trekprincess
Ensign
Zachary must be relieved that's he's not tied to the Heroes anchor anymore.
Heroes cancelled!
- Thread starter Temis the Vorta
- Start date
I found Heroes intriguing but could never seem to free up enough time to actually sit down and watch it every week. So, back at the end of S1, I started asking for the DVDs as birthday, Father's Day, Christmas presents. So, I've seen all of S1 through S3 on DVD. Without a doubt, S1 was great, S2 was disappointing, and S3 just seemed to be treading water. Obviously, I have not yet seen S4.
Despite the downward trend after S1, it was still fun to watch. Mistakes were certainly made and they're paying with it in this cancellation.
I don't really care if a show is episodic or serialized as long as it's good. My problem with serialized shows is getting caught up in them and then just having them dropped without a proper ending. I don't know if Heroes could have come up with a decent ending, but I would have liked to see one. I don't watch a lot of TV so when I get into a show and they just end it mid-stream, I get really upset. A couple of examples would be Terminator:TSCC and Dead Zone.
Despite the downward trend after S1, it was still fun to watch. Mistakes were certainly made and they're paying with it in this cancellation.
I don't really care if a show is episodic or serialized as long as it's good. My problem with serialized shows is getting caught up in them and then just having them dropped without a proper ending. I don't know if Heroes could have come up with a decent ending, but I would have liked to see one. I don't watch a lot of TV so when I get into a show and they just end it mid-stream, I get really upset. A couple of examples would be Terminator:TSCC and Dead Zone.
I agree with a lot of what you're saying. I understand that writers have to think one season at a time because there are no guarentees. But I always felt that if you're going to do a serialized show, you should have a basic idea how it's going to play out. You should be free to change things along the way...no plan ever goes the way you want it to and a good writer keeps his options open. But it's clear that a lot of serialized shows suffer because the writers have no idea where it's going.
I love BSG but it's the show I always think about when it comes to the writers not thinking out the premise of the show. When you look back at a lot of the story developments, a lot of them don't make sense. The Final Five Cylons were literally decided as the episode was being written and when you think about it, the choices don't make a hell of a lot of sense. I agree that character comes first but when the characters don't have a coherent storyline to work with, the show as a whole suffers.
On The Plan DVD, they writers admit they never had a plan for the Cylons. They said the line "and they have a plan" was pretty much just thrown in there to add intrigue but never really planned out.
NBC is definitely up to something. Nobody can be this consistently and collectively stupid. Hell, a fourth grader could have avoided the whole Tonight Show debacle that any third grader could have seen coming in the second grade. I guess we'll know for sure, if Springtime For Hitler is on the fall lineup.
trekprincess
Ensign
Wonder why NBC didn't axe Heroes sooner if the quality and storylines declined well move on and do better and bigger tv shows I say.
The ratings were still pretty strong. During the start of the third season, it was still the number 1 rated show (tied with The Office) on NBC. That being said, there still was a significant drop in ratings as the show went on, but NBC was suffering all over the place. The 4th season is when the show really lost viewership.
I think the general rule for American TV should be this:
You want a show that runs for 7-10 years, make it episodic. And you can have 20-24 eps a year if you want. Popular characters are sacred and will be around as long as the actor is willing to stick with it.
But if you want to tell what is essentially one progressive story arc, you have to accept that it shouldn't go longer than 3-5 years (or maybe even less) or it's going to start to wander and lose continuity. And accept that the characters are only there to serve the story and could be sacrificed to the narrative at any time.
This may be the closest to British TV (which excels at the serialized shows by never going longer than it takes to tell the story) that America will ever get.
You want a show that runs for 7-10 years, make it episodic. And you can have 20-24 eps a year if you want. Popular characters are sacred and will be around as long as the actor is willing to stick with it.
But if you want to tell what is essentially one progressive story arc, you have to accept that it shouldn't go longer than 3-5 years (or maybe even less) or it's going to start to wander and lose continuity. And accept that the characters are only there to serve the story and could be sacrificed to the narrative at any time.
This may be the closest to British TV (which excels at the serialized shows by never going longer than it takes to tell the story) that America will ever get.
Some fans-yes. But you can't blame Heroes decline and ultimate cancellation on fickle viewers--the problem was that the writing quality went down and the show came off the rails horribly over the last two seasons. You can't just expect viewers to just sit back and eat it up.
In season one it was great and it became the template for which the LOST writers crafted the next four seasons of their show--treating each season as a volume in a massive television novel--introducing a set of characters and questions then answering them by the end but leaving a few dangling ones for later years.
