Heroes...what went wrong?

Richard Dower

Think we all agree season one was excellent, but then someting happened.....
Is it purely down to the writers or was Tim Kring full of s*it in saying he had everything planned out for 5 seasons, did NBC interfere?...budget cuts?, victim of it's own success?

Much like The OC it seems the Heroes creator, much like The OC's creator, took a back seat, stopped writing scripts, got lazy or started developing other projects.

What in your opinion has gone wrong with Heroes?

EKRIUQ

They had a winning formula in series 1 and interesting characters but started to falter in the last couple of episodes and the finale was just a blow out, they then decided to evolve the characters and get more deep and introduce a love story and with the writers strike there was no emphasis on a good story line I think they were just running out of ideas.The fans of the show wanted fast paced sci-fi not slow moving dullness.

Now with series 3 the big characters have become very watered down and uninteresting with out any clean refined story coupled with their obsession with time travel huge plot holes developed and now their nearly at the end of series 3 and still no body knows what's happening. I can't really see a season 4 because they've had 2 seasons to try to recapture the spirit of the first and failed.

Shryke

Richard Dower wrote: »

What in your opinion has gone wrong with Heroes?

A Lot.

bada_bing

everything went wrong with it, it felt like it had become a sci-fi version of Day of our Lives , just utter mindless soap opera rubbish. The characters kept changing and don't get me started on the massive plot holes in each episode. I just stopped watching it after episode 7 of this season and i haven't regretted it since.

yellowcurl

I think ever since the writers strike they have struggled to get their groove back to be honest. There was a complete different script/storyline planned before the strike that had to be scrapped for some reason after. Its a shame considering from what i've seen, it looked far better than what was shown.

Also, that irish girl that peter lost in the future, the show completely forgot about her!!!

Richard Dower

For me the mistakes started with the season one finale, the whole SEASON was setup for a showdown during the finale, they all gathered at Kirby Plaza...and it's at THIS point Kring should have lived up to what he said would happen. Kill off most of the characters....as in Sylar, who had been aquiring powers all season FOR this, killoff several heroes and still him and Peter could duel and explode etc.

The whole Japan time travel was rubbish, they should've explored the relationship of the heroes in connection with the eclipse etc.

PetKing

So much went wrong, from one week to the next it seems like a character sees something shiney and runs off after it... week after week!! And the way HRG and Nathan flip flop on their beliefs is just too much to handle. The writers (who should be taken out back and shot IMO) were probably hoping that we would be excited by every twist.. but now there's about 5 per episode... Oh Peter can fly, oh now he cant.. Oh Hiro lost his powers, oh now Ando has powers.. Oh Nathan is good, oh he's evil now Oh... yawn!!!

Do the following...

Kill off / Get rid of, never to return:

1. Daphne and Claire (too cutesy wootsy)
2. Claire's family (-HRG, Costa Verde is a yawnfest at this stage)
3. Tracy (either pick a side or become Nikki!!
4. Mohinder (he can stay on to narrate if he wants
5. Parkman (UUUUUUSSSSSSSSSELLLLLLLLEEEEEEESSSSSSSS whiny b**ch!!),

Plotlines to get rid of:

1. The military rounding super people up, or any kind of Government involvement.. a silly restricting plot that ties them down.
2. Faffing about in labs with syringes and vials... ZZZZZZZZZZZ!!!!
3. Daddy issues.. Claire, Syalr, Peter et al


Things the newly hired writing staff should look at:

1. The corpses of the old writing staff.
2. DC comics.
3. Read some classics with the timeless themes of good versus evil.




In the mean time, they have til the end of Season 3 as far as my viewing goes, then I'll stop and take stock of what kind of show it is, and whether I'll bother to tune in for Season 4.

PetKing

Similar to the Lost forum, it might be an idea to have a sticky thread for whining about Heroes, to stop new ones popping up weekly.

Sherifu

PetKing wrote: »

Similar to the Lost forum, it might be an idea to have a sticky thread for whining about Heroes, to stop new ones popping up weekly.

In this forum it's more than deserved. It's become a complete mess of a show.

