• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Heroes cancelled!

NBC has nothing worth watching anymore.
It is hard to find a lot worth watching--tv has just gotten really crappy. CBS is nothing but sitcoms and aging procedurals and Survivor. NBC is pretty much hospital dramas and Law and Order/Dateline junk. Shockingly CW has more shows that I enjoy watching(Vampire Diaries--one of the sleeper hits of the tv season, Life Unexpected, Supernatural)

FOX is Kitchen Nightmares and American Idol pretty much although the one show I did enjoy this season from FOX was Human Target and was glad to hear it had been renewed.

Only thing on ABC worth watching has been LOST. SyFy has just gone down the tubes with its original programming. I tried giving CAPRICA a season to win me over and it just couldn't do it. SGU is just more boring crap.
 
Ah Ha, you still admit to liking SN.

Just kidding Startrekwatcher.

But I do agree with your point, as someone who watching at least one episode of every primetime scripted show, there really isn't a lot to be pleased about on network tv.
 
AS to the comment above about several shows saying the mytharc isn't the focus of the show its the characters. Well thats actually something I agree with. Now that doesn't mean I want them to just not give a damn about their Arc, but if it comes down to being true to character or true to the Mytharc, I would almost always pick the character.

I don't think that there is any show that the key draw to me was the Myth arc, its always do these characters grab me, and make me want to watch their journey week after week.
 
ANd on the issue of the cancellation, I say thank you god. THough part of me is almost morbidly curious to see if given a definite end date if the writers could have managed a engaging shortened season. But its ratings absolutely (especially in relation to its cost) say it absolutely should be dead.
 
Ah Ha, you still admit to liking SN.

Just kidding Startrekwatcher.
Let's just say that I have a very long and complicated relationship with SN--there were times when Eric Kripke brought me a beautiful bouquet of flowers and we had great sex and other times when he bitch slapped me:rommie:
AS to the comment above about several shows saying the mytharc isn't the focus of the show its the characters. Well thats actually something I agree with. Now that doesn't mean I want them to just not give a damn about their Arc, but if it comes down to being true to character or true to the Mytharc, I would almost always pick the character.

I don't think that there is any show that the key draw to me was the Myth arc, its always do these characters grab me, and make me want to watch their journey week after week.
Well I'll agree 99% of the time that is the case but honestly these new more ambitious high concept serialized dramas just try to cover so much ground--maybe too much--that the kind of connection to the characters isn't there that I found in less complicated dramas because you are trying to introduce characters while setting up these ambitious complicated plotlines and I find myself more invested in the mysteries, questions, revelations, connections, the curiosity of how seemingly disparate plotlines will dovetail, admiring the pure structure of the way the writers designed the narrative or episode.

The main things I expect the characters in a show like LOST or Heroes to do is be likeable and adequately interesting and provide the appropriate reactions to the given situation.

I'm sure when the Whole Story is told and I can go back this summer and really think over a particular characters history from beginning to end both within the context of their own individial arc and the series at large I might appreciate them more than just as the chess pieces the writers are using to serve the story

My view on the whole MythArc is either include a mythology or not but if you dare do you better make it as equally as important, as developed, as well written and as consistent as the characters otherwise simply don't do it. That was the feeling I had with BSG and Moore. He really didn't want to do one but it was the fad at the time for genre shows.

But if like LOST you make it such a fundamental part of the fabric of the series and devote as much time as you have to it then it really needs to come together.
 
NBC has nothing worth watching anymore.
It is hard to find a lot worth watching--tv has just gotten really crappy. CBS is nothing but sitcoms and aging procedurals and Survivor. NBC is pretty much hospital dramas and Law and Order/Dateline junk. Shockingly CW has more shows that I enjoy watching(Vampire Diaries--one of the sleeper hits of the tv season, Life Unexpected, Supernatural)

FOX is Kitchen Nightmares and American Idol pretty much although the one show I did enjoy this season from FOX was Human Target and was glad to hear it had been renewed.

Only thing on ABC worth watching has been LOST. SyFy has just gone down the tubes with its original programming. I tried giving CAPRICA a season to win me over and it just couldn't do it. SGU is just more boring crap.

FOX has the most watchable stuff. House is a great show. American Idol won't be around much longer becuase Simon is leaving to do a new show. Law & Order has been canceled also so NBC doesn't even have that.
 
