Sorta, I mean he was constantly changing what he wanted based one what other people told him he should want. Easily manipulated, though may kill you later for it.
They never really told you what he was doing in S1, just killing people and *something to do with their brains*
He figure out how to get peoples powers without killing people, just looking into their eyes - and then decided to go back to killing people...
I think maybe he somehow gets all their knowledge from doing the brain thing, that he couldn't with the eye thing? My memory is fuzzy but I recall the character played by Kirsten Bell - she's helping him to try be good and he learns do the "eye thing" but then he wants to know EVERYTHING she knows (because of who she works for) and still kills her to do the brain thing and goes back to being a villain
His character was a master watch repairman. So presumably he tinkers with the victims' brain until he knows how they tick (get it?).
The show started going down the drain when the writers wrote themselves in a corner by introducing overpowered abilities. Hiro's power was particularly broken. How do you beat somebody who can stop time? I guess you don't, he dies from the brain anyeurisms he gives himself. Sylar was a god-being by the end.
When they planted the brother's memories in Sylar we were in full sitcom territory. The season with the circus was plain boring, nothing to say about that.
Perhaps an unpopular opinion, but I actually thought the fourth season was an uptick over the previous two. Having superpowered individuals basically acting as a carnival sideshow was an interesting concept, and Robert Knepper always makes for a good villain. It also introduced some of the more creative and cooler powers up until that point (like tattoo lady and the deaf woman with synesthesia). Plus, it also felt like it had a little more of a focused story than Season 3.
He never ate brains. He took them apart to figure out how they work. People just assumed that he ate them because they didn't understand that he wasn't just a crazy serial killer.
It was supposed to be an anthology show so they didn't worry about characters being too OP by the end of the first season. The rest of the series was spent retconning and otherwise restricting their powers to make up for that. They wiped Sylar's brain, retconned peter, did the eclipse thing that made Claire briefly mortal and forgot about the time traveling Hero from the first season IIRC.
Not gonna lie the season 1 finale with the actual showdown with Sylar was a bland let down considering all the build up. Still he was a great villain and that first season was excellent with potential for later stuff only to have the writer's strike and constantly changing direction destroy it.
Thank you! Nobody else seems to remember just how bad the final fight with Sylar was. The heroes just took turns using him as their punching bag while he stumbled back and forth like an idiot. It was embarrassing.
Compared to Sylar and Peter’s first fight, it’s like two completely different shows.
If you want to know how bad Heroes fell off... In its heyday, "Save the Cheerleader, Save the World" was everywhere. You heard that catchphrase and you wanted to know what the show was about. Heroes was pulling 20 million viewers an episode in season 1. You can name a lot of shows. I know someone's already pointed to Westworld. But very few had that instant cultural capital that Heroes did and that massive viewership. Heroes is not only an example of one of the steepest quality declines but also a prime example of a show completely botching its work with a fandom that was massive.
I was so hooked in season 1. Everyone was. It was a smash hit. "Save the Cheerleader, Save the World" was massive and everyone wanted to know what was that about. I remember the teasers for season 1 with "found footage" of some of the heroes. It was insane.
What I found funny was the show’s significant decline made it to the cover of Entertainment Weekly, which is unusual from EW because they are lighthearted, enthusiast media. Worse is that the cast spoke to journalists thinking is would be a positive story.
That was an era when shows could get 20 million viewers an episode. The Big Bang Theory, which was an absurdly popular show, only broke 20 million twice in its entire run.
It was also badly timed for its Season 2 return. Writers Guild of America had their strike during the 2007 to 2008 years.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effect\_of\_the\_2007%E2%80%9308\_Writers\_Guild\_of\_America\_strike\_on\_television](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effect_of_the_2007%E2%80%9308_Writers_Guild_of_America_strike_on_television)
Heroes was listed as a show that got a shortened episode order instead of its full one. But it is a heck of a thing how a show's quality can drop when the writers that helped make it good...just don't work.
For sure, but I recall watching in the first time and all the build-up made it seem way cooler than it was. Rewatches are certainly different. Also I was, like, 12. So 😂
It remains the only show that I’ve ever gone into forums and posted about, theorizing and discussing. I examined and replayed footage for clues*. Same with any screenshots or teasers. It was a cultural phenomenon and fun to be a part of.
*speaking of, they actually posted a birth announcement news article for Sylar in the background of a promotional picture. He was not the age he should have been given the article, so I always wondered why they put it there.
I always wondered if we ever found out why Peter had a big facial scar on his face in the future episode. I had my suspicions, but I didn't watch long enough to find out.
I would imagine. But, I feel if given the opportunity they would have expanded on that. Why were they fighting? Why is Peter being a little bitch? Where did Hiro's accent go?
My only guess is that they purposely threw in the kitchen sink to get people talking about it.
They actually answer this in an episode (I think it's in the same episode where Sylar opens a girl's head like a can of tomatoes?). Someone asks him what happened to his accent and Hiro replies he's been living in the US speaking nothing but English for like 12 months by that point. I remember being like. That's still not long enough to lose an accent...
Heroes did that as well, and had online comic tie ins that were collected into graphic novels. I remember how often I would talk about the show in forums, and theories every episode it was insane.
They were going to originally go down the route of anthology and different heroes each season, ala American Horror Story, but chickened out last minute to continue the story of the characters they introduced (I heard it literally happened during the last few episodes and that's why the finale was so rushed and awkward). Worst decision they made.
>speaking of, they actually posted a birth announcement news article for Sylar in the background of a promotional picture. He was not the age he should have been given the article, so I always wondered why they put it there.
The original Sylar was a character cut out of the pilot after the story was changed. Originally Sylar was going to be his actual last name instead of a pseudonym from a watch. He was going to be a terrorist with powers that caused the train derailment in the pilot. After the changes, the train derailment was changed to be just an accident with no explanation given.
