Heroes: Season 3 (2009)

6 Discs DVD

When Heroes first premiered in the fall of 2006, it took the nation by storm in a way that few network series have been able to do in the past decade, with the exception of Lost. The powerful combination of staggering ratings and widespread critical acclaim is pretty hard to come by these days, and the series made household names out of relative unknowns like Hayden Panettiere, Masi Oka and more. Sadly, the show lost a ton of its audience during the ill-fated second season, and for good reason: it sucked, at least in comparison to the first season, which is a pretty damn hard act to follow in the first place. While you can blame the departure of writer-producer Bryan Fuller to shepherd his creation Pushing Daisies, or the writers strike which shortened the season to just 11 episodes or just a general lack of cohesive storytelling, the series simply wasn't the same. As disappointed as I was with the second season, I knew after watching the third season premiere that we were in much better hands and this third season is basically the equivalent of Mission: Impossible III. While both weren't quite as great as the first season or film, it's still leaps and bounds better than the second season/film.

While the second season tried to do way too much, with convoluted storylines and adding in new and rather lame characters (Daina Ramirez's Maya may be one of the most hated TV characters of the 21st Century, despite how gorgeous she is), the main culprit is still the writers strike. The second season was to introduce the two-volume format, with the first season entirely consisting of the first volume, Genesis. Due to the strike, the second season turned out to be just one volume as well, Generations, with the Exodus volume scrapped. Now this third season finally gets into the dual-volume format with the volumes Villains and Fugitives comprising this season, and viewers are finally cued in to how the series is really supposed to work. There are so many people I know that stopped watching after the second season, and it really is a shame because this third season doesn't match the greatness of the first season, but it at least shows us that the potential for greatness is still there.

This season starts out with the 13-episode Villians volume and, thankfully, the characters they introduced in this season were well worth hanging onto. In the first episode back, we're introduced to the "speedster" Daphne (Brea Grant) who steals part of a secretive formula that Hiro (Masi Oka) has been charged with guarding after his father (George Takei) passed away. Grant's Daphne has one of the more interesting character arcs this season and she definitely has the range to pull off whatever is required of her wonderful character. We get a few other solid characters this season like the wonderful Robert Forster as the back-from-the-dead (not really...) Arthur Petrelli, the Peter and Nathan's dad, the return of Ali Larter... but not as Niki Sanders and some awesome little guest-starring spots from Robot Chicken's Seth Green and Breckin Meyer as some dudes who work at a comic book store and help Hiro and Ando. We also se many other past characters in younger forms, but one of the biggest highlights for me this season was a guy that I would assume was just meant for a one-episode guest stint that turned into much more... because he's friggin awesome: David H. Lawrence's Eric Doyle, a.k.a. The Puppet Master. For one, he has probably one of the coolest abilities that we've seen in the entire series, and I'm assuming they must have thought the same thing I did when they first saw him appear: they wanted more. If you couldn't guess, Lawrence's character can actually manipulate people's action like a human puppeteer. While he doesn't have control over his puppet's minds or what they can actually say, he can shut their mouths and make them move exactly how he wants them to move. Lawrence's performance is simply mesmerizing here and it's great that we get to see him in eight episodes this season AND the awesome four-episode web series Nowhere Man, that is also included on this DVD set. I am kind of sad, though, since he signed on for the final season of Lost and I'm not sure if we'll get to see him in the fourth season, but if not, damn it was fun while it lasted. For those who tuned out after the second season, this is one of the best things that you missed this season.

Story-wise, it seemed like they went back to basics a bit and strayed from the bizarre storytelling that turned so many off during the second season. Of course, it's not really all their fault, but it's the writers... strike's fault for cutting the season in half. Creator Tim Kring has explained in interviews where the next volume of that ill-fated second season would've gone too, if the strike wouldn't have happened, and while it did sound like it would've ended on a better note, they still dropped the ball with what they had. Here they get back to basic good vs. evil stuff, but they kind of screw with us a bit by making some good guys into semi-bad guys and bad guys into good guys. OK, bad guy into good guy. Zachary Quinto still remains as the anchor of the series with his brilliantly psychotic and devious Sylar, but in this season we get to learn a bit about where he came from, as he embarks on a journey to find out who his real father was. While Brea Grant's Daphne has one of the most interesting character arcs this season, Sylar, by far, has the best, as we get him not only at his ability-craving best, but we find out where his hunger really comes from.

