where HEROES went wrong...

[Robert Maxwell]

In retrospect, given how little respect this show receives, part of me thinks it should never have been attempted. At least not as a weekly series.

Audiences are too used to superheroes being people in tights who run around saving the world every week and cracking wisecracks. And god help us if any of them have any personal problems outside of fighting crime.

Heroes was a good concept that should have been restricted to a movie or a mini-series. Aside from the difficulty of maintaining an arc-heavy series in an anti-arc environment, they should have known that the demographic they were aiming for has, on the whole, certain demands on superhero series that the concept of Heroes itself could not hope to achieve, without violating its own internal logic.

Put another way. Back near the end of Season 1, Clare Bennet makes a joking remark about whether she should get herself a superhero costume. I think the show would probably have been maintained its popularity if she and the others had done just that.

Alex

Ah, the old "viewers didn't get what they wanted, so they knock the show" canard.

It wasn't necessary for them to put on uniforms and start fighting aliens. It was necessary, however, for them to eventually realize that they weren't ordinary people, and they needed to deal with that fact instead of trying to hide it all the time. Instead of constantly going their separate ways, band together and figure out how they could protect themselves and each other. Use their powers responsibly.

Basically, they would have been best served by forming a more benevolent version of the Company as soon as they realized there's a reasonable number of superpowered individuals out there. The Company was one of the more interesting concepts this show ever put forth, and yet they spent the first three volumes dismantling it. There should have been consequences for that--who is out there stopping the bad SPBs now?--but, like everything else, they just sweep it under the rug so Claire can whine about being abnormal and Hiro can continue to act like a child.

There is no progression in these characters, and nothing interesting happens to them, so what's the point?

I'll watch this show until it's over, just so I can see where things end up, but they absolutely gutted the potential of the series. It was almost like they had a checklist of things the audience would find interesting, and quickly struck them all out.

No one seriously expected these people to become X-Men or anything. This show is pretty much grounded in the real world. But we're four seasons in at this point, and it's about time they figured out what the audience realized long ago: they aren't regular people and they can't ignore their abilities, or those who would use them for evil.

 

[Smiley]

Most of the reasons I tuned out have been stated already, but the lack of both entertaining stories and consequences in later seasons are both big turn-offs.

One other reason that ratings might have dropped is that there has been no great catchphrase for Seasons 2-4. "Save the cheerleader...save the world" is one of the best advertising campaigns for TV from the past decade.

 

[Hyperspace05]

The show went wrong in the season 1 finale. Everything started there.

- Sylar should have died. Instead the show became the Sylar hour.
- Characters should have interacted and grown.
- Most old characters should have died OR moved off-screen (to return later perhaps). New characters brought in.

 

[3D Master]

It really, really did have potential. I agree. Perhaps if the writers hadn't been so in love with Claire and Hiro.....maybe things would have been different.

Being in love with Claire and Hiro wasn't the problem at all. Not letting them grow was the problem. People didn't love Hiro because he was an idiot comic relief, people loved Hiro because he was the only one with a true heart of a hero, and we were going to watch him grow into one. Especially when we got to see that very hero we were all expecting him to grow into, Badass Future Hiro, everyone went, "All right, now we're talking. Let's watch the journey."

And we got the journey across S1, from losing hi powers through losing his confidence, through getting his sword and regaining his confidence, to his training with his father. All that's left, was the coup de grace, his final act of his journey, what it was building up to all season: Hiro vs. Sylar, and Hiro saving New York.

And then it all went to shit in the finally. Hiro did not stop Sylar; did not finish him off as he should have. Did not save New York by teleporting Peter into space. Peter did not die from the explosion as he should have. And Hiro did not become the leader of our now together band of misfits.

Instead, Hiro inexplicably got teleported 400 years into the past, and the Avengers in making got disassembled before they even got to assemble. We saw Nikki take control of her alter ego and the super power, becoming Caitlin Fairchild, a She-Hulk without having to turn green, freeing herself of her past demons once and... nope, next season she inexplicably had a new alter ego.

And on, and on.

They just did not grow, did not get together, they just continue to be the same S1 blank slates, all running along their own seperate stories again and again.

So where did it go wrong: S1 finale.