs into Sylar's brain and tells him that he is now Nathan Petrelli and that Gabriel Gray is now dead.
+ Sylar transforms into Nathan and looks at Mrs. Petrelli and goes, "Ma?"
+ We see Nathan standing over Sylar's body and burning it as Sylar/Nathan stands by Angela.
+ Mr. Bennet asks Sylar/Nathan if he convinced the President to solve the problems, and Mr. Bennet says that he likes the name the "company."
+ Mr. Bennet tells Claire that Sylar is really dead as Matt Parkman walks away angry at himself for what he did.
+ Peter is standing there looking at Sylar/Nathan through the fire as Mohinder's soliloquouy ends.

END OF VOLUME 4!!

Beginning of Volume 5...
+ We see Water escaping from a kitchen as it flows into the living room and reanimates itself into Tracy and kills someone.
+ Nathan is sitting in his desk as he finishes looking at a newspaper mentions the murder and Angela walks in and tells Nathan that its time for lunch.
+ Nathan looks at the clock and figures that its running a little late as Angela feels a little uncomfortable with herself as she knows that Sylar will eventually come back.

Recapper's Note:
It was a fun season, can't wait for the next. See you next year and catch you on the other side of the moon.
www.9thwonders.com