Mr.Nice Guy

There have been so many awful things, but for me the main thing wrong with the show is that they introduced really poor characters and also went down the road of schmalz. Characters like Maya and her brother, Micah's cousin (can't even remember the name), the entire 'Irish' cast begorrah, were just really poor additions. Add to that the love story with Hiro in Japan, Peter and the Cork chick, Sylar and Elle, Mohinder and Maya, Claire and Superboy etc. These were just ridiculously bad.

Other shows like Lost make you actually care about couples because the writing is well done. As for Heroes, not so much. I mean, does anyone honestly give a flying f*ck about Parkman and Daphne's absurd romance?

The writing in general has stunk for a good while.

Overheal

Sherifu wrote: »

In this forum it's more than deserved. It's become a complete mess of a show.

This thread validates what im about to do next:

*unsubscribes to Heroes forum*

Goodbye Mr. Petrelli. How ironic that we liked you better as an Emo

EKRIUQ

When they write the Irish sences as bad as they did, you seem to know the show has no real soul.

AlmightyCushion

PetKing wrote: »

Similar to the Lost forum, it might be an idea to have a sticky thread for whining about Heroes, to stop new ones popping up weekly.

All the episode discussions would have to be merged into the sticky then.

There is so much wrong with it.

The characters have become uninteresting and boring. In fact you'd be lucky not to dispise and hate most of them.

Story arcs that that are either boring, stupid, annoying or more than likely all three.

Ridiculously inconsistant characters. Their actions and motivations just seem out of place and are just plain baffling. Not to mention that some of them seem to have their moral compass replaced by a round about filled with sugar high 8 year olds.

The writing is pretty abysmal as well.

Fysh

EKRIUQ wrote: »

When they write the Irish sences as bad as they did, you seem to know the show has no real soul.

It's a funny thing, but I remember someone pointing out that the Japanese parts with Hiro and Ando were generally pretty bad as well. I get the feeling that overall pretty much any part of the show with any specific non-American character or setting was pretty stereotyped and poorly handled.

Niall0

yellowcurl wrote: »

Also, that irish girl that peter lost in the future, the show completely forgot about her!!!

the best thing they ever did.

yellowcurl

Niall0 wrote: »

the best thing they ever did.

Lol i agree, but quite bad on the writers part to not even make something up to explain why they'd axed her. You'd expect something like that from a group of primary school kids making up a play or something during their lunch break!

bobbbb

There are serious problems with all of the sci-fi series this year.
All of them have just imploded.
Heroes, Terminator, BSG, Lost.

Its like the writers are still on strike.
They have all become muck.

Goodshape

Hard for BSG to reach the same high points it has in the past... I'd hardly say it's imploded though. A quality show to the end (which is just next week )

I haven't enjoyed Lost this much since it's first season. Great return to from IMO.

And Terminator has never been the best show on tv, and still isn't. But it has always been enjoyable and "good enough". No implosion there either.

It's really just heroes tbh - and not just this year either. If anything this has been a slight improvement on everything since season one. It's just much too little and much too late.

Richard Dower

bobbbb wrote: »

There are serious problems with all of the sci-fi series this year.
All of them have just imploded.
Heroes, Terminator, BSG, Lost.

Its like the writers are still on strike.
They have all become muck.

Add Heroes to your list :P

redtom

I reckon it was coz they were told to clean up and target a family demographic - I remember the early episodes of Season 1 with all the bodies ripped in half and brains lying beside cut-open-heads all over the place thinking, yep, this could go places. I kept waiting for the schizo chick to change into a hulk type thing and all... but then Sylar turned out to be yer man instead of the guy seen in the shadows a few episodes earlier and it started going all tame and silly - hell, even Hiro was a fav character at the beginning...

Richard Dower

You're right Red, season one was rather graphic...forgot about that.

don ramo

Richard Dower wrote: »

You're right Red, season one was rather graphic...forgot about that.

more graphic stuff please, its 2009 for christ sake, you can show graphic stuff at 15-16 year olds now,

i think they have strayed to much from comic stuff, they dont wanna be seen ripping off this and that, but the thing is, i, and most others, wont care, if it works into the show it would be great, now im not on about useing entire scenarios from comics, just certain ideas,

clair should die for a few eps, as a life lesson, she has hundreds of lives to live, so she is gonna have to learn, her caracter should be easy to write for,

syler, there so much that can still be done with him, he should start working up teh political ladder,over a season or two, it would make a great story arc, a trail of bodies to teh white house, and even have him take office and all,

