I'm about to use a football analogy, so if you follow the sport, then you get what I'm saying.
Regarding "Heroes": When you think about it, describing the show is pretty much like describing Chicago Bears QB Rex Grossman - "Good Heroes" and "Bad Heroes" - you don't know which one is going to show up. Well, "Bad Heroes" showed up for the finale Monday night, leaving more questions than answers. Did Grossman write this episode or something? It got 11 million viewers or so for the finale. Didn't the season premiere do better than that?
Volume 2 of "Heroes" was much like Grossman - inconsistent and flat out bad at times. "Heroes" threw too many interceptions and fumbled the ball a lot this season. If both don't get their act together, both should be benched.
Though the Writer's Strike has already done that to "Heroes". Too bad there isn't a football strike to get the Bears and Grossman (and the Patriots) off TV.
You clearly don't understand how serialized dramas work. Part of the fun and intrigue of them is that they are never ending and they always leaving you with more questions than you had starting out. That why Lost is so good. They show us that Jack made it home and torture us with the "how did that happen"? Heroes is no different. Nathan gets shot and we are left to ponder "Who did it? Was it HRG? Was it a future Peter?" Heroes and Lost are like books; each episode is a chapter. We don't get the ending until the show is cancelled. If you want Heroes to stop leaving you with questions, you are watching the wrong show.
And for those who are going to rant that I'm comparing Heroes to Lost, get over it. I didn't say Heroes was better than Lost or even as good as Lost. But they are shows of the same type. Whether one is better than the other is a personal choice.
quote:
Originally posted by T Dog: I'm about to use a football analogy, so if you follow the sport, then you get what I'm saying.
Regarding "Heroes": When you think about it, describing the show is pretty much like describing Chicago Bears QB Rex Grossman - "Good Heroes" and "Bad Heroes" - you don't know which one is going to show up. Well, "Bad Heroes" showed up for the finale Monday night, leaving more questions than answers. Did Grossman write this episode or something? It got 11 million viewers or so for the finale. Didn't the season premiere do better than that?
Volume 2 of "Heroes" was much like Grossman - inconsistent and flat out bad at times. "Heroes" threw too many interceptions and fumbled the ball a lot this season. If both don't get their act together, both should be benched.
Though the Writer's Strike has already done that to "Heroes". Too bad there isn't a football strike to get the Bears and Grossman (and the Patriots) off TV.
While I called Heroes a "serialized drama" in my earlier post, that was more by default than true description. This is getting far afield for a site devoted to ratings, but since the strike has put a real damper on any serious ratings discussion, here goes.
Heroes isn't a drama, serialized or not. It's also not a comedy show, or at least not intentionally. It's also not a sci-fi show, as there is nothing remotely accurate or believeable in its depiction of anything scientific. It's not even a fantasy show, as people's fantasies usually involve something actually happening. No, Heroes is simply a "bad" show. It's not akin to Lost or really anything else, except for perhaps Viva Laughlin and its ilk. It isn't written as an actual story, at least not by any writing standards ever used anywhere outside mescaline dreams. It has no consistent internal logic, no through line of any type, and no story and/or character development. It's basically a comic book as written by an inebriated 45 year old man who has never read comics and is a barely functioning illiterate.
Any real story has a beginning (Point A), a middle (Point B), and an end (Point C). The only thing that makes a serial drama different from any other type of show is that they simply take a lot longer to get from points A to B to C, and then they attempt to start it all over again using a variation on a theme. Season One of Heroes actually had a great beginning and middle. Unfortunately the ending was poorly executed, and by bringing Sylar back this season, Heroes showed that it's ending last season wasn't only inept, but that it was also not even an ending.
Then they started this season right in the middle of a what itself was a muddled middle, and they have pretty much stayed in the muddled middle to date. Although it should be pointed out that in the middle of the muddled middle they attempted to flesh out a beginning, to no real effect. Since then they have sort of veered all over the place with no real destination in site, nor with actual real minor stories to fill things out. It's basically been Exposition, Exposition, Exposition, Ooooo Sparkly Things, Exposition, Exposition, Completely Unbelievable Character Non-Development, Exposition, Exposition, Sparkly Thing, Here Are Some Scenes From Next Week's Exposition.
And scene.
I'm actually not at all certain that anyone is really criticizing Heroes for not having an ending. I think the real problem is that there is no beginning and no middle. I think Gertrude Stein summed it up best when, upon seeing the third episode of season two, she remarked, "There is no there there."
At least, I think that she was talking about Heroes.
