MovieChat Forums > Heroes (2006) Discussion > Such a Shame This Show Lost its Way

Such a Shame This Show Lost its Way

posted 4 years ago by Zinger (2334)
25 replies | jump to latest

Season one is genuinely fascinating, with interesting characters and intriguing plot points and mysteries. They set things up nicely. Everyone gets something to do. It's dramatic, action packed, funny and enjoyable.

Season two is where they clearly misjudged the success of the show. Instead of maintaining the established momentum, they slowed things right down and patently decided to milk the show without really taking it anywhere. Characters are now just doing stuff, going through the motions.

Season three ups the action significantly. But this is a mistake. They clearly worried about the criticism that season two received and chose to respond by throwing more drama and action at the screen. But it makes everything seem so repetitive and samey. Everyone now seems to have a power.

Season four is actually not that bad. It's probably the second best season but the damage is done.

[–] sslssg (34216) 4 years ago

I thought that season 2 went off the rails because of the writers strike.

[–] Zinger (2334) 4 years ago

They still wrote season two.

The strike would not have altered the direction they went in.

[–] sslssg (34216) 4 years ago

It did though. There were 24 episodes planned. Because of the strike they had to retool episode 11 to the season finale instead of the midseason finale.

I'm not saying that it would have been better, as even Kring said that the pace was too slow, but they did say that season 2 was to have 3 volumes and due to the strike one of them was axed and the third one became season 3. So... who knows what might have been?

[–] Zinger (2334) 4 years ago

Fewer episodes should have helped them condense things but they managed to make season two the most boring. Imagine how bad it would have been with more episodes.

The content was the same regardless of episode number.

[–] sslssg (34216) 4 years ago

Again, because they axed an entire volume's story line, we don't know. It very well might have sucked. It might have picked up the pace. We don't know because we never saw it. It might have made it worse. We don't know.

I think season 2 was pretty bad, I'm not arguing that fact. There were a lot of things wrong with it. I was only saying that I think that the writers strike had a lot to do with them not righting any of those mistakes.

[–] Zinger (2334) 4 years ago

The writers going on strike didn't mean we lost anything. It simply meant it was pushed into season three. Which was even worse in my opinion.

[–] sslssg (34216) 4 years ago

I've mentioned several times we lost an entire story arc that was planned. So yes, we did miss something.

[–] Zinger (2334) 4 years ago

Based on what?

You don't think they simply moved it to season three?

[–] sslssg (34216) 4 years ago

Interviews. It was supposed to be Generations, exodus, and villains. Exodus was scapped partially because of the reception of generations and because the strike didn't allow for course correction.

[–] Zinger (2334) 4 years ago

None of this stops them from adding it to seasons three or four.

At this point, the show was the biggest thing in the world. There's no reason to believe they just scrapped ideas altogether rather than postponed them.

I mean... what's their excuse for season three being a mess, for example?

[–] Iffy762 (1334) 4 years ago

I recently read a blog post about the strike (the blog post was contemporary with the strike) saying that one thing that happened with the strike was that they could not do rewrites. So however the writers had left the scripts, that's how they had to shoot them. And evidently that is not the normal thing, usualy the writers' room is doing rewrites and perfecting things a lot longer.

[–] sslssg (34216) 4 years ago

Thank you. That is what I was trying to get across and failed when I mentioned course correction. 😊

[–] Iffy762 (1334) 4 years ago

Right. I don't think people realise (I certainly didn't) that they couldn't do ANY course correction. They couldn't rejigger scripts to abbreviate the season.

[–] Zinger (2334) 4 years ago

They could literally do anything they wanted with season three.

So why was it utter crap?

[–] Iffy762 (1334) 4 years ago

yeah i cant explain that

[–] [deleted] 4 years ago

Fewer episodes might help a show get condensed down and result in better pacing if they know at the start that they only have 11 episodes... but if you get cut from 24 to 11 after you've already written 11 then you have a problem, and that problem is made worse by having the writer leave the room to strike so that now you've lost the brains behind the scripts.

[–] Iffy762 (1334) 4 years ago

Yeah I also thought Season 1 was amazing. Then Season 2 was confusing and I couldn't tell what was supposed to be the point of any of the plotlines.

[–] BourbonKing (5777) 4 years ago

I remember not liking the season 1 finale. It was very anti-climactic and the build up about saving the cheerleader led to nothing.

[–] Zinger (2334) 4 years ago

Sylar also gets her power later in the show anyway. They'd obviously run out of ideas by then.

[–] vegan_voorhees (383) 4 years ago

Redeeming Sylar was a big mistake - so many shows are just unable to let go of some actors.

[–] Zinger (2334) 4 years ago

He's a bad guy.
No, he's a good guy.
Wait, he's a bad guy.
No, he's a good guy.
Wait, he's a bad guy again.

They also turned Suresh into a monster. Then said 'ignore that, he's good again.'

[–] [deleted] 4 years ago

Sadly this is a common thing in Hollywood... Although if you an even more ridiculous show for redeeming bad guy just watch Supernatural. Hell not only do they make most major evil villains into good guys after a season or two they just completely ignore the countless deaths or tortures the villian was responsible for as if it never happened.

[–] vegan_voorhees (383) 4 years ago

Occasionally it works - Spike on Buffy transitioned quite nicely into a good guy.

Heroes had other problems as well though, it's been years but I remember them killing off most of the interesting ones often and leaving the boring characters around too long.

[–] Iffy762 (1334) 4 years ago

Yeah I agree Heroes tended to kill of the most interesting characters

[–] einstein (2561) 4 years ago

The best tv show i ever saw, and it was a bloody shame it got worse each season :(