Damn, I missed last night's episode because it got pre-empted for a gubernatorial debate. (!) The re-airing is 3am tonight/tomorrow...sigh.
I think you can usually catch these pretty quickly on NBC.com or Youtube. They also have great mini-page recaps of last season (I had to review the major plot points from Season 3 to get caught back up this year).
I have to say, I'm not overly impressed with the plot points so far. Take any given character and they've just gone through radical changes over just 3 seasons.
- Mohinder is the science guy, then gets powers that turn him into a monster, now has Spidermanlike agility, no side effects and where the heck has he gone?
- Peter has an awesome ability to collect powers, blows up, has amnesia, meets a girl (and she went where?), future self tries to kill his brother, he loses his powers, powers come back, but seems like he only keeps the latest power he steals now (?), totally alienates himself from his family to play full-time EMT...he's become pretty one-dimensional. Oh, and Ando has powers now too. What?
- Nathan goes from reluctant guy with Power to "I'm gonna tell the world about people with powers" to I'm going to work for the government to capture and "cure" people with powers? What? Then dead, replaced by Sylar? Just goofy/dumb.
- Sylar goes from massive baddy to confused good guy to Nathan/Peters sibling. He actually gets somewhat likeable and gets a girlfriend, but out of no where he kills her off and is a bad guy again. Then he gets mind-wiped to become the new Peter, but he's ALSO stuck in Matt's head. Lame.
- Hiro goes from funky fun master of time & space to stuck in the past forever to losing his power and stuck in the past again, then rescued and recharged, but his power is killing him. Seriously - is there any character they haven't totally mucked up?
The premise in the first season was cool - these people have powers and what should the do with them. Instead of trying to copy the X-men with a virus and government persecution, they should have focused on introducing new baddies and how the various heroes need to accept their powers and work together to stop them. Why haven't ANY of these heroes decided to stay together? If I had weird super powers and knew about other dudes with powers and we used those powers to save a bunch of people, I think I might suggest at least a monthly get-together for brews or something to stay in touch.
I will, of course, stay on to the bitter end because I am compelled to see what happens next and love the idea of any kind of super-hero show, but I'm pretty dissapointed overall. Here's hoping they come up with something brilliant with the carnies - I'm not going to hold my breath though.