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HEROES mini series on NBC in 2015

14K views 508 replies 66 participants last post by  TitusTroy 
#1 ·
#5 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by Aleron Ives  /t/1519327/heroes-mini-series-on-nbc-in-2015#post_24396531


Unless it resolves or at least addresses the cliffhanger ending of the main series, it seems like a hollow gesture.

I think it's best to start fresh because then you run the risk of getting bogged down in all the problems of the original series. Other "Heroes" can show up in other parts of the world that do not cross paths with the originals.
 
#7 ·
Bah. This series deserved to die. After a great and imaginative first season, it got bad fast, and stayed that way until it was mercifully put out of its misery.


You want to impress me Big Four Broadcast Network television? Bring back 'Firefly' for a "miniseries event". The thunderous cheers that announcement would elicit would shake the very ground of geekdom!
 
#8 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by archiguy  /t/1519327/heroes-mini-series-on-nbc-in-2015#post_24397273

Bah. This series deserved to die. After a great and imaginative first season, it got bad fast, and stayed that way until it was mercifully put out of its misery.


You want to impress me Big Four Broadcast Network television? Bring back 'Firefly' for a "miniseries event". The thunderous cheers that announcement would elicit would shake the very ground of geekdom!

So say we all. Well, at least me...
 
#9 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by archiguy  /t/1519327/heroes-mini-series-on-nbc-in-2015#post_24397273

Bah. This series deserved to die. After a great and imaginative first season, it got bad fast, and stayed that way until it was mercifully put out of its misery.


You want to impress me Big Four Broadcast Network television? Bring back 'Firefly' for a "miniseries event". The thunderous cheers that announcement would elicit would shake the very ground of geekdom!

Yeah but most of the reason for the poorer seasons was the writers strike. That screwed things up for so many shows. I wouldn't mind seeing Hayden in her cheer outfit again either. Would like to see a few of the originals return for at least a cameo.
 
#10 ·
The writer's strike is no excuse. They made a conscious decision to keep Sylar in every season and turned him into a terrible character. The writers retconned the first season, couldn't decide if he was good, bad or misunderstood, made up new and more ridiculous powers for him, took them away, gave them back, gave him a love interest etc. Heroes made Sylar the focus and then wrapped every story around him like a daytime soap.


The Sylar Show was one of the many things that sent Heroes spiralling and him not being in this uneccesary reboot is probably the only thing that makes it worthwhile.
 
#11 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by archiguy  /t/1519327/heroes-mini-series-on-nbc-in-2015#post_24397273


You want to impress me Big Four Broadcast Network television? Bring back 'Firefly' for a "miniseries event". The thunderous cheers that announcement would elicit would shake the very ground of geekdom!

If Firefly had been on NBC it would definitely happen. It seems NBC have started to run out of other properties to remake and are now just remaking their own shows that just ended.


Friends and Seinfeld should be just around the corner ...
 
#12 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by ambesolman  /t/1519327/heroes-mini-series-on-nbc-in-2015#post_24397377


Yeah but most of the reason for the poorer seasons was the writers strike. That screwed things up for so many shows. I wouldn't mind seeing Hayden in her cheer outfit again either. Would like to see a few of the originals return for at least a cameo.

The writer's strike only lasted 1/2 a season not three.


VisionOn is right about Heroes turning into The Sylar Show. Keeping him the main focus totally ruined the show for me, and I know I'm not alone with that.


Hopefully a 13 episode series will keep things from getting too stagnant.
 
#13 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by mhufnagel  /t/1519327/heroes-mini-series-on-nbc-in-2015#post_24398162



VisionOn is right about Heroes turning into The Sylar Show. Keeping him the main focus totally ruined the show for me, and I know I'm not alone with that.


Hopefully a 13 episode series will keep things from getting too stagnant.

