Ian: Well, it was announced last week that NBC’s once-acclaimed, hour-long superhero drama ‘Heroes‘ is finally getting the axe after four seasons of declining ratings. And who is sorry to see it go? Well, we are to be perfectly honest. You could make a strong case that until Heroes came along, no one had ever done a superhero television show properly. Did anyone see ‘Birds of Prey‘? It was JESUS AWFUL x INFINITY.
Heroes was different though. It had great characters, very good acting and it really was a solid drama. At the height of Season One, 16 million viewers – everyday people, not just fanboys – were tuning in to watch a show about superheroes. Now compare that with the 4.5 million viewers who tuned in to watch the final episode of Season Four. So, what happened?
Save The Claire Bennet, Kill The Show
Ian: Nobody really cared what happened to her after her damsel-in-distress first season, just like nobody cares about Nuv when he’s got his Mr. Schmoopy-Face on. Why? Because invincibility is a boring power, and really only worked well when combined with other abilities. Remember when Sylar added her power to his collection? That shit was bad ASS. But, much to Nuv’s chagrin, Claire couldn’t be packed into that cheerleader outfit for long, and her sad-daughter routine was uninteresting to say the least.
Nuv: While invincibility can be a boring power, a good writer can show the flipside of that and make it an exciting weakness. Not being able to die is useless if, say, you’re buried alive. Invincibility is useless without super-strength, if someone ties you up and kills your mom 5 feet away from you – things that were teased (the latter), or done to other characters like Hiro’s samurai nemesis (the former).
Claire is hot and, as the first season proved, has the capability to not be super-annoying. When they came up with the ‘Claire experiments in college/kisses girls’ stunt, ploy for ratings that it was, it still could’ve been good times. Like everything else with this character though, they stopped just short of pulling the trigger on what should’ve been a bullseye of a storyline. The ladies tell me the same is true of Ian. A little bit short, and he always misses the mark…
Mohinder Suresh & The Infinity Loops
Ian: They never did figure out what to do with him. Was he a brilliant scientist or the world’s biggest patsy? Suresh was duped so many times that it made his character utterly irrelevant. Even when they gave him scary-ass powers he was still a dud and it’s a shame, because with his family ties to the superhero research project, there should have been a better place for him in the Heroes universe. In this universe there is NO place for Nuv.
Nuv: How often do you actually get a cool East Indian character in a show? Despite what the first season lead us to believe, the correct answer is never. (Almost never. Abed, from the Thursday night comedy ‘Community,’ rules!) What should’ve been Heroes’ Professor X, was instead their Thunderbird. Except he didn’t die right away. He stuck around to be annoying and useless. (Everybody turn, slowly, and look at Ian.)
Actually, did he even die at all? It’s so hard to keep track, as they were constantly killing and resurrecting everybody. Or some ridiculous variation on resurrection, like Ali Larter’s endless supply of siblings/clones. She was hot in a trashy way, but always the weakest part of the whole show. So, let’s make a million versions of THAT character, okay guys?
Back to Suresh. Giving him powers took away his unique place in the ensemble. As did flip-flopping on whether he was good or evil, something the show did with almost every character. None more than Noah “HRG” Bennet, one of the coolest characters on the show, stuck in a seemingly-infinite loop of moral ambiguity. Enough’s enough! Pick a f@¢%in’ side, Four-eyes!! Regurgitating the same ideas and trying them on every character like a glass slipper, alas, Heroes never found their Cinderella. (They almost did in one of the cooler storylines – when Matt Parkman began using his telepathy to ‘push’ people’s minds, but they chickened out on that s#!% too. Pussies.)
Kitchen Sinks Are The Same From Mexico To Ireland
Ian: There were waaay too many extra characters and way too many side stories. Remember Maya and Alejandro? The Mexican twins with the lamest powers ever? They spent ELEVEN episodes with Sylar, just dicking around out in the desert. And why was Peter in Ireland again? And whatever happened to Caitlin? And why in the s#!% is Nuv out of his cage?! The series suffered time and again from these little missteps, of which there were SEVERAL.