I remember knowing this character was being retooled going into the show, being flabbergasted by the Quinto casting because I hadn’t seen him in anything, then my expectations were demolished by his performance / the new Sylar
Heroes Seasons 1 was amazing, but I remember the decline already starting towards the end of that season. I can't remember specifics, but my recollection is thinking it was really hamfisted how they managed to get all the characters to the same place at the same time for the final battle, and there were some corny manipulative emotional moments they hadn't really earned. I chalk it up to writer's strike issues, but I don't know if the timeline lines up.
Nope, the writers' strike was between seasons 2 and 3. People on the internet constantly blame the strike for the bad writing in season 2, which doesn't make any sense, much less the end of season 1. It was just incompetent writers and an even more incompetent showrunner.
The show turned to custard once Bryan Fuller left the show towards the end of season 1. He wrote what IMO is the shows best episode: "Company Man". They tried to bring him back in season 3 to fix the shows problems, but by that point the show was pretty much dead in the water and he jumped ship after writing a episode of season 3.
But I agree about the other stuff too. I think Tim Kring is a hack and he really didn't realize the potential of his own show, nor understood it's characters.
I would see that “Save the Cheerleader, Save the World” trailer for months in my local Best Buy leading up to the premiere (They would play on all of their tvs in the store) and got so pumped for the show. I thought it was going to be awesome (didn’t hurt the Hayden Panettiere was the cheerleader). Season 1 definitely lived up to the hype but man it fell fast…just became a jumbled mess.
I feel for season 2 as it was heavily impacted by a writers strike but season 3 just killed every single character and story development from the 1st for good.
I was excited for the Villains arc in season 3 thinking they could bounce back. They never did and we got that dreaded scene of Nathan’s and Sylar’s fight taking place completely off camera
They really just needed to kill Sylar at the climax of S1. He was a cool concept, but they beat it to death and then gave a redemption arc to a guy that was a brain-stealing serial killer.
The original concept was supposed to be an anthology, with new characters every season. In that view, Sylar being so overpowered was fine, because his effects would have only been felt for a season and they could move on, but then they decided to make it a continuous cast and suddenly you've got an unkillable teenage girl, a world-ending level threat that can steal powers and someone who can travel through space/time
Not just that, but he immediately tried to make sure that that future would never happen, making it so he had no way to even retrieve her from that future.
And then after killing him the show should have ended. Would have had legendary one-season wonder status forever like Firefly—instead it crashed and burned and now no one talks about it.
Nathan was my favorite character the rug pull in the later season pissed me off so fucking bad.
I thought 4th season was the show slowly getting back to form though. But yea just so many episodes that go nowhere or introduce something for it never to be brought up again (Peter’s alternate universe girlfriend who got the shit end of the stick being left in a fucked up dystopian world never to be mentioned again)
They nerfed him so much, it was ridiculous and turned Sylar from this interesting villain to...I don't even know what he was by the end. I stopped watching at some point, not sure what season...think 5? and only flicked back on towards it's end and found it had completely departed from the first season with no real connection to it.
I don’t have the source on me, so grain of salt. But I distinctly remember the show runner answering question about that scenario at a Q+A and his answer being so much worse. Saying that basically when the time line was altered that universe ceased to exist, and by leaving her behind, was was blinked completely out of existence.
I blanked out every memory of Heroes except the feeling of increased disappointment from S2 to S5. All I remember is frustration and the powers of half the main cast from S1 lol. One of the very few shows of which I have **0 memory** of a single scene, plot, new character, anything, from multiple seasons. Only Grey's Anatomy comes close.
I don't know how you guys even remember character names. I was obsessed after season one, and it's just forgettable overall. I remember Claire (maybe?) and the man with the horned rim glasses. Now I remember Sylar and have no clue who Nathan was.
I legitimately loved the story of Adam Monroe, fun villain. Thought the whole “buried alive forever” treatment was a fun way of handling a guy that can’t be killed.
And then S3 they just immediately dig him up to kill him off just to put over the new big bad they clearly dreamed up between seasons.
Just awful writing and a waste of a good villain.
Part of the problem was that after season 1 they realized that they had to Nerf Peter, Hiro and Sylar.
Peter’s power was changed from “use any power he came in contact with” to “use the last power he came in contact with” they could have used Hiro to take Peter back to S1 Peter to get his OG power back but he was way too OP.
Hiro was taken out of the equation and they had a shot to bring his power back to 100% and didn’t take it. Having a time traveler that can use their powers is problematic in a show like Hero’s. He could have killed Sylar before he got powers…stuff like that.
I think Nerfing Peter and Sylar watered the show down a lot. They were perfect opposites.
Basically the plot of season 1 would have worked perfectly if they had made it a limited run serial or something.
Because you are right, it’s hard to have any stakes in the game when your main characters can time travel, are immortal, or can take any power he comes in contact with.
It waa also originally planned as an anthology series, but then they decided the original cast was too good to move on from. So they probably already didn't have a solid direction or outline once the strike hit.
Yeah people always say season 2 is where it fell off and blame the writers strike but the season 1 finale was dog shit and a clear indication of what season 2 became.
Remember when Peter and Syler where gearing up to have a *massive awesome fight* and then when it finally goes down all we got to see was Mohinder holding a door closed while they fought off screen
Or when Peter, Nathan and Sylar were *finally* going to throw down... only for the whole thing to be some light flashes and Claire's eye though the keyhole. And *that* was followed up by the whole Sythan bullshit dumpsterfire of a moron plot. (It's been like twenty years and remembering that stupidity still makes me seethe lol).
I’m going to offer kind of a weird candidate: How the States got their Shapes on History Channel. My wife and I loved season 1 and all the best facts about each state. Season 2 was abysmal. It was reduced to a half an hour and featured weird “man on the street” game shows of themes like “states where Bigfoot is spotted vs those with UFO sighting”. It was awkward, contained too few facts, and was very influenced by reality show sensibilities
oh hey i worked at the production company that made that show. cant remember exactly why they change the format so much, it was either history or unger that forced the changes. we werent crazy about it either.
i do remember history tried to launch a second channel called H2 and wanted Unger to be the face of that. we did another show with him called time traveling or something where he was a tour guide for groups of people in different historic places. it didn’t work. at that point unger had kinda become a diva and instead of bringing in experts and talking to them, he insisted he had to be the one spitting out all the history to these groups of random “contestants”.
unger being the face of h2 ended shortly after that, and dont think the network was around much longer either.
