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Don't get me wrong, I really like Heroes, and what I am about to outline doesn't diminish my enjoyment of the show one bit. In fact, its really just me ranting a bit about the show and NBC.
- This one really bugs me to no end and I don't know whose fault it is. Time Warner's for having crappy time servers feeding time to the set-top boxes, or NBC for running Heroes long, but the last three episodes I've recorded have all ended with at least one minute left, if not more. As it is, not only do I miss the ending monologue by Mohinder, I also miss the teaser trailer for next week. WTF? And no, watching it live is not an option. There is no way I will have Heroes on TV when there is any possibility my kids will be around. As it stands now, it looks like I'll have to go and bittorrent the show over-night just so I can watch the last couple of minutes the next day. Insane. The other thought is that I record the show in HD, and I've noticed that the HD feeds tend to lag the regular feeds by a second or so for no discernible reason. But its only a second lag, not a minute or more. As I don't know who to blame, I will place it equally on the media whore corporations of NBC and AOL/Time Warner. A pox on you!
- And now the non-serious one. I realize they are probably shooting the different 'settings' in close proximity to one another, but the Odessa setting really bugs me, cause, well, it isn't really Odessa. For one thing, there are too many trees, way too much grass and not to mention the existence of large hills. There is no hint of the car-eating tumbleweeds, bone dry environment, or vast fields of oil wells. Yes, yes, its just a show, but it still bugs me. And being out in the middle of BFWest Texas, Odessa isn't the most connected of places. I have to assume that Claire's dad is using the company jet to galavant around the country, because he sure isn't flying in and out of the Midland/Odessa airport in a timely fashion. But then again, the fairly remote location, yet within easy reach of most of modern life's amenities, is a selling point if your going to be running a secret government facility masquerading as a paper products manufacturer.
Again, nothing Earth shattering here, just a couple of annoyances and I'm really curious to see if others have the same issue recording the show that I do, especially other Time Warner customers in Houston (looks at John and/or Trent). Now I'm off to bittorrent land so I can see the last couple of minutes of last night's episode. Oh, and for those of you who still have it recorded, go back and look at Charlie's birthday pictures. Notice something different in the second one?
Comments (9)
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Posted by JP Frantz at Tuesday November 14, 2006 at 5:04 PM
© 2006 SF Signal
The reason they do that thing with the minute at the end is to screw up dvr's. They are trying to screw over the other networks by making the show run a minute long, thus not allowing the dvr to record the next hour's show and preventing some other network from getting ratings. This is why Tivo added the clip feature, to prevent that from happening. But other dvr's don't have that capability yet. Go corporate fat cats!
Posted by Justin on Tuesday November 14, 2006 at 5:52 PM
Yep, JP...same here with the time cutoff. One solution: set Tivo to tape Studio 60 which airs immediately following Heroes. The footage lost is negligible.
Here's what you missed:
***SPOILER START***
Hiro disappears from the diner and tells his friend to count to five, when he should arrive back having saved the waitress. The friend counts to five but Hiro does not return. Camera pans to pictures on wall and one pic in particular: Hiro with the waitress in a party hat.
My Take:
Apparently Hiro has gone back in time, hence the picture. The question is why has he not returned? Worse...if he did stop the crime, thgen the future we witnessed after his disappearance would never have happened. Or, has the crime taken place anyway and Hiro is the victim? Unlikely. Just more questions...A recent article I read has creator Tim Kring saying that the limits of Hiro's abilities are to be explained soon.
***SPOILER END***
The voice-over adds little to the show, if anything. I would even go so far as to say it's borderline annoying. Better would be to lose the voice-over and add comic book-like panels where appropriate (as in less often than the voice-overs).
Next week's trailer promises the resolution of the super-lame "save the cheerleader" tag line and the heroes paths crossing more often.
Also, I agree with the multiple locale thing. 
Posted by John on Tuesday November 14, 2006 at 6:44 PM
Don't worry about bit torrent, just go to nbc.com and watch the last couple minutes of the last scene.
Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday November 14, 2006 at 8:03 PM
You're right about the last couple of episodes running long. And although I also have Time-Warner Cable, so maybe it's a Time-Warner issue, I suspect that perhaps its the network encouraging DVR viewers to view the webcast when it appears later in the week. I've been waiting to hear NBC boast about data showing that Heroes has more people viewing the webcast than any other primetime show, or something like that. Uhh, but maybe it's just a Time-Warner issue...
Posted by Steve on Tuesday November 14, 2006 at 9:59 PM
Yeah I use a home-brewed HTPC DVR running SageTV and I get the same annoying clip at the end. Fortunately I tape Studio 60 right after so I haven't missed that last few minutes. When are they going to realize that they are really pissing off people with the off-times for shows?
Posted by Scott on Wednesday November 15, 2006 at 10:56 AM
Hey, lazy people, pad the recordings! You can set the end time to 8:02 even with the crappy time warner dvr's. Since they are dual tuners as well if you do this padding, and still record Studio 60 after Heroes, and even pad Studio 60, tuner two will pad Studio 60 while tuner one is still padding Heroes. No cut off on either show!
50cc's of "Manupnancy"... STAT! 
You single tuner DVR guys are SOL though if you want to pad both shows so you get a reprieve.
Posted by Trent on Wednesday November 15, 2006 at 2:13 PM
Thankfully, you can set your DVR to tape an extra 5min afterwards.. just make sure nothing is taping after.
Posted by SciFiChick on Thursday November 16, 2006 at 8:41 AM
ABC does the same thing with a lot of it's shows like LOST for instance. We have satellite so we have to set it to record a few minutes past. Of course that messes with things if the next show you want to record is on a different channel or if you don't have a next show that you want to record.
I wish the networks would stop messing with the time.
Now, if you are trying to tape a show on Sunday night, you have a whole different problem. The shows aren't on when they are supposed to be, because of football games. Boy does that mess with setting the DVR.
Posted by George on Friday November 17, 2006 at 11:22 AM