And this is the same network that brought us the whole Jay Leno/Conan O'Brien debacle.
NBC still clueless what was wrong with Heroes
- Thread starter Temis the Vorta
- Start date
I've spent some time in LA, "in the business" working for NBC coincidentally, and something like this doesn't surprise me at all. Their concept of what sells and why doesn't make any sense. It's like the most uncreative people congregate in the one spot in the continent where only creative people should end up. It's backwards.
My 2 cents:
I was pitching a show to an offshoot company of Disney (in the same building where auditions for Lost were happening in 2008 actually), and the execs I was talking to were the stereotypical ones you read about in stories like this. The whole business is based on fear. The fear that they'll lose their jobs if they take a show concept to their boss that bossman won't like. So they play it supersafe and dumb it all down.
My show concept was a tech magazine type show, and all I kept hearing was "keep it funny!".
My associates were pitching a show about guys at a game company. The execs were asking what game they were making, and if it could be made into a flash game or market the game alongside the show.
The point was the characters and crazy situations in the story. Who cares about what game they're making? What does the company Reyholm Industries in IT Crowd do? Who cares! It's about the characters and stories.
But I digress...
My 2 cents:
I was pitching a show to an offshoot company of Disney (in the same building where auditions for Lost were happening in 2008 actually), and the execs I was talking to were the stereotypical ones you read about in stories like this. The whole business is based on fear. The fear that they'll lose their jobs if they take a show concept to their boss that bossman won't like. So they play it supersafe and dumb it all down.
My show concept was a tech magazine type show, and all I kept hearing was "keep it funny!".
My associates were pitching a show about guys at a game company. The execs were asking what game they were making, and if it could be made into a flash game or market the game alongside the show.
The point was the characters and crazy situations in the story. Who cares about what game they're making? What does the company Reyholm Industries in IT Crowd do? Who cares! It's about the characters and stories.
But I digress...
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Heroes is a rare show in that I got into it and then dumped it before it finished, normally once am hooked I go the entire journey. Season 1 was nothing short of amazing and was some of the best TV full stop. I enjoyed season 2 and wished we got to see the original plan pre strike. Season 3 had its moments but overall I was left very very dissapointed and I strongly hated the finale. Season 4 had about 7 episodes and then I chucked it because simply put it was never the same after season 2.
I don't think I will watch The Cape even with the lovely Summer Glau in it because am burn't out with Network doing anything Syfy/comic or close too those genre's because their either shit or get cancelled due to a mornic network audience with the sole exception being Lost in recent years. At the moment I am not adding any new shows this fall though I am considering Boardwalk Empire and The Walking Dead.
I don't think I will watch The Cape even with the lovely Summer Glau in it because am burn't out with Network doing anything Syfy/comic or close too those genre's because their either shit or get cancelled due to a mornic network audience with the sole exception being Lost in recent years. At the moment I am not adding any new shows this fall though I am considering Boardwalk Empire and The Walking Dead.
Procedurals...ugh!
"Is that a pocketful of kryptonite... (puts on sunglasses) ...or are you just happy to see me?"
YYYEEEAAAAHHHH!!!!!!!
"You may be the last son of Krypton... (puts on sunglasses) ...but here the sun is about to set on you."
YYYEEEAAAAHHHH!!!!!!!
"The Caped Crusader... (puts on sunglasses) ...is about to be taken to the cleaner."
YYYEEEAAAAHHHH!!!!!!!
YYYEEEAAAAHHHH!!!!!!!
"You may be the last son of Krypton... (puts on sunglasses) ...but here the sun is about to set on you."
YYYEEEAAAAHHHH!!!!!!!
"The Caped Crusader... (puts on sunglasses) ...is about to be taken to the cleaner."
YYYEEEAAAAHHHH!!!!!!!
Oh I don't know, I think a sci-fi type procedural cop show could be hysterically fun...if they set it in 2000AD's Mega City One.
In a halter top, and daisy dukes..... <mind wanders off>
Why would she have to wearing anything?
My husband lost interest in Heroes some time ago, and from my laymen viewing there is one thing I don't understand. Yes they had to cut a few things short when the writer's strike happened, but when that was resolved, why didn't they just continue where the heck they left off? Why did they toss out the potentially quality path they were on for some stupidity? That's like retconning a show after every commercial break. No wonder evne NBC got confused!
I think I'm beginning to feel the same way about my husband's new escapade, Lost. The writers are just jerking too much along and instead of answering something, they are just pulling ideas out of a hat with which to go forward. Audiences didn't tune out of Heroes because they were dumb. They left because they were smart.
Yes I am a writer by trade, but it is a bad sign for a show when you think, 'I can do better' or you read fanfic that's better. Is Heroes still on? I can't even remember when my husband stopped watching!
I think I'm beginning to feel the same way about my husband's new escapade, Lost. The writers are just jerking too much along and instead of answering something, they are just pulling ideas out of a hat with which to go forward. Audiences didn't tune out of Heroes because they were dumb. They left because they were smart.
Yes I am a writer by trade, but it is a bad sign for a show when you think, 'I can do better' or you read fanfic that's better. Is Heroes still on? I can't even remember when my husband stopped watching!
The main difference is that a) LOST has likable characters that you actually care about, and b) the mysteries on LOST are what make the show awesome. They DO answer most (if not all) of the mysteries, and all the crazy shit does connect. They just don't always answer things in order, and you actually have to think to put some of the pieces together.
Heroes had the complete opposite problem. Every season was just a rehash of the previous season, where characters gain/lose their powers, and you spend half the time trying to figure out if Sylar is good or evil. It got old and boring. I don't know anybody who stuck with it past Season 3.