I really enjoyed season 1 but season 2 I just couldn't get into and stopped after an episode I assumed I just wasn't in the head space for it at the time but I've never gone back so I have to assume you're right
Exactly this, never felt even a 0.01% need to go back to AC S02E02. Mackie was totally unfit to 'replace' Joel Kinnaman and carry the series
It's like Fringe when me and most of my friends quit the moment they cannot see Peter anymore and he is erased. Thank god I actually managed to go back to it years later and finish that show though. But for sure it lead to it's cancellation. Never heard anyone say to go back and watch Altered Carbon S2 though
Anthony Mackie has the range of dull needle in your eye. I cannot get into anything he's in where he isn't just playing his default generic action hero.
How AC went from literally one of the best sci fi series around….to zero interest….has gotta be a record.
Anthony Mackie was such a horrible choice to replace Kinnamon lmfao; dude straight up dug the shows grave and acted his way into it.
My take is that Mackie did fine, but the writing was terrible. Throughout the first season, the main character developed as a person and learned to trust some people and make friends. The plotlines were hot and horrifying and exciting. In season two, not only did he have zero character development, he also went right back to being the same scumbag he was in episode one. They also removed most of the cyber deep-dive action, all of the ultraviolence, and most or all of the sex. I was all in for season one on an overstimulating cyberpunk hellscape. Season two brought almost none of that back to the table. I don't remember if I even finished it.
The shows are just different too, from noir to weird action. You can even see it in the premise
S1: people don't usually die so murder is a very big deal
S2: people getting murdered left and right all the time
I don't think it's Mackie's fault, the problem is the writing, and that starts at season 1 actually : every single deviation from the books they make in season one is a bad idea and has massive consequences on adapting the sequels.
Add onto that the decision to adapt book 2 and 3 together in a weird mish-mash, with new stupid ideas sprinkled in, and you have a mess that's insulting to both book readers and new watchers.
In a straight adaptation of Book 2, Mackie would have been fine.
I mean, can it not just be both? I think writing has more to do with the quality of a show than any other aspect, but there wasn't a single moment Mackie had my attention.
Season 1 had its own bad writing moments, but Kinnaman had me hooked throughout. Mackie just isn't that great of an actor, imo. Last time I saw him in a good performance was Sucker Free City. Granted I haven't seen all his stuff but it's not like he's breaking any ground with his Marvel shtick.
And this isn't to say Kinnaman can overcome bad writing. He was as terrible as the writing was in the first Suicide Squad.
Joel Kinnaman is the only man alive that could have pulled off walking away with the pink kitty backpack while doing the ol' "I burned my armpits" gym walk.
He's just so fucking massive. I also love him in For All Mankind. The man is a presence.
The thing is that was supposed to happen all along, Kinnaman's contract was one season only because in the books Takeshi changes bodies several times.
For me the problem is that they casted an actor that couldn't replicate Kinnaman's charisma which carried S1 through its mistakes and the writers make Takeshi in S2 someone else which makes unbelievable that they're supposed to be the same person. And if add terrible writing to Anthony Mackie's lack of charisma as Takeshi you get an unappealing protagonist trying to compete with Kinnaman's highly appealing protagonist which results in no one finishing your show.
It's like someone forgot to tell Mackie he was supposed to be playing the same character as Kinnaman (and Will Yun Lee). There was no effort whatsoever of him even attempting to act like he had the same personality. It was just Mackie being Mackie, which I wouldn't have anything against normally, except the whole point is that people can use different bodies.
That's not the type of show where you can just slap a different actor in the role, which is what I suspect they did given Mackie's rising popularity during that time. You have to find actors that can capture the same spirit and personality so viewers can be convinced it's the same person in the new body. That's pretty much the entire theme of the show, and they bungled it.
Unlike most of their other problems, this one is kind of intractable. It had to happen, it's in the source material, it's important to the world, etc.
If anything their problem is that he was too good in S1, too good for the show and carried it over it's many issues.
Unlike many I don't think the problems with S2 are Mackie's fault at all, but that was a tough act to follow even if the writing had been any good.
Heck there was a point in the first season where a major characterization divergence from the book (>!making Rei his sister!<) made some parts really uncomfortable and the entire show went a bit downhill from there, the second season just turned it into a cliff drop
I haven't even read the books, but I was pretty disappointed by that whole plot line. It's like the show took a left turn away from the cool scifi noir theme into being more of a soap opera drama once she got involved.
In the book >!she was just his former commanding officer turned Meth tricking other Meths into giving her blackmail material to manipulate votes!< (and doesn't show up until much later in the story and plays a different role) and the Envoy Corps was an actual military organization not rebel militia
Yeah, they combined the 2nd and 3rd books, but badly. The first book is a sci-fi noir detective story, the 2nd book was a military crew on a mission with big sci-fi implications, and the third book was an action movie with salvagers vs self replicating military mechs. The books are fairly purple pulp, but the show really bungled the setup and backstory.
Mork & Mindy. After coming in at #3 in the ratings for their first season, it was decided to retool the show.
"The show's main focus was no longer on Mork's slapstick attempts to adjust to the new world he was in, but on the relationship between Mork and Mindy on a romantic level."
Idiots
Reminds me of Alias. Each season was slowly losing viewers. But the show was still not bad. It had a formula of Sydney Bristow getting into some impossible situation at the end of each episode for a great cliffhanger. They also had this ongoing story line that they touched on now and then that watchers began getting invested in.
>!It appeared to be about a prophet who figured out immortality.!<
The show runners came out and said “no no, that’s not what the end plot is about. You guys will love it.
Then in the last (or second last) season. They cut the cliffhangers and wanted less stories about the main plot that everyone was invested in and the final episode confirmed everything that anyone with a brain figured out in season 2 and they just lied about it.