The Heroes writers had crafted a well designed ambitious high-concept epic season long storyline that grabbed viewers from the start with an expansive cast of likable--if not deep--characters, fast paced and densely plotted storytelling, WTF cliffhangers, unexpected twists and turns, , all mythology all the time with no filler, consistency in quality writing, interesting villians, inventive mysteries that piqued your curiosity, lots of nice visuals and most all of the questions were answered with no stalling. This is what shows like V and Flash Forward or any in the future should look to as a guide.
Granted there was very little in the way of depth sometimes afforded the plot threads in season one given the interconnected nature and collision style storytelling at play but all the little pieces added up to a Beautiful Picture. But in Season 3 there was no depth to any degree to the plot threads and they were treated as nothing more than fleeting plot points that catapulted the characters from one to the next never adding up to anything in the long run. So in the second half of the season they decided to sloooooooooow it down, cut back on the plot threads and go back to a more traditional drama format--a modest ensemble, no feverish jumping all about from plot to plot within an episode--the only problem though were the characters were booooooooring or worse yet in Hiro's situation childish and annoying. It had become clear that without the huge sweeping arc of season one as a backdrop that these characters were swept up in they simply weren't interesting to watch.
The Fugitive arc wasn't mined properly. Characterization was all over the board.
Season four could have been told in half as many episodes, the villian was lacklustre, the drama of Hiro's health condition was lacking and the way it was remedied was just lame, Tracey was useless, "Nathan"'s arc went nowhere and was severely botched etc--so more evidence of poor writing.
So I don't blame people that turned off or were heavily critical. Shows like LOST or Heroes require far more investment than an episodic series or your traditional serialized primetime drama--those had a modest ensemble and 2 or 3 parallel season long arcs that were easy to follow. Not with a show like LOST or Heroes where you have to invest a lot of effort, time and mental energy on your part because of the complicated nature of these tv shows.
Good luck trying to follow these complicated shows without notes. You just can't watch the episodes and enjoy the story as it unfolds and forget about it. That might have been the case in the past but LOST ushered in a totally new unique kind of storytelling format--a show where you can't just passively sit back and watch and forget about it. The writers deliberately go out of their way to where if you did that you'd only be scratching the surface. They love being extremely subtle and hiding clues deep within scenes, the writers bombard the audience with information at a dizzying speed where you barely have had time processing what just happened before they have jumped to the next thread. They really have crafted a ridiculously overwhelming Narrative to contend with. I know I have to watch an episode at least twice to glean everything I do and even then I'm sure I miss stuff.
I'd also point out that unlike your traditional drama with a modest ensemble and two or three paralleling threads that are linear in nature--you can't just watch it and move forward since this show is designed to backtrack and revisit stuff earlier on in the narrative--so you can never just leave it behind--it comes back around so you always need to keep things in the back of your mind. So you can't just watch, enjoy and move on.
The writers expect you to do a lot of the heavy lifting too especially given the Non-Linear Jumbled Puzzle feel of their episodes--just watching it is the beginning--yeah you liked certain things but afterwards the real fun begins as you have to sort all the flurry of information and puzzle pieces and organize them to appreciate the various character stories as well as storylines.
Afterall there are so many ways to go about tackling the series as a viewer-- I mean the first time through I mainly watch for the revelations, the questions, the answers, who knows who, who knows what, who knows what when, who knows what vs the audience, the introduction of pieces. Then I sit down and go about assembling the story in a more linear style to where it is easier to follow and work my way out from these very little pieces and making connections and then continue building on top of them to create this ever expanding Massive Narrative since most LOST episodes are just a patchwork of various pieces of varying sizes that the writers leave up to us to put in their places. Then as each season has progressed everything for that season sorta focuses to a tip and you can look back at all the complicated character connections and intertwined histories.
Also when you watch a single scene with various players in it you have to replay it because while you are still processing it they are already onto the next thing. And then when you play back the scene you have to remember the histories and dynamics among the players that are in motion within the scene since the writers don't go out of their way to refresh your memory and with the way characters weave in and out of each others' lives so often it can get extremely complicated knowing who knows who, who knows what vs what the audience knows.
So if I do all that and you have to put that much work into it then the last thing you want is to feel like it was all wasted. With an episodic series or traditional serialized drama where there is no required extra effort then it isn't as aggravating.
They do want them. Or at least I do because episodic or procedural dramas just don't cut it anymore. LOST and shows like it have raised the bar in what I have come to expect from storytellers and I don't think now I can ever go back. They are the only shows these days that can surprise me or catch me off guard. I longed for the days of heavily serialization with no standalones mixed in.
