Plagued by falling ratings and fan gripes in its third season, Heroes has announced a top-level shakeup with co-exec producers Jeph Loeb and Jesse Alexander being removed:
Both scribe-producers had been with the show since its first season and were known to have led the day-to-day production operation under the direction of creator/exec producer Tim Kring.
“Heroes,” produced by Universal Media Studios, has struggled in the ratings its third season. It’s understood that Alexander and Loeb were let go because of Peacock execs’ frustration with the creative direction of the show. The show is also said to have been grappling with hefty budget overruns this season, that are going well beyond its already sizable $4 million per-seg pricetag.
Ouchie. CBR got a comment from Loeb:
“As of today, Jesse Alexander and I have left ‘Heroes.’ I’m incredibly proud to have been a big part of the success a show with eight Emmy nods and a win this year for NBC.com. I will miss the superb cast and writing staff and wish everyone the best.”
Show going to go down even faster. Look at that, execs thinks they know what they are doing. Hopeful they’ll stop with the 4400 story line they seem to borrow and get thing back on track. I’m going to miss Jeph Loeb on this, He’s a great guy and I bet he’s was one of the main reason this show worked so well in the past.
Maybe they read Ultimates 3?
Just think: this way, the network and Loeb/Alexander can easily blame each other if things go downhill mid-season. “If they hadn’t replaced us, we could have made it work.” “Sadly, the show could not recover from the damage done by those producer/writers we kicked out.”
Frankly, I’m inclined to side with the people who have creativity, but maybe that’s just me.
Great news. The scripts for HEROES since the end of Season 1 have been terrible, with characters making dumb decisions or acting completely out-of-character, other characters being simply forgotten about (Remember Caitlin? The writers didn’t), and meandering storylines that ultimately lead to unsatisfying conclusions.
I’d suggest Brian Bendis as a replacement, but then all we’d get are questions repeated back multiple times. (We would? We would. We WOULD? We would.)
> Frankly, I’m inclined to side with the people who have creativity, but maybe that’s just me.
You read Red Hulk or Ultimates 3? Calling Teh Lobe “creative” is only applicable if you stretch the definition of the word beyond breaking point…
My big problem with season 2 was that they took the most interesting character — Sylar — and not only took away his powers, they put him in a car with a girl who’s only power is that when she gets angry, everyone’s mascara runs and then they die. Oh yeah, the whole Japan storyline was dumb. I’ve been to Japan and I remember it looking like, well, Japan.
It didn’t look like Oklahoma.
I stopped watching four episodes into the season. It’s just got so muddled, so wishy-washy, so slow-moving. The first season was good and had so much promise, but it’s been terrible ever since.
People keep bringing up Caitlin. Caitlin is, in effect, dead. She’s trapped in a future timeline that none of the time travelers can reach again because the sequence of events that caused it has been altered. Other than Peter feeling really bad about taking someone to the future and losing her, there’s not much else to say there.
In some ways, last season doesn’t really count because of the strike messing things up. However, this season has no excuse. Aside from the VERY silly decisions made by so many characters – a bag of plot-hammers was delivered to the Heroes writers, apparently – there’s a big structural problem.
That is, the small, choppy segments worked great in the first season as we were being introduced to lots and lots of characters, and their stories which at first didn’t seem to link were eventually converged into one. That was great – it led to the last episode being much more of a “traditional” narrative. It seems to me now that this “chopped up” contrivance has long outlived its usefulness, and is only serving to add a false feeling of suspense to what would otherwise be four or five long and unforgivably dull story lines.
My advice to any new regime would be to dump the whole “jumping back and forth” thing, bring it down to two or three major threads (with minor detours when needed) and focus on making characters do things for personality’s sake, not for plot’s sake.
@ Glenn.
But the fact that she was basically never mentioned again and left her fate in a fog makes for bad writing. She wasn’t so much forgotten about but just jettisoned. And her fate, in addition to other poor choices, makes Peter one of the more douchier characters on television.
I think Heroes would be good if Hal Linden were playing the Robert Forster part. Who doesn’t like Hal Linden? What show isn’t better for adding Hal Linden?
Season 1 of Heroes was pretty boring and far from perfect.
Season 2 was largely forgotten thanks to the strike, even though it was better than Season 1.
Season 3 has been very interesting, and I like it.
So, what have we learned? Refusing to pay writers what they deserve thereby causing a strike hurts a television show. Too bad none of these executives will ever learn this lesson.
Every scripted show on television has room for improvement, and if you don’t like a show, then that’s your personal opinion. Can’t fault a person for their opinion, but some of these statements cross over into judgements on the person or their talent. That’s not really fair.
What I wonder about is why would the person whose main contribution to entertainment has been Crossing Jordan let go two people who know the superhero world the way Loeb and Alexander do? It’s his show and he can hire and fire at will, but I still don’t get it…other than that they’re being blamed for the lower ratings and targeted for removal whether they’re at fault or not.
Also, I wonder why everyone who sees the future draws like Tim Sale.
Amid all the hubbub about HEROES no one with the show or the Network is talking about the fate of HEROES: ORIGINS which was supposed to be a second series set to run as soon as season 3 ended. After the aborted season two, HEROES: ORIGINS was halted before the first episode (set to be directed by Kevin Smith) could even be shot. Smith doesn’t even mention it on his website. It’s gone and forgotten before it ever came to be!
“Amid all the hubbub about HEROES no one with the show or the Network is talking about the fate of HEROES: ORIGINS which was supposed to be a second series set to run as soon as season 3 ended. ”
Wasn’t the plan that HEROES: ORIGINS would air after (or in the middle of) Season 2? That is, the season that got shortened by the WGA-strike, not the current season 3. If that’s the case, then it isn’t that surprising that the WGA-strike monkey wrench hurled into the production of season 2 had the ORIGINS spin-off series as a casualty.
Anyway, NBC did talk about HEROES: ORIGINS as being scrapped when they announced the Season 3 debut (see http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/index.php?id=51591 ) Other than the fact that that series won’t be happening, I don’t know that there’s much for anyone to talk about, really.
To expand on Spurgeon’s idea, why not hire Ted McGinley? That guy can make ANY show work! (I’m not sure what his super-power would be, aside from showing up on series that are swooning and then artificially enhancing their life spans….)
To expand on Spurgeon’s idea, why not cast Ted McGinley? That guy can make ANY show work! (I’m not sure what his super-power would be, aside from showing up on series that are swooning and then artificially enhancing their life spans….)
What show has ever been improved by adding Hal Linden? Not to knock Hal Linden, but he hasn’t even been in a regular series since Barney Miller!*
Everyone knows the key to saving a show is by adding a baby and/or precocious child . . . Growing Pains, Cosby Show, The Brady Bunch, Sooby Doo, etc.
*IMDB Fun Fact! Hal Linden did voiceover dubbing for Destroy All Monsters and Godzilla Vs. The Sea Monster!
“”Just think: this way, the network and Loeb/Alexander can easily blame each other if things go downhill mid-season.””
Um, this is mid-season.