That article, wow. Kring is still out to lunch about what killed Heroes.
Kring blamed the Peacock for having too much interference as far as the plot goes, causing the writers to sacrifice some of their creative ideas.
Of the myriad of problems Heroes had, "creativity" was not one of them. They presented a lot of creative ideas, pretty much every idea in the superhero playbook. Their problems were more basic: they didn't know what to do with their ideas. They failed with storytelling basics like characters whose motivations make sense; characters who behave with enough intelligence that we won't lose respect for them; characters who have a reason to be in the story; character arcs (that go somewhere!) for at least the major characters if not the minor ones; plotlines that are well-paced and have resolutions and are not just abruptly dropped; plotlines where events follow logically from one to another; dialogue that doesn't make us cringe; and an overarching theme so that we feel that there's a point to what we're watching other than mindless activity.
"It becomes very hard to kill off certain characters," said Kring. "The network has a very strong say in this, because of actors who are under contract and do publicity for them. It's not just up to the writers to decide."
Does this guy not work in the television business?!? It's well known that fan-favorite characters are a strong motivating factor to keep audiences watching, and therefore networks will not permit them to be killed off. He should have expected that if his show were successful at all, there would be at least a few sacred cows to deal with. I woulnd't know what to do with dead weight like Hiro or Claire, either, but Kring should have conceived all the major characters anticipating that he might have to write for them for years. AND THAT INCLUDES SYLAR!!!

Speaking of how he would have changed the story if he could, Kring said "I would have done fewer episodes. Thirteen a season is fabulous - you can really control the quality and the way you craft them. The sheer number of episodes has been a real struggle for us. Most shows shoot eight days, and we sometimes shoot as many as 15 days an episode."
Self-serving baloney. S2-4 of Heroes was not a killer core story, padded with a lot of extraneous material. It was a bunch of crap with no good core to it at all. If the only thing wrong with Heroes was that Kring et al were forced to pad out their wonderful 13 episodes with 10 episodes worth of filler, it wouldn't have been nearly as bad as it was. I can handle filler if there's something worthwhile happening - well-paced filler can be a nice way of moderating the emotional intensity of the core story - but that was not the case with Heroes at all. If Kring had had 13 episode seasons, we would have gotten 13 crappy episodes.

Switching topics: with the carnage of cancellations this season, the number of watchable shows has now crashed pretty severely. (The fact that I would have counted Heroes among the watchable shows proves that the problem here is not that I have overly high standards. :rommie:) When CW and CBS chime in with their new 2010-11 pilots, I'll start a Gen Media thread about them...some do sound promising...even if once upon a time, I thought FlashForward and V sounded promising too. ;) I guess I never learn!
 
Startrekwatcher

I will agree that Lost especially I have been fairly fascinated by the plot arc. But it is still the character arcs that I enjoy the most, though it's also the part the frustrates me the most as I really don't buy into many of the actions as a whole the characters have made throughout the years.
 
Well, I guess this will free up my Monday nights.

I kind of figured it might go this way. Ah well -- the show was probably beyond saving anyway, I'm sorry to say. At least I still have Season 1.
 
NBC has nothing worth watching anymore.
It is hard to find a lot worth watching--tv has just gotten really crappy. CBS is nothing but sitcoms and aging procedurals and Survivor. NBC is pretty much hospital dramas and Law and Order/Dateline junk. Shockingly CW has more shows that I enjoy watching(Vampire Diaries--one of the sleeper hits of the tv season, Life Unexpected, Supernatural)

I don't think NBC has any Hospital Dramas anymore, they cancelled Mercy and Trauma when they cancelled Heroes. But they still have 'Minute to win it' and 'The Biggest Loser' now that's quality entertainment.
 
To be honest, I only saw the first season of Heroes, and for some reason never tuned into season two. From what I've read over the years though, I'm glad I didn't. It's a shame though, since the show had promise.
 
Heroes makes me wonder if the basic model behind American TV is broken. What they probably should do is follow a format closer to movies. Focus all their energy into making a season. Once that season is done take a break. Plan out the next season. If that means taking a year or two to develop this new season then so be it. Of course, this has its problems as well. Logistically it would be difficult and it might be hard on the cast. We would get a better final product as a result though and it would turn the new season into an event rather than just another season of TV.
 
That would never work. When a show takes a three month break in the middle of the season (Lost, V, Flashforward) half the audience forgets the show exists when it comes back.
 
It would work, but they have to make sure each season is so awesome that their audience is willing to wait for a new one. It would work better if each season was a self-contained story so that the big wait wasn't annoying. Remember when BSG took a year break between Season 3 and 4? That was complete nonsense.
 
What about the comics! Why won't anyone think of the comics!
Of the 172 comics released online, only 80 have been collected in hardcover volumes. Now that Heroes is cancelled will we ever see the publication of Heroes Vol. 3?
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top