Greetings and Bonjour, my movie faithful. Welcome once again to the temple of the pop-culture elite, the gathering Place of the partakers of the Ambrosia known as the distracting media and the place for in-depth analysis of our favorite escape devices from the painful pressures of the real world. I am as always your humble host The Emissary of Disney. I must first start with some apologetic remarks to the inpatient in the audience. There have been some great movies this summer season and will get to our analysis of them soon enough. However, I personally feel as if I must first address a subject that is closer to my heart. I am speaking of both a travesty and a tragedy. While some of you might not wholeheartedly agree with the following statements I personally feel that this outrage deserves some voice to speak for it if none of its so-called "fans" will do it. I speak of course of the tragic apparent demise of the show Heroes both from within by the apparent either incompetence or unwillingness to be overly creative by its own writing staff and from without by the lack of faith of a fan base that once upon a time numbered in the hundreds of thousands. What follows is a humble plea not only in the event that important network executives see these words, but also to whatever sport of loyalty still blazes within that fan base.
Perhaps the saddest thing about the whole mess with Heroes getting canceled is that the whole thing started with the writers. Some of you will remember that Heroes tragically was the first victim of the rebellion of the greedy writing staff of several writing unions, or whatever the technical term is, a few years back. That situation forced us fans still reeling from the show's incredible debut to have our hopes tragically dashed as the season was cut short. Even when the strike was halted and apparently the issues were resolved apparently, (or at least it is evident satisfactory to my mind), that there were some lingering issues in the minds of this Heroes writing staff. While they did a very good job with the seasons following the unfortunate strike, they unfortunately also made a lot of unfortunate mistakes in the series that contributed largely to the show's eventual demise. (I will address those mistakes in further detail in a later paragraph.)
I realize that I am laying all blame on the writers and my apologies to those who don't agree. It is just that to me that seems like where most of the blame lies. Heroes number one problem was simply arrogance. The writers saw the ratings for the show skyrocket in the first season than they figured they could divide the thing up into smaller "chapters" and so they robbed the show of the 24 or Prison Break-like mysterious appeal it had on its viewers the first season. That was the minorist mistake they made. I mean, it is understandable if they did that in and beginning of the second season because of the writers strike but to continually do it is just wrong. It robbed the show of one of its main points. That is all I'm trying to say.
Now that I've pointed out the minor mistake I will state the main reason why a major network like ABC or at least SpikeTV should make an effort to save the show. To the exulted executives of ABC I say: In case you were unaware of it, Tim Kring said in an interview that I was fortunate enough to find on the Web that he was partially inspired to create Heroes by our own Disney Pixar classic The Incredibles. I would submit that that makes the show partially our sort of stepchildren. I ask you would not maintain or even improve our much vauled image if we picked up and brought back from the brink of the abyss a show that everyone had given up on? To say nothing of the ratings. Furthermore. I might add that we have only one good science-fiction show left to our name since the conclusion of LOST. Think about it. To Fox I say: You are even worse off in that department because you already recklessly abandoned one show a good potential when you canceled Dollhouse like you did. Do you really want to let another potential ratings generator slip through your fingers in case they listen to the ideas I present in this post? And to SpikeTV I say: Why not? You do host the reruns for Star Trek Voyager and you did host the Scream Awards where Heroes took away at least two awards and you are doing fine, do not misunderstand me, but you could always use a good ratings booster.
However, even if miraculously the show does manage to be picked up by another network it will still need to correct some of the heinous mistakes it has made in the past that has caused the fickle mob of TV viewers to our abandon it like it has. What follows is a short list of ideas followed by I have thought of that, in my humble opinion, will not only resurrect the show but will, if done right, restore Heroes to its former glory as a ratings powerhouse.
1. First and foremost the show should get back to the mystery and foreshadowing that helped make the show such a success in the first season. I mean that's part of what kept LOST on for so long, isn't it? You know, back in the first season I said to myself "This show must be the offspring of the X-Men and 24 for the reasons that I have already explained. Seems to me what the show needs to do to get back on top again is to get more people to say things like that.