Nuv: You’re a misstep.
Ian: Your FACE is a misstep! Then there were the new characters that should have ruled but didn’t. I honestly thought the Season Four introduction of carnival leader Samuel Sullivan was going to be the salvation of the show. That funeral opening was by far the coolest kick-off since the show began, and I think every Heroes fan thought the show had finally found its feet again. As it turns out, that was not the case and too many episodes were spent middling around with Edgar looking semi-angry and Lydia looking semi-afraid…another failed opportunity. Kinda like when Nuv’s Mom decided to go through with the pregnancy…
Nuv: Samuel “T-Bag” Sullivan was indeed the s#!%, but even he and his ripped-from-1980’s-X-Men storyline couldn’t save the show. Funny, their first season was a riff on X-Men: Days of Future Past, with all of the ‘travelling back in time, trying to prevent our own doom, persecuted by mankind’ stuff. Maybe the problem was they should’ve kept copying Claremont/Byrne-era X-Men stories through those middle seasons. Oh, wait. They did. I forgot how they kept reusing those ‘Four Years Later’ and ‘Four Months Ago’ episodes. A cool concept. The first 14 times…
One other new character I loved, but as far as I know they never brought back, was the invisible dude played by Christopher Eccleston. He was ornery and awesome, and his training sequences with Peter Petrelli were cool as f@¢#!! Then again it’s pretty hard to mess up a training sequence. Unless you’re Ian, playing ‘spotter’ with his army of anatomically correct mannequin men and no lube.
Don’t F@¢# With The Petrelli Brothers
Ian: The cardinal sin that ultimately sunk that show was when they fired Adrian Pasdar. Pasdar’s dismissal (he found out he was sacked by reading the script) effectively removed the heart from the show. Anyone who watched Heroes from the beginning knows that the Petrelli Brothers were the backbone and when they fired Nathan they basically put the most significant, although unfortunately not the final, nail in the coffin for the whole franchise.
Nuv: Yeah. Nathan and Peter on one side, Sylar on the other. That was the centerpiece of the show, it’s coolest characters and also it’s inherent problem. The writers were trying to be on both sides of the fence, doing things that were ‘crazy’ and unpredictable game-changers, but then having to find some clunky way of returning to status quo. Are we to blame? It seems like a lot of the problems stem from fan backlash leading to creator back-pedalling. Choosing one way or the other may’ve resulted in a smoother ride for all on board…
Ian: Don’t blame the fanboys! Fanboys are always right! Except when they’re you.
Nuv: …but then again, maybe not. If they had stuck to their guns in the Season One finale, ground zero of where it all went wrong for the first time, one or both Petrellis would’ve been dead. Maybe the problem was too much Sylar. I loved Hiro and Ando in Season One, but they quickly got annoying for pretty much the entirety of the series thereafter.
Point being – I don’t know exactly what could’ve been done to save the show, and, unfortunately, neither did anyone behind the scenes. I guess once the cheerleader was safe, the world had no more need for its Heroes. It just didn’t know it until THREE YEARS LATER. (Odd, considering the amount of times the show visited it’s own future…)
In the words of your (almost) namesake Hiro: “YATTA!” You did it, Heroes. You’re finally gone. Maybe now I can remember you back when you were cool, without a constant reminder of the bloated, repetitive embarrassment you became. (Everybody turn, slowly, and look at Ian.)
Ian: Ha Ha! I’m not even wearing pants!
Put two in the air…
– The Big Two
NEXT ISSUE: PICTURES WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS! (DON’T WORRY, THERE WILL PROBABLY BE A THOUSAND WORDS THERE TOO…)
TUNE IN: SAME IAN-TIME, SAME NUV-CHANNEL…
