Jeph Loeb and Jesse Alexander were removed as executive producers of the show.
Bad ratings are not good, but neither is spiralling costs.
from variety: "The show is also said to have been grappling with hefty budget overruns this season, that are going well beyond its already sizable $4 million per-seg pricetag."
Can't say I'm sad to see Loeb go, seeing as the problems Heroes seems to be having writing wise (characters acting out of character, lack of payoff) match up to the current problems with Loeb's comic writing (characters acting out of character, lack of payoff). I'm sure it isn't all on his head, just something I can't help but notice.
Originally posted by DrDirtI guess I am just too old but could you HEROES fanatics explain the appeal of the show. I tried but it was just kind of blah for me.
I must be on the way to getting old Doc, cause I now find myself in the same boat.
As someone who used to watch the show religiously & now has the current season sitting on my DVR as I can't seem to muster the energy to sit through a single episode, I humbly submit an answer to your question.
When the show started, it represented a fresh superhero story that we all clearly love (see the recent successes of Spiderman, Batman, Iron Man, etc...). Unfortunately the show has gotten into the irritating habit of dragging story-lines for an eternity, & then providing either no payoff or an extremely unsatisfying one. The premise represents the possibility of an entertaining hero driven tale, but the execution often fails miserably.
Can anyone provide an opinion as to whether I should catch up on the current season or clear the space on my DVR...?
Oddly enough, I have never regularly watched the show, despite having worked in the comics industry and been a comics reader and sci fi nerd for decades.
I think the show is just recycling superhero tropes that most long-time comics fans recognize a mile away and haven't done them all that well either.
(part of that could be due to the presence of Jeph Loeb, a writer whose work I rarely enjoy when he is not paried with Tim Sale.)
Sure, the stories (how a person gets their powers) have been told before, but never in such a way on tv imo.
These were regular people who suddenly found themselves with a power or two. How does one deal with that? Some freaked, becoming involuntary bad guys as a result, while others embraced it either for good or bad and all bringing their own angle on it.
That was season one. The appeal was watching how these people learned to accept their powers and with that their role(s) in life as the story worked towards one big event.
Season two introduced new twists but in such a way that everything that happened before was contradicted. Characters acted out of..character. New people and plots were introduced but we were not given a reason to care. Season three? Even worse.
The writing has just gotten very sloppy and the reset button seems in continuous use. With a show like 'LOST' the plot has changed over and over again as well, as well as allegiances and such. But the vibe of the show still gives me the impression it's still part of one bigger scheme.
Heroes has degraded to random nonsense with every now and then a cool moment. Kind of like a bad episode of Raw.
Is nobody watching this show anymore? With this week's pseudo-flashback episode they tried to set up how we got to where we are, but I found myself nearly as confused as I was before. I will probably get to the end of the season because I like to complete things, but this show has become a slog.
The Defending World Champion New York Football Giants
I've been watching it online when I have some mundane computer tasks to do for work. It's entertaining enough for that, but paying any more attention to it, I fear, would just make me dumber.
Lloyd: When I met Mary, I got that old fashioned romantic feeling, where I'd do anything to bone her. Harry: That's a special feeling.
Originally posted by piemanIs nobody watching this show anymore? With this week's pseudo-flashback episode they tried to set up how we got to where we are, but I found myself nearly as confused as I was before. I will probably get to the end of the season because I like to complete things, but this show has become a slog.
Well see, now it's HRG's fault that Sylar's a killer and Eric Roberts wasn't really that much of a dick OMG and Linderman was actually... the trick is not to when you watch the show.
Note to Angela: if millions of lives (including that of your 6th or 7th favorite son) depend on you killing your husband,a wealthy man with connections, CHECK THE PULSE YOURSELF. Taking someone's word for it, may be unwise.
On the upside the train tied into the beginning in a nifty way.
Originally posted by piemanIs nobody watching this show anymore? With this week's pseudo-flashback episode they tried to set up how we got to where we are, but I found myself nearly as confused as I was before. I will probably get to the end of the season because I like to complete things, but this show has become a slog.
I'm usually a staunch defender of the show, and go out of my way to point out how some of the things that bother people actually make sense, but this week's show was just one huge OOF for me. Retcon after retcon, with no regard for what they showed in season one. Thompson was written like HRG, and vice versa. Elle is a normal girl, not a childlike sociopath/sadist (something they seem to have dropped in "regular time" as well). Flint says he got captured by an invisible man, which was clearly intended as a callback to Claude, but Company Man showed us that Claude went into hiding after the Company had HRG try to kill him 7 years before. Apparently all the Sylar and Meredith/Flint stuff is taking place in the days leading up to the pilot, but Sylar is still the Sylar of Six Months Ago, and when Meredith first showed up she told Claire she'd settled in Texas months ago- this retcon makes it into weeks. And if Sylar has only just killed his second victim (and why pass up the chance to shut everybody up who wanted to know where Sylar got his ice powers?) why is Mohinder already in NY driving a cab? And how does Sylar somehow become an FBI's most wanted serial killer in the same day he gets pushed over the edge? And if they are letting enough time go by for this stuff and Elle and HRG have just been sitting in that van watching him kill people for months, then why didn't the Company know where to find him in all of season one? Even giving them a little wiggle room with the timeline, this stuff doesn't add up.