I was just skipping through some old threads to remember what happened and completely forgot just how bad the writing became regarding continuity. They were retconning characters every other week after season two.


edit: it appears someone added a list of a few (!) things that went wrong with the Heroes continuity for the TV Tropes "retcon" entry. Curse you three year writer's strike!


http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Retcon

  • Season 2 of Heroes has a rather clumsy example. In the middle of the first season, it's revealed that Matt's wife is pregnant. This causes a few fans to wonder if the baby is really his, since she cheated on him earlier in the season. However, in an episode set five years in the future, we learn that the kid is named after Matt, sends him crayon drawings of himself and mommy from hiding, and, most tellingly in a show where almost everyone with superpowers gets them from Super Powerful Genetics, has a power. Then in an early Season 2 episode, Matt says that whoops, turns out it wasn't his kid after all. In "Fight or Flight," a later Season 2 episode, however, it is implied that he has accepted that it isn't his child without any actual proof, when he has a nightmare in which his wife chastises him for not reading her mind and learning the truth, so this may be a reversion more than rewrite.
  • In S1, Mohinder was originally said to have been two years old when his sister died, but they changed it so that he was born months before she died in order to wrestle Molly into his plotline.
  • Season 3 retcons Sylar's murderous ways as a side effect of his original ability. His ability to know how things work apparently gave him a "hunger" to kill people just so he can satisfy his fix for more power. This of course ignores that S1 and S2 showed him utterly reveling in murder, even when he didn't have any abilities.
  • Although it does explain why a socially suave murderer capable of killing someone, turning around and dropping back into whatever character he was playing to manipulate someone else into doing what he wanted without missing a beat would have a Room Full of Crazy stating "Please Forgive Me" over and over, which Suresh encountered in S1.
  • The writers have a go at fixing this one again, with Sylar shown to have gone through a guilt ridden phase around the time the series began, presumably redecorating appropriately.
  • Take it as a retcon or a further loss of his humanity, but as of season four Sylar can seemingly suppress his hunger (evidenced by a casual road trip that lasted for several episodes next to tasty brain Luke) but still revels in his murderous behavior, perhaps moreso.
  • The plot that tried to explain this retcon also retconned Elle's background, as she is portrayed as relatively normal and even caring and guilt-ridden, rather than sociopathic and murderous as in season 2. This contradicts season 2, in which she states she was diagnosed as a sociopath at eight.
  • The first one noted above was settled once and for all in volume 4, where it's confirmed that the baby is Matt's.
  • It seems that every other episode that something new is added to Noah Bennet's back story that wasn't there before. A prime example in season 4 when we see that Noah almost participated in an affair during the events of season 1, when his daughter was in danger. Then later in the season, we find out that he had a deceased wife that had never, ever been mentioned in the plot before.
  • Claire having magic blood in Series 2 which can resurrect anyone from the dead, such as when Noah Bennet was killed after being shot in the eye. This is promptly forgotten after this incident and by Series 4, when her biological father Nathan is killed, reviving him in this way is never an option.
  • The actual cause of what gives them powers has also been retconned several times. At first its hinted at being a genetic trait which has something to do with the brain. This made some semblance of sense, until an Eclipse somehow turned everyone's power off. And then Hiro's mother had some kind of mystical power that was the key to abilities... or something?
  • There's also Sylar's parentage. When we first meet him, he tells us his parents were ordinary people (indeed, they're too ordinary for him). It's later revealed that he's adopted, and that his real parents are Angela and Arthur Petrelli. This is later retconned too, and it's revealed that his real father was an evil psychopath that killed Sylar's mother.
  • The Petrelli situation creates a particular problem; Arthur and Angela were leading opposing sides in a war between people with abilities at the time, yet both of them had the idea to convince Sylar he was their son?
 
#14 ·
I stand corrected. Guess it just felt like three years😁


Despite a number of wtf moments, we always enjoyed the show. Here's to hoping the hiatus has gotten the creative juices flowing in the right direction.
 
#16 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by archiguy  /t/1519327/heroes-mini-series-on-nbc-in-2015#post_24398383


I think it's safe to say that most of us were "hate-watching" by the end just so we could come on here and kvetch about how bad it had gotten, all the continuity errors, character retconning, motivation shifting, etc.

Also funny to see on the tropes page the classic Prison Break retcon of decapitating a character then bringing them back to life. I still enjoyed Prison Break more than when Heroes started to fall apart, because that show at least started to accept it's absurdity. Heroes to the end never stopped tying to be too clever and the writers just couldn't pull it off.
 