2. It really doesn't sit well with me that they killed off so many impressive characters before they even "got their sea legs", if you will. I'm talking about people who got killed off before they should have, in my opinion. People who had really cool abilities that we only got to see once or twice. I'm talking about people like Candace or Eden or even Simone. The situation with her pretty much sucked, anyone would probably admit that. We didn't even get to see if she had an ability, which given the trend of the show considering this aspect, anyone would also admit it is a very real possibility. Eden’ character could do with a comeback also. I can think of three reasons. She was good-looking, she had almost the same powers as Silverfox and she seemed kind of deserving of redemption, in my opinion. Hannah (a.k.a. Wireless), should have a comeback also for much the same reasons. Not to mention it would be both ironic and appropriate if she "hooked up" with young Micah, considering their powers. (Of course, it may be that I'm stretching here because there may be an age difference between them. It was just an idea. And of course I mean to say hooked up in the nice way, not the inappropriate way.)
3. Perhaps the worst case of the people that I mentioned however is Elle Bishop. In the second season the dynamics between her and her Greek tragedy-like father reminded me strongly of the dynamics of Star Wars between Darth Vader and The Emperor, in the sense that he saw her less as his daughter and more of a weapon. That character deserves the chance to be something more than a weapon. She deserves to be loved. (Besides which, isn't Kristen Bell supposed to have some sort of loyal fan base from that other show? Where the heck were they when she was killed off like that unfairly? If they didn't like that character than they should have made it better instead of just giving up. Don't people always say never give up?
4. It is very, very good that they gave Hiro his full powers back at the end of the previous season because they’re necessary for a part of the storyline I have in mind. Yes, that was a step in the right track. Now we just need to push the rest of the way. It would be nice if he found a new love interest and they developed a relationship and then she got in trouble so now and he had to save her or better yet she save him. Maybe one of those females I previously mentioned?
5. If they do follow through on my third suggestion, they should really give Syler and Elle another chance as a couple. Seemed like they had pretty good chemistry until he went and killed her like that.
6. The villains of the new storyline should have a evil gimmick that hasn't been done to death like the evil carnival has been with Marvel. I have a suggestion that I believe has merit. What about some sort of private club with various chapters all over the world run by someone who is also a prince of a nation nobody has ever heard of? That combines two of Marvel's best villainess gimmicks into one. Think about it.
7. It really bothers me that there wasn't any reconciliation between HRG, Claire and invisible coed Rebecca over her issues with HRG, shall we say? There should have been. If indeed that volume had been true to its name, maybe the show wouldn't be where it is right now. Rebecca could save Claire's life near the beginning of the season and later on she could let them use the sorority house to house all the other females I mentioned when they all meet up eventually as I plan for them to do in my storyline.
8. FOR GODS SAKE, (and I don't know how else I can stress this), give Peter his full empathetic abilities back. That was one of the best things about the show. That the least heroic looking character was a sort of Superman with the extra strength version of the abilities of The Lady Rougue. And then all of a sudden he has that taken away and replaced with a half strength version?WTF? When they go and make a mistake like that, it's no wonder the show went downhill after that. Mark my words, if you want to save the show, you're going to have to do that. Not all at once though. Maybe at the end of the season or close to it. It would also be good if some of the heroes were brainwashed into serving villainy for awhile. I mean, they never did that, right?
Okay. Here it is, my sample storyline for a new season of Heroes.
First and foremost, we must deal with the ramifications of Claire's little stunt at the end of last season. Because of what she did, the whole world is now aware that there is something weird about a large percentage of people. So I propose that throughout the course of this season, Brave New World, we have people shouting sort of resentful words at some of our characters as the storyline progresses and at the end most people recognize that they have just performed heroically and saved them all and most emphatically applaud them. But that, as they say, is just the tip of the iceberg.
While that is going on,Syler is still trying to deal with the transition from evil to good. He finally decides that the only way to really clear his conscience is to go back in time and stop himself from committing at least some of the murders committed. (After a long monologue conversation with Peter about it, that is.) He decides that the first thing he's gonna set right is Elle because that's the one he feels the most remorse about. (As well he should too.) So, having empathy-absorbed Hiro’s abilities from their time in the Carnival incident, Syler goes back to the exact moment when he killed her on that beach, freezes the moment and then teleports himself and her back to the present. Even when he tries to tell her he's sorry and he's changed, (blah blah blah etc.) she is too afraid to believe him. So she manages to knock him unconscious after a fast action sequence and runs away.
Well, I think that is where I will conclude this post for now. I promise that next time I will continue my storyline for Heroes because there is much, much more I'm thinking of doing. In the meantime, I hope some who read this post feel as I feel and think as I think because I fully believe that that show met its end before its time.
