The once-hot HEROES has cooled considerably. The ratings are declining, producers are getting fired, and now Bit-Tech reports that Ubisoft has abruptly canceled plans for a HEROES game.
exactly it has been cancelled, speculation is that Ubisoft is
responding to declining interest in the show, which is now in the third
series. Though the show proved phenomenally popular in the first
series, the second series came to an abrupt end thanks to the writers
strike and the third season has struggled to get positive reviews.
I wonder how much longer NBC will stick with the show, which reportedly costs well over $4 million an episode.
UPDATE: The New York Times reports on NBC's attempts to save HEROES from sliding any further.
The impetus for the firings came from the top, according to two people
close to the production who spoke on the condition of anonymity. (These
and others close to the show were not authorized to speak on the
record.) They said that Jeff Zucker, president and chief executive of NBC Universal
and Mr. Silverman’s boss, was greatly upset by an Entertainment Weekly
cover story two weeks ago that said some of this season’s developments
were “jump-the-shark preposterous” and concluded that the series “may
no longer be a pop-culture phenomenon.”
[…]Yet on Friday, Entertainment Weekly also reported that Bryan Fuller,
one of the lead writers in the first season of “Heroes” who left to
create “Pushing Daisies” for ABC, is considering a return to “Heroes”
if ABC fails to extend “Pushing Daisies” beyond the 13 episodes it has
ordered for this season.
They should have stopped at one season. It was well done, a novel for television. I was already bored with season two before the writer’s strike and haven’t watched any this year.
How is it that some shows, like Heroes, take off like a rocket and then fizzle out? Alias was another that started strong but ended up a big wreck; the metal started grinding after season two. Maybe some concepts only have a short lifespan before writers and producers run out of ideas?
Suggested solutions:
1. Eliminate all of the characters except those with mind-based powers. All of the action scenes will consist of characters staring intently at each other while Wendy & Lisa music blares dramatically.
2. Turn the show into a Saturday Morning animated series. (Oops; NBC doesn’t have any Sat-am animated programing.)
3. Two words: Radio drama.
Poor Heroes… it jumped the shark a while ago… I still watch it but don’t ask me what the heck is going on… future, past, double-cross, triple-cross… villains become heroes, heroes become villains… make it stop!
For me it became like a soap opera where no one ever really dies . . . a character could get his head cut off and then come back (like Kevin Kline in SOAPDISH) and after awhile that becomes frustrating . . . the first season there was a basis in reality that there were a few people with special genetic abilities . . . now they’re everywhere, and yet not word one in the news media or on youtube? No one ever caught that kid flying on a camera phone?
And Ali Larter’s back, but as a missing triplet to the dead stripper mom character? And she never knew she had a special ability UNTIL now? Never got scared or angry during puberty and froze some shit?
These super villains robbing banks with super powers and it never gets reported?
It seems whenever they get stuck, they just invent a new hero and throw him / her into the mix.
In the early season, it was a big secret, the supers, and part of the fun was that it was running around trying to find those special people without the real world finding out.
Now it simply seems ridiculous no one has found out by now.
I’m still watching, but it seems to me the show’s forgetting its own rules and breaking them with abandon, which is too bad.