HRG should take over the hunt, hes more level headed and understands, what should be done and who is dangerous, but yet when he crosses a line even though he knows, he still follows through with his original intention,

the writers are just to short sighted on nearly all the shows now a days it seem, there are no extended story arcs that take 3-4 season to show, i remember DS9, the last 4 seasons were one hugh story arc, right up to the last episode,

reality TV is mostly to blame, why come up with a superb idea and get paid the same money to write for pop idol, for the script thats in it,

seraphimvc

not too surprise to see people's comments with so much hatred :Dso glad i quit ages ago!

actually, i was secretly hoping the show would gets better

Hobbes

OK I will admit to watching "Mutant X". Cheesy but had its qualities.

One running theme in Mutant X was all the mutants would be captured by the main bad guy and every episode revolved around breaking out of gene-o-max. They may as well just put a revolving door in.

Appears Heroes is going that way. I mean how times have they captured them? Can they not just put a bullet in their heads?

The only character which is interesting is Sylar, and it is like that is getting watered down too. I was hoping the kid with Sylar was some super villian controling Sylar but turns out he was just random extra number 4.

Richard Dower

The blondie in Mutant X was hot!

Jip

So it's not actually worth looking at anymore so ? I've been hanging on by a thread hoping something might happen but don't want to stop watching it if there's only a handful of episodes left. When is it due to finish or it it just going to continue to drag out ?

Richard Dower

New ep. should be online soon...i shall report my observations :-)

don ramo

this is what i think went wrong on the basis of the last ep, im just gonna put what i wrote in the episodes thread what i think is wrong wth the show, what i think was right about this ep and what wrong with most eps




very well balanced episode, 3 story lines and enough time to play all 3, i think this has been a major problem with heros, not storyline per-say, but the amount of caracters in play in any given episode, this episode had 6 caracters in play, each with an equal share, so each had enough screen time to play there part, (think) 45 minutes by 6, is about 8 minutes each, which isnt bad,

think if hiro, ando, matt parkman, baby matt, mohinder, miah, tracy (or her other sister), HRG, and then throw in the kind of story lines given, (time travel takes up a lot of time i think, one group trying to find another could take 5-6 epsiodes when is should take 2 max, ) its taking to long for for a story to develop, the story line for a show like this are endless, wheres the crative problem, there plenty of source material, in comic books, short stories, politics, action, just make sure each story is well thought out and you know exactly where the story is going to be in 2 years time, not where its going to be next month

jimbling

Heroes is a badly written badly acted TV show.

It got away with it in the first year because it was new, had some impressive effects and deep down everyone wants to have some superpowers

Seriously, heroes is an really awful program. I have watched majority of the episodes this year and there hasn't been one where I wasn't continuously cringing at how badly written it was. I threw my shoe at the TV during one episode it annoyed so much :pac: :pac:

And anyone putting this in the same league as Lost needs there head examined.

Nervous Wreck

jimbling wrote: »

Heroes is a badly written badly acted TV show.

It got away with it in the first year because it was new, had some impressive effects and deep down everyone wants to have some superpowers

Seriously, heroes is an really awful program. I have watched majority of the episodes this year and there hasn't been one where I wasn't continuously cringing at how badly written it was. I threw my shoe at the TV during one episode it annoyed so much :pac: :pac:

And anyone putting this in the same league as Lost needs there head examined.

So why are you bothering to keep watching it? Why are you posting here? Lost is tripe btw. First season was good and then they turned over all writing duties to the mentally insane.

Richard Dower

Lost is a complete joke!...at least with Heroes we ALL want to have superpowers, but Lost...the only thing i want from that show is one night with Angeline Lilly.

Supermax1988

Richard Dower wrote: »

the only thing i want from that show is one night with Angeline Lilly.

It's Evangeline.....I can't imagine her being too impressed when you call out the wrong name

I have to disagree with most of the posts here concerning lost. I'll admit that that it went seriously downhill in seasons 2 and 3 but it came back to form in season 4 and at the moment I think it's just as enjoyable as it was in the beginning. I can't wait to find out how it all ends.