There was stuff I liked, to be sure (Flint getting some more characterization, and Sylar feeling remorse was ok with me because it explained the "FORGIVE ME" room from season one, it's just how they did it that annoyed me), but for the most part I felt like they were beating me over the head with the reset stick.
I can't get over the fact that they named the guy with fire powers FLINT. That's brain-smashingly stupid.
The retconning was bad...REALLY bad...but the worst part is the the story didn't benefit at all from the changes. If anything, the characters of HRG, Sylar, and Elle were weakened.
IMO the Sylar guilt trip (suicide and all) was done to make him a "victim of circumstances" which makes his rehabilitation in season 3 easier to swallow. OMG! He was never really a bad guy. He was forced down this road.
Bullshit. And yeah, the timeline got more messed up. The train wreck thing and everything was interesting, but the stuff happening in New York definitely made even less sense.
I might be reaching the point soon where I will wait for the entire season to wrap up and then watch it in 2-3 sittings. Hopefully then things will make more sense and I don't have to growl for a week.
Originally posted by SchippeWreckI can't get over the fact that they named the guy with fire powers FLINT. That's brain-smashingly stupid.
Worst part is they did the same with the ELLEctricty girl too.
I agree with what most have said. This wasn't the same flashback episode as the one they had in season 1 (I think it was season 1). That one filled in gaps, this one was WAY too much of a giant reset button over and over.
And the "18 months ago" and "1 year ago"'s seemed really wrong just for the sake of more connections and throw backs to stuff we've already seen from a different angle.
The train was a nice tie-in, but they didn't need to try to force so much of everything to be connected like they've forced everyone in the show to be connected in one giant incestuous family tree.
Sing this special song. It's just for you. Oh yes I forgot they finally named Sylar's powers specifically (don't ask how the company knew them exactly... files from his parents?) when Noah said that Sylar transfers powers from one vessel to another. Surely that won't be a huge Deus Ex that gets Peter his powers back.
Originally posted by Excalibur05Actually, HRG was written remarkably similarly to how he was portrayed at the start of Season One, so I applaud them for that.
and why pass up the chance to shut everybody up who wanted to know where Sylar got his ice powers
Wasn't that from one of Molly's parents?
It was theorized as such, but iirc he froze Molly's dad while he was eating, and Molly's dad was the one he took the brain of. I guess he could have frozen him after the fact for practice, but really until they say for sure it's open for speculation.
I agree that HRG was written similar to his first appearances, but I think they took it just one or two steps too far, and so it didn't ring true to me.
Originally posted by SchippeWreckI can't get over the fact that they named the guy with fire powers FLINT. That's brain-smashingly stupid.
As stupid as Victor Fries or Harleen Quinzel? I saw naming him Flint as a wink to the comic habit of giving characters real names were puns on their power or gimmick, much like them giving Peter and Sylar alliterative names.
Originally posted by piemanIs nobody watching this show anymore?
I was thinking the same thing ... All the doom and gloom surrounding this show appears to be justified if no one at The W can even summon up the enthusiasm needed to start a thread for Monday's episode.
Apparently, Ubisoft doesn’t think so. The company has pulled the plug on its “Heroes” video game, which was announced more than a year ago.
Since then, the TV series has gone from a pop-culture hit to a tangle of incoherent stories, so the French publisher decided to cut its losses.
The most hilarious thing about Tommy Dreamer is that everyone else in WWE, from Shelton Benjamin to dudes who haven't even debuted yet, has a T-shirt available. WWE doesn't even bother printing up a T-shirt for Tommy Dreamer, A MAN WHOSE GIMMICK IS WEARING A T-SHIRT WHILE WRESTLING. And why is that? Because not a god damn person would ever pay money for a Tommy Dreamer shirt. Not even his own mother. As a result he usually ends up wearing a shirt that says "WRESTLEMANIA 24" or "JUDGEMENT DAY." I think it's time for Tommy Dreamer to just print up a T-shirt that says "UPCOMING PAY PER VIEW"
I think this show pretty much reinforces the axiom that any story or show that involves significant amounts of time travel will eventually always screw up the continuity and end up sucking.
The logic error that bugged me the most was Adam Monroe's death. His cells regenerate - he isn't magically kept preserved as a 28-year old. If he loses his power, that just means he'll start to age and not heal, not that he ages 400 years in one day. When Daddy Petrelli stole Peter's healing ability, he didn't all-of-a-sudden suffer injuries from when he fell off a school or exploded himself. Healed cells stay healed cells.
On the other hand, maybe Daddy Petrelli has death touch power also, and took Adam's power and then killed him just for fun.
Sing this special song. It's just for you. EDIT~! I'll move this post to the thread proper, which I was pretty sure wasn't going to happen due to our sheer apathy over this show.
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