The once-popular television drama Heroes has been officially cancelled. After four seasons the NBC drama has been axed and as reported by The Hollywood Reporter, the American television network made the decision following disappointing ratings and high production costs.
It’s official. NBC has cancelled “Heroes.”
The network seriously mulled bringing back “Heroes” for a shortened final season to wrap up the serialized show.
In the end, given the fairly high cost of the drama, the show’s consistently declining ratings and the number of new hour-longs coming to NBC next season, the network decided the UMS-produced series wasn’t worth an additional season. Sources say the network is still leaving the door open to conclude the show with a special or movie.
The show has long had a rocky relationship with its fans. Out of the gate, “Heroes” was a big hit for the network – an ethnically diverse big-concept ensemble that performed well overseas. It was NBC’s “Lost.”
But the show’s writers struggled to keep the show’s twisting narrative on track. Characters were killed off and resurrected with regularity. Narrative threads were started, then abandoned. Unlike “Lost,” there didn’t seem to be series-long central questions driving the show that needed to be resolved with a final season.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
So sad to hear it’s all over but I must admit the writers were to blame. The lack of consistency in the character development and story-telling made the show frustrating to watch. A real shame, as I was a fan when it was first premiered back in 2006 to a staggering number of television audience.
But after the first season, the hype surrounding the next season made it difficult to retain that high standards and the writers strike of 2007-08 didn’t help in making season two a major disappointment. Not surprisingly, the audience lost patience and switched off in there millions.
Heroes dragged on for two further seasons but by then, the show’s twisting narrative had too many loose ends and it was difficult to care much with the characters.
Sorry Claire, you special ability to heal hasn’t work to save the show! And so ends Heroes.
Now my attention focuses on the excellent Mad Men, Breaking Bad and True Blood. Proper classy television dramas!
As reported by Variety. The news that Heroes is over. The full article is posted below:
News ends speculation that NBC was looking to bring the show back on a limited basis to wrap things up. That was still considered a real possibility until recently. But having picked up 11 new shows for fall, NBC likely didn’t see the need, the room or the money necessary to make such an arrangement.
Peacock execs are already moving on to a new superhero, anyway: “The Cape,” which has been ordered for 2010-2011.
A case study should probably be drawn up on what happened to “Heroes.” Rarely has such a strong opener fall from grace so quickly.
“Heroes” opened huge in 2006, and became such a quick player for the network that it quickly spawned a spinoff (which was ultimately scrapped), online components, books and merchandising. The rally cry “Save the cheerleader, save the world” became a marketing powerhouse.
The show’s creative, however, eventually fell off — a factor that some pegged on creator/exec producer Tim Kring’s busy schedule. NBC touted a rejuvenated series several times, and attempted to sell the show as a series of “books” with a beginning, middle and end. But viewers didn’t return.
And at some point, it didn’t make sense to bring such an expensive show back — even though Universal Media Studios is the producer. Season to date, “Heroes” has averaged a 3.0 rating and 7 share — down 32% from last year’s 4.4. Among viewers, its 6.5 million is down 29% from last year’s 9.2 million.
“Heroes” starred Jack Coleman, Noah Gray-Cabey, Greg Grunberg, Ali Larter, James Kyson Lee, Masi Oka, Hayden Panettiere, Adrian Pasdar, Zachary Quinto, Sendhil Ramamurthy, Dania Ramirez and Milo Ventimiglia. Kring was EP, along with Dennis Hammer, Allan Arkush and Greg Beeman.
Reaction to the cancellation has so far been of the “coulda been a contender” variety. Critics and fans said the show just didn’t live up to its season one promise.
“‘Heroes,” canceled by NBC, and rightly so, was one of my biggest disappointments as a TV critic. And viewer,” the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Gail Pennington wrote. “I loved it so much!”
“Heroes” even won the Television Critics Assn.’s 2007 award for program of the year, while the TV Land Awards gave the show its “future classic” award.
The cancellation of “Heroes” follows NBC’s decision to end “Law & Order” after 20 seasons. “Mercy” and “Trauma” were officially axed on Friday, as NBC paves the way for its new series.
TV Squad’s article on the cancellation of Heroes. Link – http://www.tvsquad.com/2010/05/14/nbc-cancels-heroes/
But here’s some good news. The American television network NBC is planning a two-hour or four-hour special event in mid-season to reward Heroes fans. See the Deadline link for the details – http://www.deadline.com/2010/05/nbc-cancels-heroes/
Even though I have the first season on HD DVD! ( thanks to CEX and nice 2nd hand price ) I never got to the end of it. There was just something that didn’t click with me.
I think the problem is this. The writers and TV studios are so scared of spending money on a show and it fail, that neither bother to put any effort into a second season or have a season season prepared.
Though TBO it is more the writers fault. They write a cracking pilot and have “an idea” on how to progress, but so many times they don’t have a fucking clue.
OR
They get carried away and just write too many episodes. This reason comes from the TV studios, as they get a hit show and then they try to run with it for as long as possible, even though sometimes, the writers don’t to.
Take Fringe for example. The first season was pretty good, but then you realised that the show could go on for ever with more and more weird cases for the team to solve. I just didn’t see any movement from the show to tell me where it was going. In the end, I gave up and I don’t think I’m missing much.
Then of course you have the longer running series where the original writers have long gone and we’re left with people who haven’t got a clue what the original writers ideas were.
I also hear Flash Forward is cancelled. Never liked that show anyways. Again, great idea, but no-one knew how to take it further than say 12 weeks.
But then the studios cancel so many good series and don’t have faith. Never watched it, but Dollhouse was supposed to be really good and I hear that’s cancelled too.
So I wont be shedding a tear for Heroes. Likewise, when will the shite that is LOST going to finally end. Get rid and good riddance!
It seems Heroes might be coming back… in the shape of a wrap-up mini series. Heroes creator Tim Kring hopes he can convince the NBC television network to make this to satisfy fans of the show so it ends on a positive note. More can be read via the link:
http://www.tvguide.com/News/Heroes-Tim-Kring-1019088.aspx
As for cancellations, I have a bad(!) habit of enjoying good television shows only for it to be terminated by the networks due to poor viewing figures. Some good examples is Arrested Development, Dollhouse, Flashforward and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. The characters, storyline and potential was there but unfortunately the viewers weren’t. Shame really as viewers prefer reality television rather than pure quality dramas.
Hey Leaf,
I promised I’d post something here but I’m about a month late so I’ll keep it short. One word that sums up my feelings about Heroes ‘after’ season 1, one word that exemplifies all that was wrong about the show, it’s story and, even sometimes, the script. One word, dare I say, that even SYLAR himself could not overcome, nor could he deny it’s overwhelming power to decimate ALL that would argue against it, nor could Hiro undo what once went wrong with his ‘flux-capacitor for a brain’ shenanigans, hell, even STING (yes Leaf) could do nothing to prevent the tragedy.
That word, is CAITLIN.
She came, she smiled, she saw, she traveled to an alternate future that was then made irrelevant by the man that had just fallen in love with her only to be abandoned there AND forgotten about by that same man!!!!!!! There’s getting dumped, there’s suffering writer’s block, there’s completely ruining an entire season’s worth of story, there’s falling off of a very high cliff that’s on fire whilst aliens try to probe you in MIDAIR WHILST STING LAUGHS IN YOUR FACE…
…and then there’s getting a ‘Caitlin’.
Even if you’re an atheist, pray, PRAY it never happens to you!!! @_@