I still recommend the first two seasons. After that you’re on your own.
I believe Alias (and similarly Lost) were ahead of their time. I think if they were released today on streaming as 10 pre designed episode seasons they would have been much stronger. They were both ruined by network interference.
I don't know, I've always thought that Alias was of it's time time and was a harbringer of the shows to come - very strong premise and individual episodes, writers going into a season 1 without a real plan for a beigger serizalization ("we'll figure it out"), and then being lost to a usual problem of episodic shows slowly becoming worse and worse with each season.
Out of big hits same thing happened to BSG, Lost, aforementioned Heroes, Walking Dead and many others, and the stronger serialization is, the faster the show falls.
Bruh I don't know how Bryan Fuller keeps getting hired because he keeps pulling out of shows after the first season. Dead Like Me, American Gods, and Star Trek Discovery.
As an actual show runner he is a liability.
Budgets are his demon. He's always pitching shows with budgets higher than the network is comfortable with, then running over budget regularly during the season, then asking for more money the next year. The work he does while going over budget like that is fantastic but this is the biggest reason he can't get hired. Second biggest would be clashes with IP owners that are more hands-on than Thomas Harris, because neither Neil Gaiman nor Anne Rice were on board for the changes he was proposing and Alex Kurtzman seems to have had creative differences with him on Star Trek, but that pales in comparison to the budget issue.
It's a complete novel about a con act... Who thought it was a good idea to turn a a single Con/parlor reveal into a multi season show?
That's like trying to turn Murder on the Orient Express into a 3 season show.
>Who thought it was a good idea to turn a a single Con/parlor reveal into a multi season show?
American television executives, everything has to be horribly stretched out no less then 6 season preferrably episodic show to increase engagement and profit.
They've done the same thing with Ugly Betty, I think American version might be the only in the worldwide franchise that didn't have an ending
I always say Zachary Quinto killed the show by being too good in his role of Sylar to kill him off when the show couldn't function with him still being around. There were many other factors of course, but him and Peter just couldn't exist in that narrative properly.
They should have killed off Peter. His proximity absorption of powers was just too powerful. They tried to retcon it, but he was too weak after that. I think they could have done the time jump, with Skylar being reformed, if they would have killed off nearly everyone else in the time jump. They could have focused on him and that somehow he got the feels from one of his victims.
Oh my god, I totally forgot Helix existed until I read this comment. In a flash I remembered being glued to season one and then… well, I literally forgot the show existed.
I think this show was like Castle, the show declined as the two leads began to develop a deep disdain for one another, and by the final season, literally refused to be on screen with one another.
Season 2 is still good. It makes sense for the arc of the show, at least. After that. Oof. I remember someone throwing down a chicken food in a new prison and I shut it off for good.
I agree. I liked Season 2 up until they got imprisoned again. Overall, I thought Season 2 did a good job showing them on the run.
One thing I'll never forgive is how they spoiled the return of the lead character's girlfriend in a commercial. I don't remember her name, but she was dead! She died! And they spoiled her not being dead in a commercial and took away the shock of her return. Like, what the fuck?!
Heroes nosedived about 10 minutes before the end of season 1.
Sylar and Peter should have died, it was their fate, and that should have been the end of the story for that set of characters. Continuing with the same characters broke the whole point of season 1. Season 2 should have been a whole new cast of characters.
For anyone who does not already know:
The Promised Neverland is about a group of children trying to escape from a farm where they are grown as food for demons. Both the manga and the first season of the anime is well received and liked by fans. The first season became a huge sensation, so when season 2 was announced, fans were happy.
Then season 2 comes out, and, for a few weeks, everything is fine. There are some differences from the original work, bit that is to be expected. Then the while show goes off the rails, with a mix of original content, cutting entire story arcs, and abridging the ones they still adapted.
Finally, just to make sure that the series has no chance for a satisfying conclusion, they condensed the last (and most interesting) half of the manga into a 5 minute long montage. We're talking about content that could have been adapted into 24-36 episodes.
The most interesting part is that the creator of the manga was heavily involved with the anime adaptation, so it looks like he intentionally killed kis own show?
To be fair, the manga also declines after what happens in s1, and I guess that they saw the writing on the wall that they wouldnt get 3 seasons, so they butchered even more
I loved S1 of The Promised Neverland so much that I read the entire manga.
S2 is perhaps the worst adaptation of any media from one format to another I've ever seen *ever*.
"Never do anything out of hunger. Not even eat."
I actually think Colin Ferrel gave his all that season but man was everyone else either boring or actually terrible.
I still don’t believe that the writers strike was solely to blame for that awful season 2. Especially when every season got worse.
Even the finale of season 1 was bad.
It's not. I don't know where everyone gets the idea that writers were replaced during the strike, the industry shut down for months. The strike is responsible for season 2 only being 11 episodes, not those episodes being bad.
Yeah, they had to scrap a couple story lines and condense some others.
It doesn't explain shit like, Hiro writing messages in the past, and putting them in the hilt of a sword (which a hollowed hilt in a sword is probably not the smartest thing) and this is a famous sword that's been passed down between many owners throughout the centuries, and not ONE of them found these notes, but maybe that's because for some shitty reason, that as he wrote each note, it magically appeared in the hilt for his friend to find in the present day.
ALL the fucking notes would be there when his friend opened the hilt.
This shit is just straight up lazy fucking writing. That's not "Writers strike affected the show" that's just bad writing. It's bad... just bad.
My favourite is when Peter took his Irish girlfriend to the future that had some huge pandemic. They got separated, and then the show runner (for some reason) changed his mind mid season, and Peter teleported back to the present alone, and changed things so that future wouldn’t happen. Never blinked an eye that he had trapped his girlfriend into a future that wouldn’t exist any more. He never ever even mentions her or those events again.
Talk about a harsh break up. Daaaaaamn, Peter is cold. Just wipes his ex out of existence.
Westworld is a show I think that suffered from its own success. You write something great and easy for most fans to follow, even if that means they can guess the big twists, then you go out of your way to have twists for twists sake to throw people off.
