End Of An Era: The Death Of Heroes
I can recall reading the advance reviews of Heroes in TV Guide and other media calling it "interesting". I already knew two paragraphs in that this was going to be an unadulterated hit, at least in my world. One of the criticisms about the show was its similarity to X-Men, and I thought that was rather stupid. Not everybody read the X-Men, and it wasn't exactly the same thing. Anytime you talk about mutation, people are going to throw Marvel's merry mutants at you. So what? Regardless, the idea of mutation allows for rich storytelling. People fear what they don't understand. I couldn't wait until the 1st episode, and the first season did not disappoint. Save The Cheerleader, Save The World.
Then comes the Writer's Strike. I understood the mechanics of it all, but that strike was the single-worst thing that happened to my beloved show. Chopped our season in 1/2, left us hanging for a year, and one of our best writers, Bryan Fuller, jumped ship to write another show that ultimately failed (lose-lose for everybody). I don't want to speak ill of anyone, but I don't think anybody really knew what they were doing after that. I had a conversation with D.H. Lawrence XVII, he is of the opinion that you shouldn't criticize writers unless you've written, but I disagree. You don't need to be an expert in something to know when it's going wrong. I don't need to write an entire series to know that this series was going wrong. Had it been going right, I wouldn't be writing this blog. We had character after character being introduced and suddenly being forgotten (Micah's cousin, the flying kid that dated Claire), the story was all over the place, and many people became disenfranchised with the series. Diehards like myself hung on, hopeful that things could and would turn around.
I don't know if that turnaround ever actually happened. I personally want the head of the nimrod that brought in Kristen Bell (Elle) and Brea Grant (Daphne) only to kill them off. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Personally speaking, I think they would have benefited from being more intricately and intimately written in to the core characters' storyline. Killing them was a cheap trick, a pull at the heartstrings that accomplished nothing. Kristen had a following coming off the cancellation of Veronica Mars (victim of a network merger) and Brea was gaining popularity rapidly (I liked her more than Ali Larter's character, who had been there since Day 1). Arguably they were underused resources that were indicative of the scramble behind-the-scenes to gain footing when the series started to slip in the ratings.
When they announced that Bryan Fuller would be returning for the 4th (and now final) season, I thought all would be well again in the world of Heroes (I re-watched the 3rd Season on DVD, and I liked it better the second time around). Somehow, that never happened. I'll need to go back through the 4th season to try to determine what might have been considered "wrong" (it's all subjective), there were a few stand-out episodes that I enjoyed, but we couldn't stop the axe from falling. I think we could have benefited from being on another network (sorry, Big Dave, but even you can't defend the Network responsible for the Jay Leno Experiment. They might sign the checks, but they are just rich idiots, and idiots nonetheless...), but we are stuck on a 3rd place network that cancels shows like "Life" and thinks that one vastly over-rated late-night host could be the salvation for their boneheaded leadership.
I'm not nearly as hostile as I originally was, because D.H. did point out that they were smart enough to hire him and all the other fantastic actors, producers, production assistants, and crew that made up the Heroes family. The Mighty Foz, Wendy & Lisa, the "other" Wendy, through Twitter, they connected us in a way that makes this so much more than just "another tv show being cancelled". I envy those who can just turn the channel and move on to the next show. It's really not been that simple for me. I have plans for fan-fiction of my own once I finish my own original stuff, I am going to have marathons just for myself, I will not let Heroes die. I wish I could say I was absolutely sure that it's totally gone (the resurrection of shows like Jericho and Family Guy give me hope), but for now, I've got to move on.
In the most cosmic stroke of Irony, The Mighty Foz (a producer on the show) tweeted this yesterday from his mobile (I know he wasn't driving and tweeting, right?):
"Almost hit a fucking peacock. A fucking PEACOCK!"
Foz, you should have squashed that fucking peacock into oblivion.
-ere'bodee's favorite mega, blogninja.
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