But they better explain what that ****ing polar bear was doing on the island or i'll lose all respect for the show

Richard Dower

Supermax1988 wrote: »

But they better explain what that ****ing polar bear was doing on the island or i'll lose all respect for the show

Wait...they had a polar bear, on a tropical island? :rolleyes:

Otacon

Supermax1988 wrote: »

But they better explain what that ****ing polar bear was doing on the island or i'll lose all respect for the show

They did explain that. Ask on the Lost forum.

TBH as soon as they kept the same characters for season 2, I knew Kring was bending for the studio. The beginning of the end.

It pisses me off that a show like Heroes will get renewed, but shows like The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Serenity, Dollhouse etc will/have been cancelled! :mad:

jimbling

Nervous Wreck wrote: »

So why are you bothering to keep watching it? Why are you posting here?

Eh, hello? Did you read the title of this thread? That's why I'm posting here..... Get a grip ffs

And I don't really watch it any more anyway... haven't seen the last 4/5 episodes. But that is neither here nor there.

Nervous Wreck wrote: »

Lost is tripe btw. First season was good and then they turned over all writing duties to the mentally insane.

Richard Dower wrote: »

Lost is a complete joke!...at least with Heroes we ALL want to have superpowers, but Lost...the only thing i want from that show is one night with Angeline Lilly.

Lost is in a different league to Heroes.
Yes, it suffered pretty badly in Season two and three, but nothing compared to the tripe Heroes is spitting out to this day.

jimbling

Oh, and the Lost writers have seriously shown up Heroes with regards on how to handle Time Travel.

Different League
QFT

pyramuid man

Now before this descends into a Heroes Vs Lost thread.

Lets remember that Heroes is at the same stage as Lost was at toward the end of the third season.
Heroes is alot more sci-fi than Lost which is bordering on reality in fairness. We will not be able to judge which is better as that is a matter of personal opinion and therefore subjective. So no matter what anyone says, technically none of you are right.

Please stop comparing the both as they are totally different shows and instead look at each show for its individual qualities.

jimbling

pyramuid man wrote: »

Now before this descends into a Heroes Vs Lost thread.

Lets remember that Heroes is at the same stage as Lost was at toward the end of the third season.
Heroes is alot more sci-fi than Lost which is bordering on reality in fairness. We will not be able to judge which is better as that is a matter of personal opinion and therefore subjective. So no matter what anyone says, technically none of you are right.

Please stop comparing the both as they are totally different shows and instead look at each show for its individual qualities.

Lost is bordering on reality?? There's smoke monsters, time travel and people coming back from the dead....lol, hardly reality :P


Lost em.... lost its way a bit. This has actually been explained by the writers of the show. But it never ever got so cringe worthy. Heroes is a complete mess if you ask me.

I didn't start the lost comparison, all I said was they're in a different league with regards quality of production/writing and acting.

Right, I promise I'm done posting in heroes forum... or watching the show. I'll check back in a year or so and see if it has made any improvements. I gave it way more time than most, but if I hear "save the world" one more time it's suicide watch for my family and friends.

Mr.Nice Guy

Come on folks, how can anyone actually argue that Heroes is in the same league as Lost?

The argument could definitely be made after Heroes' brilliant first season, and in fact I recall me and a friend of mine debating the matter a few times, but those debates quickly stopped when Heroes' season 2 came along!

Lost is just great whereas Heroes is just lost.

Overheal

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

Lost is just great whereas Heroes is just lost.

That about sums it up.

I see from the hulu front page that Sylar is having another identity crisis. Shocker! I guess I havent been missing much. This show is canceled as fcuk.

goodolegill

My opinion of Heroes, is that you never get that craving to watch that new episode and im not getting involved in the lost v heroes debate - there is no build up of tension within the show, i find the structure of the show abysmal and i watch it now with a lot of apathy - In the first season the excitement of everyone realizing their abilities, the threat of the nuclear explosion, Linderman + Angela Petrilli's motives and the threat that Sylar possessed kept you enthralled!! I hope i speak for a few of you when I say that the best ever episode was the future episode with Peter and Sylar have a standoff as the door closes in Season One. That watered the mouth for the big finale when i was expecting firework and with all finale's there can be a bit too much build up of expectation but it was awful - it was disappointing but worse of all i felt it was rushed to a 5 minute segment and the end of the last episode the big standoff that we were promised was nothing short of pathetic.