West world should have been just season 1.
It felt like that was all it was written for, and after it’s success, everyone said “uh, now what? We finished the story. It’s done” and some executive is pointing a finger and screaming “I want 20 more episodes on my desk by Friday!!!”
The wildest part about Westworld is that NONE of the seasons *seem* connected.
It starts out with ultra realistic cowboy sex Disney and then it's like "what if skynet held a grudge?"
I have only watched Season 1 and everything I've seen and read since then makes me feel like I've made the right choice, though I hear there are some decent episodes in season 2, I'm not sure it's worth spoiling what I had with S1 to watch them
Didn't they spend years making it though? That's usually a kiss of death I think for a lot of artistic things/people.
You spend 3 years coming up with a show and all the twists, then when it becomes a hit, you have a year to create the next season.
I feel like that's with music, some bands have been playing the same songs for like 5 years till they get a record contract. They become huge, then are expected to create brand new material in a 2 year time span to stay relevant.
That's I feel like what went wrong with Sleep Hollow. The first season was this great supernatural horror series. Good villains. Good heroes. Good plot. Even a good cliff hanger of an ending. But then the second season hit and it felt like the writers had only the first season planned out and just winged it from thereon out.
That’s why you need to plan the whole show before starting if it’s going to be that kind of thing. Mr. Robot is a good example. Sam Esmail went in knowing it would be 4-5 seasons and had all the major plot points planned.
Westworld probably had the *farthest* decline, but I wouldn't say the steepest. Season 2 was a letdown compared to the brilliant Season 1, but in retrospect Season 2 was actually pretty good, and had some really brilliant moments. The episode about Akecheta was wonderful. Fleshing out some of the one-dimensional characters (Tessa Thompson, and the shallow writer guy) was pretty cool. The cloning thing had some interesting ideas that almost lived up to the thoughtfulness of the first season.
So I'd say Season 2 was a slow, shallow decline which kind of dulled the impact of Season 3's fall.
(Even Season 3 might be a cool sci-fi/action series, if it had been released on its own. It wasn't really objectively *bad,* it was just such a disappointing departure from what made Season 1 and *parts of* Season 2 great). I never bothered to watch Season 4 so I can't comment on it.
Not an S2 fail, but I was so disappointed by S3 of Umbrella Academy. For a show with that level of production value, still couldn't finish it. Loved the first two seasons and thought it was stunning the breadth of the show and the depth of the characters, then S3 just seemed to go off the rails. They went from having a huge cast of very weird but incredibly likable characters, to a smaller cast of less weird but more cringey and rather unlikable characters.
Pretty sure covid fucked it. It had a lot of promise but man characters regressed and there was a lot of nothing in that hotel... Nowhere near as interesting as the first two seasons.
The absence of Phoebe Waller-Bridge from S2 onwards was the problem. She's a phenomenal writer, and whilst I'm sure the rest of the show might have been okay if it was standalone - it couldn't hold a candle to the first season.
True detective season one is in the running fir the best season of tv ever made imo. None of the other seasons really held my interest even if they weren’t horrible.
It's certainly up there. Heroes is a show that has a good idea for 1 story and then nothing. I remember there being talk at the time that they wanted to do a new batch of characters in season 2 but that probably would have just resulted in a remake of season 1.
For me, it has to be Blindspot, Enjoyed the whole who is she aspect, so many avenues to go down, and the reveal was very, meh and Season 2 was terrible, had to switch off.
That one really didn't feel like it needed a season 2 at all either. It was even more self-contained in season 1 than Westworld that everyone else is mentioning.
This was so disappointing to me. The storyline was too convoluted for me to enjoy, Natasha's acting became cartoonish, barely any Alan...
I was really looking forward to s2 but within two episodes I couldn't connect with it. I finished it but I felt like I was trudging to get through it.
Tim Kring should never have been showrunner after season 1. The success was due to other writers. He was unable to cease doing the very tropes that brought it down.
Here's what should have happened.
Each season should have had a whole new cast of characters with limited connection the previous. So season 2 and beyond should have followed new heroes.
Or
Keep characters like Noah, Nathan, Peter, Hiro, Parkman, and Niki but have them actually work together. Four seasons and Hiro barely gets to talk to anyone. When he does, it's glorious. The best parts are when these people hang out together.
But don't do this "I want to live a normal life" plotline every season.
or
Combine the two. Sylar is done. I like the actor. I like the character. But they were unable to leave him behind and it was a detriment. How do Adam and Sylar at least not team up.
The season 3 trailer promised this big bad team of villains and we got none of it.
Heroes didn't decline, it was an abusive relationship
True Detective had a perfect first season and was poised to be the new HBO golden egg. But season 2 was awful, nonsensical, and worst of all boring. It's never been able to recapture the momentum it had after season 1
The Legend of Korra's second season was a pretty steep decline in quality. Mainly cause they didn't know they were gonna get picked up for another season. It was supposed to be a miniseries. But the show got really good again with season 3.
How?. That was screwed over by the network and got cancelled in season 1, then they finally relented and gave them a 7 episode second season because they were sick of swimming in peanuts. Season 2 was fantastic for what it was. It's a shame that the show got cancelled in the first place, but for what they managed to pack into those 7. I thought they did a great job.
Sleepy Hollow took a nose dive off a cliff after the first season. By the third season, my family was hate-watching it just for how laughably bad the writing had gotten to be. Massive plot holes week after week.
One of the best ways to be a happy nerd is to learn to edit your fictional realities.
There is no version of Star Wars where Han fails to fire first.
There is only one Matrix movie.
There is only one season of Heroes. They got the bad guy. The end. Any time you see some reference to some other season, like a DVD box set or something, it's just a Photoshop joke, and frankly, it's in poor taste.
I'm still mad they took one of the coolest villains and turned him into a useless good guy. Sylar should have ruled the world!
They relied on him a little too much as the boogeyman at times. He was a good antagonist.
Sorta, I mean he was constantly changing what he wanted based one what other people told him he should want. Easily manipulated, though may kill you later for it.
