This used to be huge. Every single discussion of Heroes starts with that. It used to be huge. It used to be big. It used to be a trend. It used to be a really popular show. What happened? No one talks about it anymore. There is a very very simple reason why. 3/4 of this show is total and complete ass. I'm not gonna rip in instantly because this needs to be said. And it also explains why this review is 3 stars. The first season of Heroes is fucking amazing. 24 almost perfectly paced episodes that set up tons of characters and somehow use them all as well set puzzle pieces for it's wider story. Every performance especially from Masi Oka and my God Zachary Quinto is so good. We will never get a 20+ episode heavily story based show like this anymore. So I love going back to season 1. Yeah it's cheesy and very very 00s. And yes its overly complex and a little dumb. But it's so charming. I love it. I think if it ended there this would be an iconic piece of TV. But it wasn't. Season 2 of heroes had some of the worst timing. At the time of it's making the Writer's Strike of 2007 happened. It cut the season and all it's stories in half. Every episode becomes the SAME THING OVER AND FUCKING OVER. NONE of the stories get proper resolution. New characters and introduced and thrown away. It's so annoying. If season 1 was the Dark Knight of TV this was the Justice League Whedon Cut. And it only went down. Season 3 and 4 aren't even worth talking about. The cast slowly becomes more and more numb as the dialogue and story becomes so dumbly complex that you need to read the wiki to understand anything on screen. All characterization is just thrown out the window. Sylar in season 1 was one of the best supervillains on screen ever. Sylar in season 3 is discount Smallville Lex. Complete with John Glover as his dad. Everything is so ridicolous and it looks like shit too. Season 1 used clever effects to hide it's budget. Season 3 decides to cut away from the final fight before it happens because they can't show it. just great Heroes is a tragedy. Any discussion of it's characters, it's themes, it's acting. It can't be said without talking about how much they destroyed it. They had a beautiful child and threw it in a ditch. Few shows wasted potential will get me as sad as Heroes. Which saved the cheerleader. But never saved itself