In the second season we were given all the bad aspects of the first season - people still coming to terms with their powers and Claire trying to fit in again!! Seriously if i wanna watch a girl struggling to fit in high school -i can watch hundreds of crappy other shows. With the exception of Sylar there is no constant threat throughout the show - the company shouldn't of been Angela Petrilli and should have been someone more aggressive that wasn't only taken the heroes but exterminating them - the threat never seemed that scary as we knew Noah worked for them - my opinion was he should of been a terminator figure who would not stop at any costs to exterminate.

The back stories are rather ponderous and slow moving and have very rarely neither either interesting or exciting - some of the characters are pretty one dimensional and boring. The show wouldn't harm itself by killing off some of the main characters and introducing a more vicious element to it, all attempts made in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th season have been very deflating.
The show focuses on too many of the poorer characters and when i say poorer, i mean every character other than Sylar and Peter and that's why i think the 2nd season was so poor.

Richard Dower

It's The OC all over again...amazing first season then the producers and writers get cocky and lazy, it falls apart. The actors use the show for bigger and better things and just dial in performances waiting for the next movie deal to come in, the producers start on four other different projects and starting hiring muppets to fill in for them.

It's very much a victim of it's own success and blatant and misleading hype, spin and PR from Mr. Kring who basically lied to the fanbase about that rubbish season 1 finale....if only he had the courage to kill off most of the characters in Kirby plaza and start afreah.

Fysh

goodolegill wrote: »

My opinion of Heroes, is that you never get that craving to watch that new episode and im not getting involved in the lost v heroes debate - there is no build up of tension within the show, i find the structure of the show abysmal and i watch it now with a lot of apathy - In the first season the excitement of everyone realizing their abilities, the threat of the nuclear explosion, Linderman + Angela Petrilli's motives and the threat that Sylar possessed kept you enthralled!! I hope i speak for a few of you when I say that the best ever episode was the future episode with Peter and Sylar have a standoff as the door closes in Season One. That watered the mouth for the big finale when i was expecting firework and with all finale's there can be a bit too much build up of expectation but it was awful - it was disappointing but worse of all i felt it was rushed to a 5 minute segment and the end of the last episode the big standoff that we were promised was nothing short of pathetic.

It's funny you say that because I know a lot of people didn't like the finale of the first season, but I thought it fit perfectly. The "5 Years Gone" episode showed us a dystopian future with Sylar as a near-omnipotent ruler and Peter as the only person strong enough to confront him but unwilling to do so because of what he's already lost by that point. So while it could have been interesting to see Sylar & Peter fighting in the present, it never would have been as interesting as the future battle we were teased with, just because neither of them would have had that level of control over their powers. Turning the whole confrontation around and revealing that it's actually Peter who's a danger to the world was what made the whole thing tick for me, because it elevated the whole drama of the series beyond the typical action movie/superhero "two guys punching each other in the face" level of resolution.

Now, all of this was completely screwed by deciding to bring back the entire cast from that first series instead of killing them off, allowing them to fade to the background or coming up with genuinely new directions for them to move in. For instance, Peter Petrelli should've been dead at the end of that season; Nathan might have survived but shouldn't have been a core cast member (unless he was going to be a villain with the whole "haunted reflection" thing); the rest of them should have either faded to the background or banded together to form their own group, having realised that they all possessed special powers and might be able to work together to do something useful with them.

One of the many problems with season 2 and onwards of Heroes is the utter lack of consistency of character motivations. Change is good, but almost every character in the program at this point has had retarded changes of allegiance and/or instances of unmitigated stupidity such that you can't really take any of the more subtle character development seriously, since you don't know how long it will be until the next Attack Of The Stupid.

I stopped watching the show about half a dozen episodes ago, and I thought that reading through the threads about the episodes I haven't watched might revive my flagging interest in the show, but instead it's made me realise exactly what made me give up on the show - season one looked like a show that had a big overall plan, even if there was a lot of wiggle room built into its structure to allow for the vagaries of network television schedules. Season two and beyond junked this, and while I can understand the effect of having your season cut in half due to a writer's strike, I'm now looking at a show where two thirds of the episodes thus far have been middling-to-terrible. Even if the return of Bryan Fuller gets things back to the standards of season one, there's no way that the show has a bigger story to tell unless they just start over again in the next volume, and frankly at that stage I doubt it would be worth doing.

