Fallen Heroes3

by Damon Martin

“Save the cheerleader, save the world”

It seemed like such a winnable premise. A comic book come to life on the small screen, with genuine comic book writers being an integral part of it all, and a television network willing to sink time, money and production into the series to make sure it’s a winner. That’s the beginning that was the hit series Heroes, which soon became the dwindling ratings show Heroes, and is now the canceled TV show Heroes. How did a show with so much promise and critical acclaim become such a superpowered fail for NBC??

Hitting the airwaves in September 2006, Heroes was the brainchild of television and film writer Tim Kring, who brought along writers like Bryan Fuller, Jeph Loeb and Jesse Alexander to pen a series about a group of extraordinary people discovering their “abilities” and how they would use them in their everyday lives to do extraordinary things.

The first season of Heroes introduced fans to a bevy of characters with special abilities, showing all of them living everyday lives, trying to make it in the world. There was a heroin addict who could tell the future, a nurse who is convinced he has more to offer and can do so much more, a politician who flies, a Japanese office clerk who suddenly realizes he can stop time and teleport himself anywhere in the world. In the first few episodes, the writers set the bar high. Crisp dialogue and smart character development ensured that the show was an instant hit – and a guaranteed water cooler topic the next day.

Heroes was a rating’s success for NBC, pulling in over 15 million viewers for episodes during its debut season, and was immediately renewed for a second season. Actors and actresses careers were launched during that first season. Previously unknowns like Hayden Panettiere and Zachary Quinto became household names, and went on to film roles thanks to their time on the show.

Zachary Quinto’s character, Sylar, was actually played by a different actor in earlier scenes in the show, when the character was just viewed in the shadows with a tight baseball cap pulled down over his eyes, shrouded in a black trench coat. Once Quinto took over the role, his charismatic acting and evil demeanor made Sylar the ultimate villain in a world in need of heroes. Last season’s finale brought all the heroes together for the first time for a climactic finish which saw Hiro Nakamura (a Japanese office clerk) fulfill his prophecy as he plunged an ancient sword through the gut of the evil Sylar. So where did it all go wrong? Let’s examine a few of the many ways that Heroes fell from glory.

How many of you remember that scene in The Crow when Brandon Lee shows up at Funboy’s window as he’s shooting heroin with his girlfriend? Lee proceeds to tell a joke while Funboy shoots him several times and when Lee refuses to fall, Funboy screams, “Don’t you ever (expletive) die?” That pretty much sums up Heroes; In a nutshell some of the characters on the show just refused to go down and stay down – the writers and producers just kept bringing them back.

Take Nathan Petrelli (as portrayed by Adrian Pasdar) for instance. During season one of the show, Petrelli is an ambitious lawyer in the District Attorney’s office who is running for Congress out of the State of New York. Petrelli succumbs to the evil mob boss who befriended his father years ago, and decides that the best way to increase his own political clout is to let a bomb go off in the middle of New York City, killing millions, so the city’s population will come together and look for a savoir i.e. Nathan Petrelli. Nathan finds out that the bomb is actually his brother Peter, who has gained a dangerous nuclear ability from another special person, and instead of letting the explosion happen he grabs his brother at the last moment and flies into outer space where the pair ignites in a giant fireball.

It would seem that over the span of 23 episodes, Nathan Petrelli has gone from evil politician looking to gain world power, to a caring brother who would sacrifice himself for the greater good of the people and save the world. Not so fast. Petrelli somehow survives the explosion, falls back to Earth, becomes a religious zealot, sees dead people, decides to give everyone abilities, forgets about that and decides to capture and imprison all the people with abilities, and then finally at the end of season three has his throat slashed by the evil villain Sylar bringing his storyline to a close.

However throat slashing doesn’t necessarily equal death in the Heroes universe. Petrelli’s family decide that his death can’t actually take place, so they ask mind reader and mind manipulator Matt Parkman to implant all of Nathan’s memories into Sylar’s head (at this point he’s also a shape shifter who can take on anyone’s form), and let Nathan continue to live on. It sounds pretty ridiculous, I know, but as an avid comic book fan, any storyline can reach a somewhat ludicrous level of believability, but this was too much even by comic book standards.

It was this dedication to the comic book way that got Heroes into trouble. Sure, every comic book reader knows that no character is ever truly dead. For every Gwen Stacy (Spider-Man’s first girlfriend who was killed by the Green Goblin and never actually returned), there are a million characters who come back to life, again, and again and again. With Heroes though, the writers just refused to build any character up and then just allow them to die. One of the great things about the ABC series Lost was that the writers and creators let the audience know from day one that anyone could die, and there was a good possibility they could die on the next episode.