TV peaked with St. Elsewhere, until Joss came along anyway.
Originally posted by Schmoker: Any real story has a beginning (Point A), a middle (Point B), and an end (Point C). The only thing that makes a serial drama different from any other type of show is that they simply take a lot longer to get from points A to B to C, and then they attempt to start it all over again using a variation on a theme. Season One of Heroes actually had a great beginning and middle. Unfortunately the ending was poorly executed, and by bringing Sylar back this season, Heroes showed that it's ending last season wasn't only inept, but that it was also not even an ending.
No one will deny that Heroes was very disappointing this season, but honestly most of you write could be said about any show you want to criticize. For example, Lost has been a mess since season 1. Yes the cinematography is great, the actors are pretty and Hawaii is gorgeous, but the story is all over the place in order to last six seasons instead of the two-three it should have been.
Posts: 636 | Location: NYC | Registered: 02 November 2007
According to The Futon Critic LINK Monday night's ESPN football game set an alltime record for most cable viewers, beating High School Musical 2 by a narrow margin.
America really, really wants to see New England lose.
I'm still finding a lot of the "Big Bang Theory" episodes funny the second time around. I hope viewers come back to this show after the strike.
Wow, "October Road"'s ratings are horrible... ABC should have saved it and promoted it more for a January premiere.
My problem with "Heroes" this season isn't that it's slow and the plot meandering, or even the new characters. It's that I'm already sick to death of the repetitiveness of the storylines, and the stupidity of the characters needed to drive these storylines. This season, it was back to Claire acting like a whiny high school cheerleader, Nikki back to her weak self... And the supposedly brand new Volume 3 starts with Sylar getting his powers back? A show should not feel like it's same old, same old, a quarter of the way through Season 2. As for the "Lost" comparison, the hatch stuff in Season 2 wasn't the best storyline, but it still felt new. Also, the full-episode focus on one or two episodes at a time develop the characters and make them more real to me. The two shows are quite different anyhow... I don't think "Heroes" is about secrets or an underlying mystery, it's more like a "Smallville" type save-the-world show, except with more heroes. The core audience of "Heroes" though I do think will stay with the show, so it should maintain around 10 million. I think most fans of the show don't mind the repetition with Sylar and such.
Originally posted by Zitrone: No one will deny that Heroes was very disappointing this season, but honestly most of you write could be said about any show you want to criticize. For example, Lost has been a mess since season 1. Yes the cinematography is great, the actors are pretty and Hawaii is gorgeous, but the story is all over the place in order to last six seasons instead of the two-three it should have been.
What are you smoking? Most fans and critics agree that the last 16 episodes of S3 (excluding the jack's tattoos episode and hurley episode) were the best batch of episodes that Lost has ever put out. That can be evidenced by the fact that critics voted the Lost the second best show of last season. I highly doubt that a show that is a "mess" would do that well And I can't even begin to fathom the idea that they could have told the story they have in 2 seasons considering the amount of layers the mythology of the show has. They have the best possible plan right now with the story being told over 5 seasons worth of episodes. Right now we are about 60% into the story so if they were to go by your model (of 2 seasons and out) then according to you all the events that have happened so far should have happened by the second episode of Season 2 I'm sorry I can't think how they could have packed all this information into 1 season without seriously compromising the quality and character development. Storylines would have lacked the punch without being given enough time to build and get people emotionally invested. And it would have sucked all the fun out of the show because mysteries would have lasted like 1-2 episodes before being answered, one of the best part about Lost (aleast for me) is discussing the theory and events the perspired after watching a new episode and I think that is one of the reasons for show's success, if they answered mysteries too quickly they would stop people from talking about the show and effectively kill it.
Originally posted by Jared: I'm still finding a lot of the "Big Bang Theory" episodes funny the second time around. I hope viewers come back to this show after the strike.
Big Bang Theory was doing ok in reruns while HIMYM was leading in with fresh episodes. However, with both of them a rerun this week, BBT 's ratings dipped more. It is probably a good idea that CBS is pulling BBT from the air in favor of The Captain.
I'm sorry I can't think how they could have packed all this information into 1 season without seriously compromising the quality and character development. Storylines would have lacked the punch without being given enough time to build and get people emotionally invested. And it would have sucked all the fun out of the show because mysteries would have lasted like 1-2 episodes before being answered, one of the best part about Lost (aleast for me) is discussing the theory and events the perspired after watching a new episode and I think that is one of the reasons for show's success, if they answered mysteries too quickly they would stop people from talking about the show and effectively kill it.