Nervous Wreck

^^Good post. I agree with a lot of it. I always found it very strange that people were so disappointed with "How To Stop An Exploding Man", when I always thought it was the perfect ending to the season.

I also always found it strange that people thought Peter should have died in the season finale, simply because I always looked at him as the 'main' character back then, being that he was the most powerful and the only one who could stand up to Sylar, the main villain. Always wanted Nathan to die as I knew his character was **** (this was proved true very early on in S2). At this point, I don't mind Nathan so much but he'd definitely fit in better as a villain.

I think the show needs to recapture the mystery of season one. Remember struggling and squinting to try get a glimpse at Sylar through all the shadows? Wondering if Isaac, having painted his own death, would be able to stop it? Wondering if Peter was the bomb or if it really would be Sylar? The unexpected twist of Ted Sprague's sudden death and Isaac's acceptance of his fate... They need to get back some of that!

Fysh

Nervous Wreck wrote: »

I also always found it strange that people thought Peter should have died in the season finale, simply because I always looked at him as the 'main' character back then, being that he was the most powerful and the only one who could stand up to Sylar, the main villain. Always wanted Nathan to die as I knew his character was **** (this was proved true very early on in S2). At this point, I don't mind Nathan so much but he'd definitely fit in better as a villain.

Peter was definitely the main character in the first series, but I think he should have been killed off because he suffers from the Superman problem - by the end of the season he has no edge to him. He's powerful, he's got some control over his powers, and he's coming to accept that the best way he can help people will probably involve using his powers.

At that point, it's difficult to have ongoing dramatic developments with the character unless you go for soap opera tactics. Realistically the next stage of development for Peter Petrelli after the first season should have been a combination of growing concerns about the level of power he has (and the risk of that power being manipulated) and the beginnings of an emotional isolation as he realises that his ability may as well make him a new species in terms of how different he is to most of the people around him.

Instead, we got a series of horribly executed excuses to revert him back to the way he was during series one. I understand the reasons for doing this, but it means that we're being asked to sit through the same story again, and I don't see the point in that.

Nervous Wreck wrote: »

I think the show needs to recapture the mystery of season one. Remember struggling and squinting to try get a glimpse at Sylar through all the shadows? Wondering if Isaac, having painted his own death, would be able to stop it? Wondering if Peter was the bomb or if it really would be Sylar? The unexpected twist of Ted Sprague's sudden death and Isaac's acceptance of his fate... They need to get back some of that!

The story development in series one was definitely to everything that's come since; there were some genuinely shocking cliffhangers and twists. The problem is that regaining that would require having a plan for an entire season and the confidence to stick with that plan even if the initial ratings don't do too well, whereas the show appears to have been desperately trying to do anything that might keep viewers watching in recent months.

All of which comes back to Tim Kring's statements about how he'd planned out five volumes before the series even started filming. Either he was telling porkies or the network insisted on changes because they thought they understood what people enjoyed about the show. It's a shame, though - I'd have loved to see five volumes of story with the narrative consistency and overall cohesion that the first volume had.

Nervous Wreck

I agree with everything there, yeah. I liked Future Peter from the start of the Villains arc. I really liked the way, with all of his powers, he still felt powerless from not knowing how to fix things. His desperation was really interesting. Or could have been. Coulda been something for present Peter to have to work through.... Hmm..... Provided he survives the next episode, I hope they give him some good stories next season.

Josey Wales

Has it ever been explained what Parkman did with Molly? Early in the season he just said that he put her somewhere safe.

The whole Parkman thing seems very weird. First he seems to have forgotten about Molly and now with his ex-wife back on the scene he has forgotten about Daphney all too quickly.

Nervous Wreck

Yeah he "sent her somewhere safe" and never mentioned her again..... Hmmm........

Richard Dower

Does his wife know he cheated on her?

Nervous Wreck

If you're talking about Daphne, he was separated from Janice for like a year so its not cheating.... If not... I dunno what you're on about!

Richard Dower

But does his wife know he was porkin' Daphne?