It's kind of the viewers fault really. Even the first season was full of horrible plot holes and logic problems. Not to mention super cheesy voice overs that treated the audience like idiots. With that they got a hit, so why not just expand on all that? Everything wrong with Heroes was born in the first season.
Supernatural. Perfect example.
i stuck with Heroes to the end, but i did nearly give up on it cuz it got fucking boring. i only stuck with it because i was vaguely hoping for a RBFATE and also because they said it was cancelled.
I did that with series 2. Trouble is when you do a catch up of several episodes in one go, watching the remainder at normal pace seems i.n.c.r.e.a.d.i.b...l..y slow. It's easier to just wait till its over then zap the lot.
I'm exactly the same, Pilot to bitter end. Enterprise was the only exception for me.
There was a reluctance to move on, they must have flashed backed just before the first episode more times than Voyager. I don't thing the strike helped either, and even killed of the spin-off idea before it started.
And then there's Sylar. Create a great villain that they couldn't bear to part with. So they neuter him. Which is a trap Buffy and Farscape fell into too, but at least they had other decent villains to deal with.
that was DEFINITELY a big problem of Heroes post S1, a lack of good villains. Arthur and Adam Munroe were okay, but tehy were only around for a season and they had limited storylines beyond the immediate characters they interacted with - Hiro in Adam's case and Peter, Nathan and Sylar in Arthur's.
For a series which had a season called 'Villains' there was a distinct lack of them.
and fucking Circus-Seismic Guy was booooooooooooring...
For a series which had a season called 'Villains' there was a distinct lack of them.
and fucking Circus-Seismic Guy was booooooooooooring...
They shouldn't have had one single villain in S1 to begin with, they should have had arcs within the season that introduced villains, then that way they'd have a "Rogue's Gallery" to choose from rather than have to invent a new one each season. The show is supposed to have similarities to X-Men and other comics, and they bothered creating more villains than just Magneto.
Something I've long suspected to be true, just by looking at what they produce. How else could you end up with the nonsense that's coming at us this season - half of the shows are cop shows!
Nobody with half a brain cell can possibly think that's a good idea - they'll divide the market and most will go down in flames. But they're terrified not to trot out a slate of cop shows. They have a herd mentality because in a herd, every individual is safer than if they're alone. But they're still just cattle. They know their fall slate is a catastrophe waiting to happen, but since no individual can be blamed, they're content to just let their business have another wretched year.
QFT. The crazy thing is that Lost was trying to do something harder than Heroes, and mostly succeeded (certainly nobody else has ever succeeded at it, because nobody's ever tried, certainly not on network TV). Heroes seemed like a pretty obvious path to success, to me. Just remember that your theme is one that's worked since the days of the ancient Greeks: the Icarus myth. Humans are not meant to have the power of gods.
The Heroes characters have the power of gods. Even if they mean well, the Fates will bring catastrophe down upon them (well, maybe - that's what the writing explores). That's a good, solid base from which to build a story. Instead, they just chased their tail around and around.
It probably didn't help that Kring didn't really want to tell stories about the same people every season. Remember the "entirely new cast every volume" thing?
Maybe it'd be better off if every season ended with a "Kill em All" to make the next season about someone else, and the writer was someone who honestly believed in doing that.
Of course, network TV types are allergic to unhappy endings, which is why they wouldn't go for the Icarus thing (tell a story about a guy who kills himself due to pride?).
They'd be better off going for a more comic-bookish feel. I don't mean costumes and all that, but with rogues galleries, government superhumans (and other non-government agencies), etc. Instead of building up a world based on that, have the characters just get plunged into one that pre-exists (as in, don't make the villain be some normal guy who just discovered his powers and does stuff, but a villain whose been active for some time without the public knowing about him).
Maybe it'd be better off if every season ended with a "Kill em All" to make the next season about someone else, and the writer was someone who honestly believed in doing that.
Of course, network TV types are allergic to unhappy endings, which is why they wouldn't go for the Icarus thing (tell a story about a guy who kills himself due to pride?).
They'd be better off going for a more comic-bookish feel. I don't mean costumes and all that, but with rogues galleries, government superhumans (and other non-government agencies), etc. Instead of building up a world based on that, have the characters just get plunged into one that pre-exists (as in, don't make the villain be some normal guy who just discovered his powers and does stuff, but a villain whose been active for some time without the public knowing about him).
Then we would have gotten what we got anyway - S1, repeated indefinitely. Maybe Kring loves the idea of characters discovering their superpowers for the first time and gets bored with what happens next, but I'd be bored of it in S2 even if the characters were different. The concept of doing S1 over and over again is what's boring.
But the bigger problem is that Heroes was just lucky in the cast they got for S1. Just look at all the shows like FlashFoward and V, where there are actors who are glaringly miscast, to see that nailing the casting is not an easy thing to do, and when you flub it, it can be a huge problem. Or look at the losers Kring brought in for S2 and beyond - there were a few good actors like David Anders, Kristen Bell and Robert Knepper, but the batting average wasn't very good. They would have been fools to dump actors they had no guarantee of being able to replace.
I wouldn't tell the idiot suits it's about Icarus! I'd tell them it's about Peter trying to solve some big problem via time-travel and not knowing how, so he gets Sylar's seeing powers in order to know what to do, and that drives him crazy, so that various plot-driving catastrophes happen. That is the Icarus story, but they don't need to know that it's anything fancy schmanchy like that. Just do stories like that for all the characters, tie them together into a single interlocking narrative, and sure, let's have a happy ending for at least some of them. The suits will be happy and never know it was anything other than a brainless comic book.
Wasn't that who Arthur Petrelli was supposed to be? A supervillainous kingpin acting behind the scenes, with some big nefarious plan?
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