Will too much Heroes kill Heroes ?
By fred | August 23, 2007
They also produced online stories and comics to keep fans entertained, trading cards, and of course a video game is on its way too. And as if that wasn’t too much already the Heroes World Tour is being launched to promote the show’s DVDs of the first season.
Of course all bit networks are looking for a good hit, and once they got one, they want to make the most of it without waiting any second, especially NBC, succumbing to instant gratification instead of letting the show grow.
Gilbert isn’t saying the show should have never gone that way, but it shouldn’t have started so soon. And not that much. “To me, it’s as if NBC is pressing Heroes into child labor. The network is working the show like a mature blockbuster — on the order of CSI or Lost — too soon. Underneath all the great expectations, there is just a wee sci-fi TV series whose unformed back is carrying too much weight.”
Although, as he acknowledges, it didn’t help that so many people were fast to call it “the greatest show ever” or “the best new show of the season”, while it was not, really. It had potential to be “special and enduring“, but with an (undeserved) Emmy nomination coming that soon, it didn’t take much for them to loose their minds.
NBC finally had their hands on a good show, but they couldn’t wait to turn it into nothing more than a commercial product. And producers weren’t strong enough to fight back and defend their show, fight for their own vision for the show and how it should be made & evolve. Instead they have networks and fans make creative decisions, instead they got into the boat that’s drowning their baby.
“Heroes has been turned into a relentless and tiresome source of merchandising, casting, and spinoff hype — hype about how the show will grow as a product, not media-generated hype about how good it is“, and I think there a reason for it : it is not.
It had potential, but it feels as if they lost their way somewhere down the road, that finale was a God damned awful piece of crap, and now they’re only thinking in marketing terms, not creative ones. Now they are more focused on trying to please the fans rather than on writing good scripts and making a good show.
“NBC is “growing” Heroes as fast as possible“, hurting the show both inside and outside. All of this is likely to amplify the deception and negative response from the fans, since, when the second season returns on September 24, “it may have grown only tiresome“.