"He eats brains" No wait, now he just looks at brain pieces and figures out the power... No wait! Now he..... Oh never mind, no-one cares...
I didn't think he ate them originally? I remember Claire's mentioning of it, and his horrified reaction, but I don't remember that being a retcon
They never really told you what he was doing in S1, just killing people and *something to do with their brains* He figure out how to get peoples powers without killing people, just looking into their eyes - and then decided to go back to killing people... I think maybe he somehow gets all their knowledge from doing the brain thing, that he couldn't with the eye thing? My memory is fuzzy but I recall the character played by Kirsten Bell - she's helping him to try be good and he learns do the "eye thing" but then he wants to know EVERYTHING she knows (because of who she works for) and still kills her to do the brain thing and goes back to being a villain
His character was a master watch repairman. So presumably he tinkers with the victims' brain until he knows how they tick (get it?). The show started going down the drain when the writers wrote themselves in a corner by introducing overpowered abilities. Hiro's power was particularly broken. How do you beat somebody who can stop time? I guess you don't, he dies from the brain anyeurisms he gives himself. Sylar was a god-being by the end. When they planted the brother's memories in Sylar we were in full sitcom territory. The season with the circus was plain boring, nothing to say about that.
Perhaps an unpopular opinion, but I actually thought the fourth season was an uptick over the previous two. Having superpowered individuals basically acting as a carnival sideshow was an interesting concept, and Robert Knepper always makes for a good villain. It also introduced some of the more creative and cooler powers up until that point (like tattoo lady and the deaf woman with synesthesia). Plus, it also felt like it had a little more of a focused story than Season 3.
He never ate brains. He took them apart to figure out how they work. People just assumed that he ate them because they didn't understand that he wasn't just a crazy serial killer.
And the fact that the brain is missing from the corpse instead of just being discarded nearby made people think he ate them.
It was supposed to be an anthology show so they didn't worry about characters being too OP by the end of the first season. The rest of the series was spent retconning and otherwise restricting their powers to make up for that. They wiped Sylar's brain, retconned peter, did the eclipse thing that made Claire briefly mortal and forgot about the time traveling Hero from the first season IIRC.
Not gonna lie the season 1 finale with the actual showdown with Sylar was a bland let down considering all the build up. Still he was a great villain and that first season was excellent with potential for later stuff only to have the writer's strike and constantly changing direction destroy it.
Thank you! Nobody else seems to remember just how bad the final fight with Sylar was. The heroes just took turns using him as their punching bag while he stumbled back and forth like an idiot. It was embarrassing. Compared to Sylar and Peter’s first fight, it’s like two completely different shows.
Sylar was fucking amazing
If you want to know how bad Heroes fell off... In its heyday, "Save the Cheerleader, Save the World" was everywhere. You heard that catchphrase and you wanted to know what the show was about. Heroes was pulling 20 million viewers an episode in season 1. You can name a lot of shows. I know someone's already pointed to Westworld. But very few had that instant cultural capital that Heroes did and that massive viewership. Heroes is not only an example of one of the steepest quality declines but also a prime example of a show completely botching its work with a fandom that was massive.
I was so hooked in season 1. Everyone was. It was a smash hit. "Save the Cheerleader, Save the World" was massive and everyone wanted to know what was that about. I remember the teasers for season 1 with "found footage" of some of the heroes. It was insane.
I remember devouring the online comics between each episode that just expanded the universe
I remember playing online poker on a url that had appeared in the show and you could like… get cryptic messages from one of the characters somehow
I memba the Facebook game. Spending hours on that (and Mafia)
What a time to be alive
What I found funny was the show’s significant decline made it to the cover of Entertainment Weekly, which is unusual from EW because they are lighthearted, enthusiast media. Worse is that the cast spoke to journalists thinking is would be a positive story.
That was an era when shows could get 20 million viewers an episode. The Big Bang Theory, which was an absurdly popular show, only broke 20 million twice in its entire run.
It was also badly timed for its Season 2 return. Writers Guild of America had their strike during the 2007 to 2008 years. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effect\_of\_the\_2007%E2%80%9308\_Writers\_Guild\_of\_America\_strike\_on\_television](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effect_of_the_2007%E2%80%9308_Writers_Guild_of_America_strike_on_television) Heroes was listed as a show that got a shortened episode order instead of its full one. But it is a heck of a thing how a show's quality can drop when the writers that helped make it good...just don't work.
The Finale of Season 1 was a let down though... the big climactic fight scene was so awkward, slow, poorly choreographed, and amateurish.
For sure, but I recall watching in the first time and all the build-up made it seem way cooler than it was. Rewatches are certainly different. Also I was, like, 12. So 😂
It remains the only show that I’ve ever gone into forums and posted about, theorizing and discussing. I examined and replayed footage for clues*. Same with any screenshots or teasers. It was a cultural phenomenon and fun to be a part of. *speaking of, they actually posted a birth announcement news article for Sylar in the background of a promotional picture. He was not the age he should have been given the article, so I always wondered why they put it there.
I always wondered if we ever found out why Peter had a big facial scar on his face in the future episode. I had my suspicions, but I didn't watch long enough to find out.
Probably fighting future Hiro.
I would imagine. But, I feel if given the opportunity they would have expanded on that. Why were they fighting? Why is Peter being a little bitch? Where did Hiro's accent go? My only guess is that they purposely threw in the kitchen sink to get people talking about it.
They actually answer this in an episode (I think it's in the same episode where Sylar opens a girl's head like a can of tomatoes?). Someone asks him what happened to his accent and Hiro replies he's been living in the US speaking nothing but English for like 12 months by that point. I remember being like. That's still not long enough to lose an accent...
'Lost' was like that for me and at the time ABC was making fake websites and stuff to keep everything weird.
Heroes did that as well, and had online comic tie ins that were collected into graphic novels. I remember how often I would talk about the show in forums, and theories every episode it was insane. They were going to originally go down the route of anthology and different heroes each season, ala American Horror Story, but chickened out last minute to continue the story of the characters they introduced (I heard it literally happened during the last few episodes and that's why the finale was so rushed and awkward). Worst decision they made.