I've always viewed LOST or Heroes as a single one hour mystery mapped onto an entire series and in that light you can have a strong build-up of the Mystery and everything can be going well for 45 minutes but if the payoff isn't as satisfying and you are left with "That's it?!?" then it just to some degree undermines everything that preceded it. So in that vein I would argue that many of us have devoted hours and hours of our lives not just watching a show like LOST but also dissecting it and if the final reveal is disapponting then yeah we feel screwed over since it has been years in the making.
So yeah people will start turning on highly serialized shows--not because they are serialized--but because they aren't either well-written or planned out with not just answers but satisfying answers. If the networks walk away thinking sf/f serialized shows are bad in and of themselves they'd be wrong. It is the writing.
24 has just run out of gas and LOST is my favorite show of the decade but it has gotten to the point where you just know it has reached its natural end and is starting to falter and I would rather it hurry up and wrap up then get worse like so many other shows that don't quit while they are ahead.
Yes, I never understood this. Thy have to know if you create a mythology that is going to interest the viewers then don't dismiss it so easily.
With nBSG you could sorta get away with it since it was not part of every episode and the central focus the way it was on LOST. If you just don't want to hassel with it then jettison it altogether and be a purely character-driven drama instead of treating it like annoying baggage you have to cart along with you.
Lost does NOT have that luxury however. It has been in the DNA of this series since day one and has pretty much been focus #1 so to not answer all the questions or not to answer them in a satisfying manner will really really hurt the show. And the whole comment about the characters mattering more at the end of the day--well the better part of the last 4 years of LOST has been Plot, Story, Mythology. The characters were there just to move the plot along, provide exposition, react and be action figures. Very little time was spent on them since the writers were feverishly pulling together elements from the first few years and tying them off, establishing a timeline for the island, filling in backstory or history etc. Character moments were sprinkled in but it was mostly all plot with very little time for character stuff except for a bit of lipservice.
I disagree. I don't care if something is planned out or last-minute just so long as it makes sense. The Final Five, for instance that you mention, was made up as they went along but I disagree with you that it didn't make sense. It worked perfectly, made so much sense and pulled together a great many of the series dangling disparate threads in such a cleverly unifying way that I can't help but be impressed.
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That's not true, we just want well told serialised stories. Ones that are planned out nicely, with enough room for the writers to change things if necessary.
Most importantly in Heroes' case, stories where the characters actually act consistently (I'm looking at you Nathan Petrelli).
trekprincess
Ensign
I love Zachary Quinto in Heroes what was your first reaction when you first watched him as the physco Sylar?
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Oh well. With Heroes and FF gone, all I have left is SGU, Caprica, Doctor Who, Eureka, and Warehouse 13.
Though I wish they could do a wrap up direct to DVD movie or a short miniseries just to show public reaction to the specials (and possibly reveal that more people than we think, maybe people in positions of power have powers).
Though I wish they could do a wrap up direct to DVD movie or a short miniseries just to show public reaction to the specials (and possibly reveal that more people than we think, maybe people in positions of power have powers).
trekprincess
Ensign
I just started getting into Heroes Zachary Quinto was amazing and absolutely insane in a good way wonder will they make a direct to dvd movie or is that it.
trekprincess
Ensign
I'm sure Quinto is pleased wonder if he's going to miss playing the maniac.
No. Quality television these days run at 12 eps. a season. 24 is pushing it for the writers and Heroes is a perfect example. Plus even a show I love I don't want to watch 24 episodes of anymore. I don't have time.
Take Dexter for example. A well crafted show... which I wouldn't enjoy @ 24 per year... Dexter is (awesome, yet) kind of emotionally draining to watch. 12 suits it perfectly. Mad Men is a work of art, every episode is captivating and yet I find myself preferring a 12 season length there, too.
Desperate Housewives is faaaaaar too long. They cram really silly useless filler into their seasons, although only one is left so they won't stop with the formula. But when I watch it with the wife (the only show we can really watch together these days) we find ourselves confused sometimes. "Who is that guy again? Why haven't we seen this character for 10 episodes? Where were they?" "What the F is going on?" An ensemble cast is great, but it reaches a breaking point where you need to download a spreadsheet to keep it all together.
And that was the thing about Heroes. I found myself daydreaming throughout episodes to stave off boredom.
In England and Japan 12 episodes is the general custom... and rarely do shows get continued beyond that unless they are remarkable.
