If you thought the first half of season three of “Heroes” was bad, you’re not alone. Newly-returned executive producer Bryan Fuller agrees.
“The second year with the virus was interesting, but then it got complicated and techno-babbly. With “Villains,” it started out interesting and then became about formula. When they started talking about how we were injected with our powers and it became sci-fi ghetto storytelling, I became disconnected. Mohinder went from a noble scientist to being a mad scientist with Jeff Goldblum hair and wardrobe. Claire became so strident and unlikable because she was just whining, bitching and holding a gun,” Fuller told SciFi Wire.
Fuller said that when “Pushing Daisies” got cancelled, he was immediately interested in returning to the “Heroes” fold. However, when he first got some of the third season episodes, he was dismayed by the abrupt downturn the series had taken.
“As an audience member, I could see the issues and why people were frustrated with it,” he said. “At least I felt I was jumping on the pendulum when it was back on the upswing. To be honest, I was absolutely “I’ll be right over,” and they sent me the episodes that completed the “Villains” arc. After I finished watching them, I wasn’t sure I could do this. I didn’t recognize the show anymore. It had become something else entirely. My favorite characters had become my least favorite, and there was a second I thought I had to get out of this. Then I started reading the “Fugitives” scripts, and I thought it was picking up again. There were some stumbles along the way, where it started to get muddy, but I was more inspired.”
Fuller went on to tease what fans can expect in the final four episodes this year and talked about how he avoided the tempation for his episodes to go “sci-fi ghetto.” Fuller said that Ali Larter’s character Tracy Strauss is not dead, but will return in a big way as the season concludes. He said some fans have misinterpreted a scene with a frozen Tracy as the character winking, when actually it was supposed to be a single tear flowing on her face.
“There was miscommunication with the visual effects, where you were only supposed to see one of her eyes. It was definitely a blink and a shedding of a tear,” he said.
As for bringing her back, he said it was tempted to just have Larter play the role of one of Tracy’s many twins Barbara. But he said the writing staff resisted the tempation.
“I was thinking “Can we please not do Barabara, because that’s another sci-fi ghetto storytelling element with clones. How many Ali Larters are there?” I wish there were dozens, because I’m a fan of hers, but watching Ali in the first season, you know what she’s really capable of,” Fuller commented.
Fuller went on to tease what fans can expect as the season concludes.
“There’s actually a lot of really fun character work happening in the last four episodes that the writing staff is proud of. We’ll see Matt retaliate against Danko in a very interesting way,” Fuller teased. “We’ll also see Sylar strike at the heart of HRG’s life in a way that causes things for him to unravel. The episode after that is essentially “Company Man” for Angela Petrelli, where we’ll be doing a flashback to her life in 1961 and the events that happened there, which really motivates who she is now. In episode 24, we get to the heart of Sylar’s identity crisis, and we clearly understand what his agenda is, what he’s after and who the people in his life are that made the biggest impact. Episode 25 is our big finale.”
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