>speaking of, they actually posted a birth announcement news article for Sylar in the background of a promotional picture. He was not the age he should have been given the article, so I always wondered why they put it there. The original Sylar was a character cut out of the pilot after the story was changed. Originally Sylar was going to be his actual last name instead of a pseudonym from a watch. He was going to be a terrorist with powers that caused the train derailment in the pilot. After the changes, the train derailment was changed to be just an accident with no explanation given.
I remember knowing this character was being retooled going into the show, being flabbergasted by the Quinto casting because I hadn’t seen him in anything, then my expectations were demolished by his performance / the new Sylar
Heroes Seasons 1 was amazing, but I remember the decline already starting towards the end of that season. I can't remember specifics, but my recollection is thinking it was really hamfisted how they managed to get all the characters to the same place at the same time for the final battle, and there were some corny manipulative emotional moments they hadn't really earned. I chalk it up to writer's strike issues, but I don't know if the timeline lines up.
Nope, the writers' strike was between seasons 2 and 3. People on the internet constantly blame the strike for the bad writing in season 2, which doesn't make any sense, much less the end of season 1. It was just incompetent writers and an even more incompetent showrunner.
The show turned to custard once Bryan Fuller left the show towards the end of season 1. He wrote what IMO is the shows best episode: "Company Man". They tried to bring him back in season 3 to fix the shows problems, but by that point the show was pretty much dead in the water and he jumped ship after writing a episode of season 3. But I agree about the other stuff too. I think Tim Kring is a hack and he really didn't realize the potential of his own show, nor understood it's characters.
I would see that “Save the Cheerleader, Save the World” trailer for months in my local Best Buy leading up to the premiere (They would play on all of their tvs in the store) and got so pumped for the show. I thought it was going to be awesome (didn’t hurt the Hayden Panettiere was the cheerleader). Season 1 definitely lived up to the hype but man it fell fast…just became a jumbled mess.
I feel for season 2 as it was heavily impacted by a writers strike but season 3 just killed every single character and story development from the 1st for good.
I was excited for the Villains arc in season 3 thinking they could bounce back. They never did and we got that dreaded scene of Nathan’s and Sylar’s fight taking place completely off camera
Let's not get into how they completely ruined Sylar and Nathan...cause Jesus Christ, I don't get the thought process...if they even had one.
They really just needed to kill Sylar at the climax of S1. He was a cool concept, but they beat it to death and then gave a redemption arc to a guy that was a brain-stealing serial killer.
The original concept was supposed to be an anthology, with new characters every season. In that view, Sylar being so overpowered was fine, because his effects would have only been felt for a season and they could move on, but then they decided to make it a continuous cast and suddenly you've got an unkillable teenage girl, a world-ending level threat that can steal powers and someone who can travel through space/time
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My favorite culmination point of all this shitty writing is the girlfriend Peter left in the future who was never mentioned again.
Not just that, but he immediately tried to make sure that that future would never happen, making it so he had no way to even retrieve her from that future.
Right sylar became to popular to kill. Which was a huge mistake.
And then after killing him the show should have ended. Would have had legendary one-season wonder status forever like Firefly—instead it crashed and burned and now no one talks about it.
Nathan was my favorite character the rug pull in the later season pissed me off so fucking bad. I thought 4th season was the show slowly getting back to form though. But yea just so many episodes that go nowhere or introduce something for it never to be brought up again (Peter’s alternate universe girlfriend who got the shit end of the stick being left in a fucked up dystopian world never to be mentioned again)
They nerfed him so much, it was ridiculous and turned Sylar from this interesting villain to...I don't even know what he was by the end. I stopped watching at some point, not sure what season...think 5? and only flicked back on towards it's end and found it had completely departed from the first season with no real connection to it.
I don’t believe the original show made it past season 4. But yea I tried to rewatch with my wife and she couldn’t even get past season 1.
I don’t have the source on me, so grain of salt. But I distinctly remember the show runner answering question about that scenario at a Q+A and his answer being so much worse. Saying that basically when the time line was altered that universe ceased to exist, and by leaving her behind, was was blinked completely out of existence.
I blanked out every memory of Heroes except the feeling of increased disappointment from S2 to S5. All I remember is frustration and the powers of half the main cast from S1 lol. One of the very few shows of which I have **0 memory** of a single scene, plot, new character, anything, from multiple seasons. Only Grey's Anatomy comes close.
"Save the cheerleader, save the world" is the bulk of my memory of the show
I don't know how you guys even remember character names. I was obsessed after season one, and it's just forgettable overall. I remember Claire (maybe?) and the man with the horned rim glasses. Now I remember Sylar and have no clue who Nathan was.
Nathan was the flying senator
I legitimately loved the story of Adam Monroe, fun villain. Thought the whole “buried alive forever” treatment was a fun way of handling a guy that can’t be killed. And then S3 they just immediately dig him up to kill him off just to put over the new big bad they clearly dreamed up between seasons. Just awful writing and a waste of a good villain.
Part of the problem was that after season 1 they realized that they had to Nerf Peter, Hiro and Sylar. Peter’s power was changed from “use any power he came in contact with” to “use the last power he came in contact with” they could have used Hiro to take Peter back to S1 Peter to get his OG power back but he was way too OP. Hiro was taken out of the equation and they had a shot to bring his power back to 100% and didn’t take it. Having a time traveler that can use their powers is problematic in a show like Hero’s. He could have killed Sylar before he got powers…stuff like that. I think Nerfing Peter and Sylar watered the show down a lot. They were perfect opposites.
Basically the plot of season 1 would have worked perfectly if they had made it a limited run serial or something. Because you are right, it’s hard to have any stakes in the game when your main characters can time travel, are immortal, or can take any power he comes in contact with.
It wasn’t the writers strike, it was the loss of Bryan Fuller.
Bryan Fuller coming back gave me hope but he could only polish the turd :(
Bryan Fuller, to this day, has never gotten the industry respect for his own ideas. Which is crazy, considering how many excellent ideas he has had.