Well that's a reasonable enough goal because few shows last five years anyway. I would feel very lucky to have a well executed five-season run of a serialized show. Even three good years is more than we generally get.
But even narrowly defined premises like Dexter and Chuck seem to have four or five good years in them, ratings permitting. An open-ended premise like Heroes should have any number of years it could run. The real limiting factor is not the premise but ratings.
Watch the first season, it really is great. Then if you are in love, and I mean really in love, with the characters, you can check out the subsequent seasons. But man oh man, the writing goes in the toilet right away in S2 - I couldn't believe I was watching the work of the same writing staff - so you have to be in it for the characters.I have a confession to make:
I havent seen any episodes of this series
I know what is it about and so on..but I watch most of the stuff I watch from DVD these days.
Is it a good show? and should I pick it up on DVD?
I'll give the show credit for having imagination. They tried pretty much every insane idea out there. The problem is that it added up to zip and usually made no sense. There are individual little fun things here and there but otherwise - meh and triple-meh.
Oh definitely! BSG and Heroes are opposites.
Heroes - very promising and adaptable premise; horrendous execution.
BSG - flawed premise (Cylons' motivations are central to the story yet are obviously were cobbled together awkwardly long after the plotline kicked off); generally good execution.
I guess the moral of the story is, It's All In The Execution.
You can ignore that flaw when watching episodes; it's only afterwards that you start to get disgruntled. But if the execution is bad - you see characters doing stupid things, the dialogue is witless, good plotlines are dropped for no reason - you get immediately aggravated while watching the show. That is a lot harder to ignore.
The new characters were largely a waste of space, but the real problems were far more basic: characters being written stupidly for the convenience of the plot; characters who are kept in the story, yet have no good purpose in the story; good plotlines dropped abruptly before any resolution; no overall point to anything going on.
I've been rather pleased to see how intolerant sf/f fans have become of bad shows. When Heroes, V and FlashForward take a nose dive, I cheer: it's what they deserve and sends a message to TV-land to start doing better work or face our wrath!
Good shows like Chuck and Caprica struggle in the ratings because they appeal to narrow audiences, but that's unavoidable. They are rewarded for quality by ratings that at least are stable enough for renewal. Lost did everything possible to drive viewers away, except just being bad. It was rewarded by hanging onto a decent audience for six years.Now all we need are some really good shows to reward with strong ratings. We're waiting, Hollywood. Ball's in your court.
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The thing with DH is that it really doesn't adhere to the traditional sense of season long arcs that are developed over a season and touched on in every episode like most primetime soaps used to do. DH does a little of this and a little of that--they'll have their Big Mystery then they'll do nothing with it for stretches and do just one hour sitcom material that is pretty much standalone or something that comes out of it spins off another tiny little two or three episode arc. It isn't all that well-plotted either and it seems like every character on there except for the four wives are just a means to an end.
As much as I've loooooooooved LOST and its unique brand of storytelling I need a break. It was an exhaustive 6 years as a viewer and I'd like next season for serialized dramas to get back to smaller ensembles where you can really develop the characters and not zig zag through every possible character pairing permutation imaginable. Also fewer plotlines that you can really develop and more traditional linear storytelling too. I enjoyed parsing scenes and looking for easter eggs and subtle clues but I'm ready for the days when I can just watch an episode and everything you need to catch is right there right out in the open.
Heroes has been bad since S2. 24 has been bad since S6. Both deserve to die on the basis of poor quality.
Lost is a different animal: they've gotten to the point where the story does need to end. After the most recent episode, I'd be afraid that given more time, they'd just get into midichlorian territory where they frak up the story with explanations we don't want or need. So it's a tribute to their pacing ability that they're getting to the stop-while-you're-ahead point two episodes before the finale.
I'd love to see a serialized sf/f show that is worth watching. The real question is Hollywood's ability to produce such a show. Sadly, Lost is an outlier.
I'm not holding out too much hope for The Cape. It has a narrow and frankly mawkish premise. I'll go on record right now predicting that James Frain's supervillain character will steal the show and we'll all start bitching about how they should just turn the whole thing over to his character. Regardless, I'll check it out and if Frain is as good as I think he'll be, I'll keep watching it for him alone while slamming the show each week right here, same bat-time, same bat-channel.
If what he means is, without characters you got nuthin', then I agree. I'm demanding and also want good plotlines, good theme, and a strong premise. But the heirarchy for most people is most likely as follows:
1. Characters by a long ways.
2. Plotlines, pretty important
3. Premise, hardly at all important
4. Theme, even less important than premise