With Heroes, the writers made such a mockery of death on the show, that any character that met their demise was just as likely to return the next week as they were to stay dead. And even when characters died and stayed dead, the actors or actresses just kept popping up like a bad burrito after a midnight bender. Ali Larter, who was an early star, ended up playing several characters on the show, and whether it was an iron clad contract or something else going on, she just refused to go away.

To compound the issue, there were several characters made with such powerful abilities that it almost detracted from the show. Claire Bennett (as portrayed by Hayden Panitteire) had the ability to heal and never be harmed. She was the only one like that, until season two introduced a new character named Adam Monroe with the same ability. Sylar then took the same ability from Claire, and thus became invincible. And Peter Petrelli borrowed that ability to prevent himself from being blown to smithereens at the end of season one. You get the point – nobody was dying on this show.

Beyond the characters who refused to die were the plethora of actors and actresses that the writers just continuously introduced into the show’s plot. Heroes, like Lost and other large cast shows, depends on the audience getting to know and love the characters, identifying with them, picking out their favorites, and then rooting for them as the show goes on. But with Heroes, as the seasons moved forward a new character was seemingly introduced with every episode. Fans got tired of all the new faces popping up, and the writing for the established characters started to suffer. Instead of focusing on the 10 to 12 major characters introduced in season one, the Heroes writers added new people constantly, and most of them were painfully annoying, so much so that fans would scream to the rooftops for the show to get rid of them. Even when they brought in solid actors like Zeljko Ivanek, the producers couldn’t seem to find the right role for them to play.

The next nail in Heroes coffin came by way of arguably their most popular character. Remember earlier when I was talking about Zachary Quinto’s spot-on performance as psycho killer villain Sylar? Well, he did such a good job playing the role that fans flocked to that character more than any other singular person on the show. The end of season one was supposed to bring about Sylar’s demise at the end of Hiro Nakamura’s blade, but alas when fans love a character that much, stabbed or not, he’s coming back.

Sylar was brought back for every following season, and dabbled in being a good guy, a very bad guy, a kind of neutral guy, and consequently never quite found his true footing. The writers just never seemed to grasp the character for what he truly was – a villain. People happened to like him as a bad guy, much like Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker in The Dark Knight.

Sylar’s multiple random character arcs were just one of the plot problems that created the next major issue with Heroes post-season. Basic storytelling was also an issue. Beginning with season two, the writers didn’t seem to have much direction, and when you finally figured out which way they were headed it took them forever to actually get there. Much like a long car ride with your great Aunt Matilda who smells like mothballs, and pretends she doesn’t have bad gas, Heroes took an innordinately long time to get to the point and by the end of the road you just wanted out of the car. Because the first season was essentially one giant story arc that culminated in the finale, apparently the writer’s felt every subsequent season had to go in the exact same manner.

Perhaps a good example of how Heroes might have better approached their story arcs can be seen on “Smallville.” Currently wrapping up their tenth and final season, Smallville has had the same sort of grand climax in every season of their show as well. But interlaced with each episode or every couple episodes is another story that can be viewed in just those couple of hours so it remains satisfying to the casual viewer. The final battle or final storyline still comes together at the end, but Smallville has the knack of giving each episode its own life, while still adding a little bit more to the bigger story along the way.

Heroes alternately moved at a snail’s pace, or took the story in so many directions that by the end of an epsiode the audience was simply going WTF?. Show runner Tim Kring even admitted after season two that he probably should have moved the stories along much quicker, and would try to repair that for future seasons. It worked somewhat in part of season three, but failed again in season 4. The plotlines were so long and drawn out – and yet hollow in nature – that just about everyone tuned out by the time the show came to a close in February 2010. At this point, just over 4 million people viewed the final episode, a stark contrast to the 15 million plus that tuned in regularly for season one.

Heroes seemed like a can’t miss hit, especially after a critically acclaimed and award winning initial season. Like a band with a great first album who never gets that second hit, Heroes simply never got back to form. The show tried bringing back old writers while firing new writers to try and gain their mojo back, but nothing worked and the show went from being a powerhouse to a puttering mess. The sad thing is season one may still be one of the best 23-episodes of television ever produced, but with each sequential season the show just fell apart.

The Heroes are fallen, and they will likely never be resurrected again. The death of the show at least guarantees that the characters will finally stay down for good – although never count out Sylar popping up as a special guest to kill off somebody on 30 Rock (or SNL?). It could happen. Still, fans can appreciate the great moments in season one, and the periodically great moments scattered throughout the remaining three seasons.

All four seasons of Heroes are now available for purchase on Blu-Ray and DVD.