“Four Months Ago”
November 12th, 2007
Remember when Heroes began its season by jumping four months into the future, thus robbing us of true resolutions to the few burning questions that last year’s mediocre finale left us? Well, this week’s episode is supposed to make up for the unfortunate start to the show’s sophomore season by filling in the blanks. However, that isn’t its effect, and Tim Kring knew this enough to apologize ahead of the episode airing.
You see, all this episode does is make you realize how much the producers screwed up the first time around. If this had been our first introduction to new characters, or our first visions of returning ones, this season might have started on a completely different note: a good one, even. It’s an attempt at a do-over that was, bizarrely, built into the season structure. And, even though Tim Kring apologized, I still think that there is a lot of blame to be thrown around. Because, while certainly worthwhile, this episode did not resolve every problem that Heroes faces.
Over the past four weeks, my life has been dominated by labour action – on October 15th, the faculty at Acadia University (Which I attend) went on strike. This strike did not end until Wednesday, which meant three and a half weeks out of the classroom. In covering that strike, I maintained a neutral perspective: I felt the profs were striking for sound principles, but that the administration could never simply accept their demands thanks to shrinking enrollment. The landscape of the university was changing, and this crossroads was only inevitable. In the end, our second strike in 4 years was settled, this time with a resolution that should maintain the security of the institution for over a decade.
Cultural Learnings 