Now, I’m a comic book geek from way back. I used to spend a lot of disposable income on comics, but that habit ended abruptly the month of my first mortgage payment. That was a long time ago, so when NBC put Heroes on the air a few years ago, it made me all warm and gooey inside. That first season was amazing: great characters, an exceptional villain, a tightly plotted and detailed story arc, an awesome climax. It had everything.
The subsequent seasons have failed to live up to the promise of season one, spectacularly so. There have been lots of rumors surrounding the show being cancelled, and based on the last few seasons I’m not sure it deserves to continue. In a nutshell, the show needs to do the following if it wants to keep an audience:
- Stop introducing so many new characters, and focus on a smaller group. You don’t have to necessarily kill off extra characters, but come on – is the plot really advanced in any way by continuing to inflict Tracy Strauss (Ali Larter) on us? It wasn’t necessary to kill off Nathan Petrelli (Adrian Pasdar), but he did need to have a severely diminished role. Suresh (Sendhil Ramamurthy)? Is he really necessary to the ongoing plot? (seems to be dead now)
- On a related note, STOP KILLING ALL THE COOL CHARACTERS! Let’s see, we had Linderman (Malcolm McDowell) as a cool villain – currently dead. Also, Parkman’s dad was a really cool villain, also dead. Adam Monroe (David Anders – currently in this season of 24) was a great villain, and is in fact dead. Arthur Petrelli (Robert Forster), don’t mind so much that he’s dead. Emile Danko (played by the outstanding Zeljko Ivanek) had some unrealized potential and could have been a great recurring villain but alas, also dead. See where I’m going here? They continue to violate the Darth Maul rule, which is, don’t introduce a great villain and then just kill him off.
- Adopt the X-Files storyline formula. X-Files had a good strategy in that they had a lot of weird random stuff they wanted to do stories on (the so-called “monster of the week” episodes), plus they had the ongoing government conspiracy storyline to tie things together. They alternated these episodes so that there was some ongoing continuity as well as some variety in the story, and it worked well. Heroes should take this approach.
- Come up with an ongoing compelling purpose for us to care about the Heroes. The main thrust for most of these guys is, they just want to be left alone (see: Claire going to college, Peter being a paramedic, Parkman wanting the family life). Well, that’s fine, I guess, but that doesn’t make for interesting storylines. At what point are these people going to realize the great lesson from Spider-Man? Isn’t Parkman’s desire to be with and protect his family the perfect reason for him to don a costume so he can use his powers for good?
What do you think NBC should do to save Heroes? It’s almost as if they don’t care. Your ideas in the comments.
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It really isn’t surprising that Heroes has deteriorated since the first season. The reason is obvious once you switch the remote to off and venture out into the world. There are no shining examples for us to emulate much less cast in a series. An adventure for a man these days is to see if they can flip between two football games at once and balance their beer on the arm of their favorite chair. There’s very few valliant heroes out there who are willing to take risks and make rescues. Even more upsetting is there are very few men who are willing to rise up and be “that hero” for their children. Thanks John for always putting your kids first and once they are snug in bed, then turning to your DVR! I hope the trend catches on!