While, admittedly, I was a bit shocked by the season finale (sorry, can't spoil it), I'm even more intrigued by where they'll go from here, even though I am still a bit worried. We are also introduced to a host of new Villains in the season, like Knox (Jamie Hector), who gets stronger from other people's fear, Flint (Blake Shields), a human flamethrower and I could really go on and on about the new characters and twists we get here, but rest assured, the series keeps its focus on the main players we've come to know and love and they do a fine job in getting the new guys in without taking away from the focus of the show. In the Villains volume, we also learn about the significance of the eclipse, something I had been wondering about since the first season, which is explained rather wonderfully. From the Villains volume we go to the Fugitives volume, where everyone with abilities (except one...) is hunted down by the government, which introduces another great character this season, that of Emile Danko (the awesome Zeljko Ivanek), otherwise known as The Hunter. This was a great way to go because it draws us closer to these Heroes by having them running for their lives, which makes us empathize with them even more... even Sylar. Of course, this is also the volume where we saw the return of writer/producer/genius Bryan Fuller, whose departure after Season One when his series Pushing Daisies was greenlit was seen by many as the downfall of Season Two. Since Pushing Daisies wasn't renewed after January, Fuller, who has written some of the series' most memorable episodes like Season One's Company Man, returned to the series, writing and producing the Cold Snap episode, another episode that will go down as one of the greats in the series. While he didn't write the episode, Fuller was also on board for, in my mind, another one of the series' top 5 episodes, "1961" where we go back to learn about how this all really started. It really is quite a fascinating episode and truly one of the best of the season, probably on par with Cold Snap.

Yes, there are some hiccups in Heroes: Season 3. The stories are still not the easiest to follow here and they still have some dialogue issues here and there, but I've noticed something about watching this particular show on DVD as opposed to watching week-by-week. Since these are rather complex episodes that you do need to follow week in and week out, it makes it a lot easier to follow when you can hammer them all out in a few days as opposed to almost nine months. That disconnect from week to week is gone and the time you spend bitching about one thing or trying to figure out another thing is gone since you can just watch the next episode right away. Don't get me wrong. I still love watching the show week to week - I'm going to watch the season premiere right after this (DVR is fun) - but I have to say the DVD experience with this show will likely make you enjoy it a lot more than waiting from week to week. Basically, what I'm trying to say is even if you didn't quite dig this third season of Heroes, if you have a weekend to spare, check this out on DVD and knock the whole thing out in a weekend and see how you feel about this wonderful series after that weekend.

The special features are broken down throughout this six-disc set, so I'll break them down by disc as well.

Disc 1:
We get started with 10 Deleted Scenes, one apiece on the first two episodes, three on the third episode and five on the fourth episode. The first one is pretty funny where you think Sylar is going to kill the beloved dog Mr. Muggles but he just telekinetically moves her outside, but the second one is pretty lame, with Suresh lifting a super-heavy object. The first one on the third episode is dull but the second two, with Ando and Hiro arguing while trying to get the Haitian's briefcase and Claire "buying some time" are pretty good. The first scene on the fourth episode is boring but the next two scenes on the fourth episode are more alternate scenes than deleted scenes and they are worth watching, as are the last two deleted scenes. All in all, some solid deleted scenes that were likely deleted for time reasons.

The only other feature we get on this fourth disc is The Super Powers of Heroes featurette. We hear mainly from Tim Gilbert, the stunt coordinator of this season whose responsible for coming up with these practical effects of people flying through the air and such. We have Gilbert talking about some of his more favorite rigs and effects and it's pretty damn cool to see how they do some of the practical stuff in such a CG-heavy show. It's a very slick eight-minute fetaurette that literally takes you inside the action of this season.

Disc 2:
We get this disc started with another batch of Deleted Scenes, 11 in all. The first three on the fifth episode are all rather lame and very very short. The three on the sixth episode are a little better, but we get into some really interesting stuff on the eighth episode, most of them involving Knox... where we see that Parkman actually knew Knox and was trying to get out of the gang life and we see some cool stuff about how his power first manifests and these five deleted scenes are the best I've seen so far. I know why they were cut, like everything - for time reasons - but it's cool that we have them on this DVD.

Completing the Scene is the only other thing we get on this disc and, how the first disc talked about the practical effects, this featurette deals with the digital effects and this is a lot of fun to watch as well. It's interesting to see how some of these incredibly complex shots are created and how some shots that look like one long sweeping shot, are actually a bunch of shots seamlessly stitched together even though it looks like one shot. It's a very cool eight-minute featurette that takes us nicely into the CG side of this series.

Disc 3:

We get quite a bit more on this disc, for some reason, but, like the first two discs, we get started with some Deleted Scenes. We only get six total here, though - one from episode nine, another from episode 10 and four from episode 12. The first one is pretty short and uninteresting, dealing with Tracy's history with Pinehearst, the second one is equally short and uninteresting, again with Nathan and Tracy. The other four are just as worthless and as a bunch, these are probably the worst deleted scenes so far. You can skip these and be just fine.