#17 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by VisionOn  /t/1519327/heroes-mini-series-on-nbc-in-2015#post_24398574


Also funny to see on the tropes page the classic Prison Break retcon of decapitating a character then bringing them back to life. I still enjoyed Prison Break more than when Heroes started to fall apart, because that show at least started to accept it's absurdity. Heroes to the end never stopped tying to be too clever and the writers just couldn't pull it off.

+1 loved prison break
 
#19 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by Aleron Ives  /t/1519327/heroes-mini-series-on-nbc-in-2015#post_24398738


I suppose the key to enjoying Heroes is to not watch the first season. I only saw the later seasons and was sufficiently entertained. Perhaps if I'd known how much better it reportedly was at the beginning, I'd have been disappointed by the decline, too.

Actually, just the opposite. Watch the first season and then quit. If anybody tries to get you to watch any more, just say no. Trust me, it's better that way.


Too late for you, of course, but perhaps your sacrifice can help some somebody else avoid the same fate. If it helps save even one person from having to watch 'Heroes' following seasons, it was worth it.
 
#21 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by archiguy  /t/1519327/heroes-mini-series-on-nbc-in-2015#post_24397273


You want to impress me Big Four Broadcast Network television? Bring back 'Firefly' for a "miniseries event". The thunderous cheers that announcement would elicit would shake the very ground of geekdom!

As a geek, I have heard great things about Firefly, but didn't watch it the first time around. I saw Serenity back in college when that came out, and was mildly entertained, but when Netflix came out with streaming I decided to give Firefly a chance.


It was terrible. Don't know what people saw in it, and in my opinion it was understandably cancelled. I did enjoy Dollhouse, especially the 2nd season which was a vast improvement over season 1 (too many standalone episodes, not enough story arc), but that one was cancelled due to lower viewership from people who just didn't get it. I don't think that was my problem with Firefly, I definitely "got it", it just wasn't very good.


Hereos season 1 was fantastic, but the issue was that "Volume 1" was a self-contained story that leaked into Volume 2. Season 1 ends with Peter and Syler ostensibly dying, yet season 2 starts with both alive and well. The writer's strike didn't help, because they had to film what they had written. And executive meddling caused popular characters to become super-powerful, which makes the show boring.
 
#22 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by tighr  /t/1519327/heroes-mini-series-on-nbc-in-2015#post_24401271


As a geek, I have heard great things about Firefly, but didn't watch it the first time around. I saw Serenity back in college when that came out, and was mildly entertained, but when Netflix came out with streaming I decided to give Firefly a chance.


It was terrible. Don't know what people saw in it, and in my opinion it was understandably cancelled. I did enjoy Dollhouse, especially the 2nd season which was a vast improvement over season 1 (too many standalone episodes, not enough story arc), but that one was cancelled due to lower viewership from people who just didn't get it. I don't think that was my problem with Firefly, I definitely "got it", it just wasn't very good.

No shame in being in a tiny minority. Your admiration of 'Dollhouse' redeems you, somewhat.
 
#24 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by zaphod7501  /t/1519327/heroes-mini-series-on-nbc-in-2015/0_100#post_24397215


Way too many episodes for a stand-alone story.

That was my first thought. Pretty sure that I am not going to be willing to take on 13 more episodes of the reboot of a show that kept going downhill after its first season.

Quote:
Originally Posted by archiguy  /t/1519327/heroes-mini-series-on-nbc-in-2015/0_100#post_24401305


No shame in being in a tiny minority. Your admiration of 'Dollhouse' redeems you, somewhat.

What can I say? I Am a Whedon-head and have loved everything he has done, most recently the charming Much Ado About Nothing. It tickled me to death that he cast his Whedon Stock Company friends in the film and shot it in his house and back yard. Who but Joss Whedon could think up something like using your friends to film a Shakespeare comedy in your house. I wonder who paid for the wine.
 
#26 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by gwsat  /t/1519327/heroes-mini-series-on-nbc-in-2015#post_24401481


Who but Joss Whedon could think up something like using your friends to film a Shakespeare comedy in your house.

Eh? What about every independent filmmaker with no budget?



The only reason Whedon's movie got attention was because his friends are all well-known actors. If they hadn't been it would have been dropped into the well of indie movies that nobody watches with all the others.
 
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