Coming of a brilliant first season, big time buzz and anticipation, and an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Drama Series, it seemed like everything was going right for NBC’s signature show, Heroes. That all went away however, once the second season premiered. And now the creator of the hit show has made an official apology to fans.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Tim Kring admits he and the creative team behind Heroes “made a mistake.”
Why’s that? Well in what can only be classified as something more horrendous than a “sophomore slump,” Heroes found a way to not only shy away from its roots, but to bore its audience enough that reaching for the remote was a fan’s only option.
From the season premiere, where the best material came from the commercials, through the end of chapter five, there was no denying the writers’ strike had begun early on the Heroes set.
You can usually let an episode or two slide. But we’re talking about five pretty lame episodes here. So lame, that they may just even be deemed useless. We didn’t find anything out. We still had no idea why the hell Hiro (Masi Oka) was stuck back in time for so long, or what he was doing there in the first place. And we also don’t know why it takes so long to fly from Ireland back to the U.S. to find out who you are. Didn’t Peter (Milo Ventimiglia) have to go from that Texas diner to the high school to save Claire (Hayden Panettiere), all in just a commercial break last season? I’m sure some airline could have helped him out here. And why is Claire all of a sudden stuck in a bad episode of One Tree Hill? And Niki (Ali Larter). What happened to Niki? She’s had maybe three lines all season.
Even more annoying was we are being thrown new characters that we were just supposed to jump on the bandwagon with. Fine, Monica (Dana Davis) isn’t that bad, but really, why should we care about Maya (Dania Ramirez) and Alejandro? Who are they? Why does Maya cry so much? Why hasn’t Sylar (Zachary Quinto) just killed them already? And the Veronica Mars girl, is getting pretty annoying. Just find Peter so he can off you already. Why can’t we get more about how our initial characters are doing? The ones we grew to love and support from the first season. I’m far more interested in how their relationships with each other have developed after teaming together near the end of last season. Why dump all that just to bore us?
The episodes have been far too cluttered and far too slow for anyone to really care about. It’s one thing to know you’re such a great show, with such strong material that you can sometimes get a little lazy. Fine. But it’s another to flat out show you just didn’t care
Now, that all may seem a bit harsh, but that’s not just my opinion. Tim Kring knows it too. He points that out in his apology, going through each of the “mistakes” and basically boiling them down to: we just didn’t put much thought into it. Which basically boils down to: we just didn’t care.
So great. Kring sees that the pace is slow. He admitted that the new characters just cluttered things up, that Hiro was back in time for far too long and that Claire needs to heal from her bad storyline.
All Heroes fans know the potential of this show and Kring himself. We’ve witnessed first hand how brilliant this show truly is. These past two episodes seemed to start getting things back on track (and notice, no Maya and Alejandro helped, as well as bringing back Hiro to the present). I think it’s smart to just omit the first five chapters, from both our minds and the season 2 DVD as well. Where’s the Haitian when you need him?.
I know this may all seem too harsh and hey, I probably couldn’t come up with episodes nearly as good as the bad ones, but the show has made a fan out of me and I feel cheated. It’s like if you’re a New England Patriots fan, and everything is going brilliantly … and then Bill Belichick decides to start Matt Gutierrez at quarterback for the rest of the season. Huh? Exactly. But you’d be willing to forgive Bill once he puts Tom Brady back in and starts winning again, because, well, the season isn’t over and you’ll probably still reach the Super Bowl. Really long analogy, but you get my point.
So great. Heroes looks to be back on track after taking a massively wrong step this season. You’ve got to give Tim Kring credit for listening to fans and knowing that some things need to be changed quickly on his wonderful show. After a 15 percent decrease in viewership this season, a few tweaks and some note taking from fan input, and I’m certain those lost viewers will find their way back, and then some.
-Ralph Galvan, BuddyTV Staff Writer
Source: EW.com
(Image courtesy of NBC)
Senior Writer, BuddyTV
John watches nearly every show on TV, but he specializes in sci-fi/fantasy like The Vampire Diaries, Supernatural and True Blood. However, he can also be found writing about everything from Survivor and Glee to One Tree Hill and Smallville.