The Prop Box is next and this one, obviously, talks about all the crazy props they use on the show. We hear from James Clark, the assistant prop master on the show and he shows us through a big tour of the "gold room" where they store all the props for the season. He shows us through tons and tons of props and it's quite amazing that they actually do save everything, as a lot of the props we see are from the first season and this six-minute featurette is a nice look at a normally unheralded department.

Tim Sale Gallery of Screen Art is next and this displays the work of probably the most unsung "heroes" of this series. Tim Sale is the guy who actually paints all the future paintings that we see on the show. Sadly, this is just a minute-long slideshow with some music featuring some of his artwork, but I still think it's kind of amazing that one guy paints ALL of that stuff, especially if you just think of the first season alone. Dang. Anyway, it's only a minute, but worth checking out.

The last thing we get on this disc is a Pinehearst Commercial and it is an actual commercial for Pinehearst that someone must have created because they were bored or something. We don't see any of the actors fro the series, but it's kind of funny that they would make an actual 30-second commercial for a fake company.

Disc Four:
We get started with another batch of Deleted Scenes here, but it's the smallest batch yet. We only get two scenes here, both from the 15th episode, and both scenes are a whopping minute and 15 seconds long. Lame.

The only other thing we get on this disc are some Alternate Stories. We get two of these, Going Postal, which is the tale of a postman who has this sonic-boom voice capability and another one, Nowhere Man, which gives us an extra dose of one of this seasons best new additions to this season: David H. Lawrence's Eric Boyle, or The Puppet Master, showing where he went after the events of the Shades of Grey episode. The Going Postal one is pretty lame, with a decent story and new powers but some rather low-rent acting and directing, although we do get a nice cameo here from Christine Rose. The Nowhere Man one is pretty damn cool though, because, well, Lawrence is just awesome and he has probably the coolest ability of anyone in the series. On top of that, he's just an awesome actor and we get to see a bit of a lighter side to him here. We also get a very nice cameo for fans who stuck through the second season, with Brian Kimmet's Kyle Dilman - the super-annoying dude who was HRG's boss at the Copy Cabana when the Bennet's moved to Costa Verde. Now Kyle is Puppet Master's boss, now known as Jason, at the paper company and it's a lot of fun to watch, not only because it's a cool story, but because we get to see more of one of the best parts of the season, someone I hope they use a lot more in the fourth season. Anyway, I'd probably skip the Going Postal, but Nowhere Man is friggin awesome! More David H. Lawrence!!!

Disc 5:
We get started on this disc, once again, with a Deleted Scene, but that's not a typo. There's just one deleted scene on this disc, from episode 18, and it's a whopping 21-second scene. Boring.

Genetics of a Scene is next, and this takes us through four pivotal scenes of this season. The first one goes through the season premiere scene where Sylar digs through Claire's brain, and we see how a lot of these prosthetics are made for Claire's head and some other effects like The Elephant Man. The next one goes through the introduction of Daphne, the Speedster. They first talk about casting Brea Grant and then how to go about creating the effects of her Speedster ways. The next one deals with the scene where Parkman is stalking the Hunter, Danko and we hear a lot about the unique camera angles and techniques they use on this scenes. The last one deals with director Greg Beeman and his crazy techniques and it's a nice little glimpse of life on the set.

The Writers Forum is the last thing we get here and it's basically a roundtable discussion with three of the show's writers - creator/executive producer Tim Kring, writer/executive producer Adam Armus and writer/supervising producer Aaron Eli Colette all talking about the season. They talk about Arthur Petrelli and the casting of the wonderful Robert Forster for Arthur. They also talk about the differences between the Villains volume and the Fugitives volume, as well as the ending of the Fugitives volume, which they felt was the best volume ending they've done so far. It's a 13-minute piece that gives us the writers perspective on the show. I like how they've been doing these featurettes, as we have perspectives from all the main departments, spread out on this six-disc set.

Disc Six:
Sadly on this last disc all we get are some more Deleted Scenes, seven in all. We get three from episode 21, with an interesting scene with HRG harboring Rebel/Micah and asking his help to find Sylar, which was pretty interesting, but the other two are kind of lame, with Peter flying in church and Nathan and Claire getting into a bar fight in Mexico. We get two more on episode 22, with Hiro and Ando dealing with their car trouble, with a hilarious nod to a Vin Diesel movie, and a boring one with Suresh and his landlord. The last one is from episode 24 and it's just Hiro and Ando coming up with a brief plan to take down Building 26. I wish we'd get one last featurette here, perhaps one with, you know, the actors, but I have to say these have been some fairly extensive features on this six-disc set.

While Heroes: Season 3 doesn't quite live up to the greatness in Season 1, it's certainly on a much better track than Season 2 and sets us up nicely for what should be an awesome new volume in Redemption.