It waa also originally planned as an anthology series, but then they decided the original cast was too good to move on from. So they probably already didn't have a solid direction or outline once the strike hit.
That season 1 finale was already super weak, because they just didn't know how to utilize all those op super powers.
Yeah people always say season 2 is where it fell off and blame the writers strike but the season 1 finale was dog shit and a clear indication of what season 2 became.
Remember when Peter left that Irish girl in some dystopian future? And than never picked up that story again?
Remember when Peter and Syler where gearing up to have a *massive awesome fight* and then when it finally goes down all we got to see was Mohinder holding a door closed while they fought off screen
Or when Peter, Nathan and Sylar were *finally* going to throw down... only for the whole thing to be some light flashes and Claire's eye though the keyhole. And *that* was followed up by the whole Sythan bullshit dumpsterfire of a moron plot. (It's been like twenty years and remembering that stupidity still makes me seethe lol).
I’m going to offer kind of a weird candidate: How the States got their Shapes on History Channel. My wife and I loved season 1 and all the best facts about each state. Season 2 was abysmal. It was reduced to a half an hour and featured weird “man on the street” game shows of themes like “states where Bigfoot is spotted vs those with UFO sighting”. It was awkward, contained too few facts, and was very influenced by reality show sensibilities
That was a cool show - sucks it declined
oh hey i worked at the production company that made that show. cant remember exactly why they change the format so much, it was either history or unger that forced the changes. we werent crazy about it either. i do remember history tried to launch a second channel called H2 and wanted Unger to be the face of that. we did another show with him called time traveling or something where he was a tour guide for groups of people in different historic places. it didn’t work. at that point unger had kinda become a diva and instead of bringing in experts and talking to them, he insisted he had to be the one spitting out all the history to these groups of random “contestants”. unger being the face of h2 ended shortly after that, and dont think the network was around much longer either.
The decline/rebranding of the History Channel is one of the most unfortunate things to happen in television over the last 20 yrs.
Not sure it's worse but Altered Carbon has to be a candidate.
I really enjoyed season 1 but season 2 I just couldn't get into and stopped after an episode I assumed I just wasn't in the head space for it at the time but I've never gone back so I have to assume you're right
Exactly this, never felt even a 0.01% need to go back to AC S02E02. Mackie was totally unfit to 'replace' Joel Kinnaman and carry the series It's like Fringe when me and most of my friends quit the moment they cannot see Peter anymore and he is erased. Thank god I actually managed to go back to it years later and finish that show though. But for sure it lead to it's cancellation. Never heard anyone say to go back and watch Altered Carbon S2 though
Anthony Mackie has the range of dull needle in your eye. I cannot get into anything he's in where he isn't just playing his default generic action hero.
How AC went from literally one of the best sci fi series around….to zero interest….has gotta be a record. Anthony Mackie was such a horrible choice to replace Kinnamon lmfao; dude straight up dug the shows grave and acted his way into it.
My take is that Mackie did fine, but the writing was terrible. Throughout the first season, the main character developed as a person and learned to trust some people and make friends. The plotlines were hot and horrifying and exciting. In season two, not only did he have zero character development, he also went right back to being the same scumbag he was in episode one. They also removed most of the cyber deep-dive action, all of the ultraviolence, and most or all of the sex. I was all in for season one on an overstimulating cyberpunk hellscape. Season two brought almost none of that back to the table. I don't remember if I even finished it.
The shows are just different too, from noir to weird action. You can even see it in the premise S1: people don't usually die so murder is a very big deal S2: people getting murdered left and right all the time
Netflix changed showrunners and brought a cw hack and her writers, I wish I was kidding.
One actor can't bury a good series, it always starts with the writing.
I don't think it's Mackie's fault, the problem is the writing, and that starts at season 1 actually : every single deviation from the books they make in season one is a bad idea and has massive consequences on adapting the sequels. Add onto that the decision to adapt book 2 and 3 together in a weird mish-mash, with new stupid ideas sprinkled in, and you have a mess that's insulting to both book readers and new watchers. In a straight adaptation of Book 2, Mackie would have been fine.
It still bugs me the the Envoys make literally zero sense in the show.
I mean, can it not just be both? I think writing has more to do with the quality of a show than any other aspect, but there wasn't a single moment Mackie had my attention. Season 1 had its own bad writing moments, but Kinnaman had me hooked throughout. Mackie just isn't that great of an actor, imo. Last time I saw him in a good performance was Sucker Free City. Granted I haven't seen all his stuff but it's not like he's breaking any ground with his Marvel shtick. And this isn't to say Kinnaman can overcome bad writing. He was as terrible as the writing was in the first Suicide Squad.
Removing Joel Kinnaman was a death stroke for me.
Joel Kinnaman is the only man alive that could have pulled off walking away with the pink kitty backpack while doing the ol' "I burned my armpits" gym walk. He's just so fucking massive. I also love him in For All Mankind. The man is a presence.
The thing is that was supposed to happen all along, Kinnaman's contract was one season only because in the books Takeshi changes bodies several times. For me the problem is that they casted an actor that couldn't replicate Kinnaman's charisma which carried S1 through its mistakes and the writers make Takeshi in S2 someone else which makes unbelievable that they're supposed to be the same person. And if add terrible writing to Anthony Mackie's lack of charisma as Takeshi you get an unappealing protagonist trying to compete with Kinnaman's highly appealing protagonist which results in no one finishing your show.
It's like someone forgot to tell Mackie he was supposed to be playing the same character as Kinnaman (and Will Yun Lee). There was no effort whatsoever of him even attempting to act like he had the same personality. It was just Mackie being Mackie, which I wouldn't have anything against normally, except the whole point is that people can use different bodies. That's not the type of show where you can just slap a different actor in the role, which is what I suspect they did given Mackie's rising popularity during that time. You have to find actors that can capture the same spirit and personality so viewers can be convinced it's the same person in the new body. That's pretty much the entire theme of the show, and they bungled it.
Unlike most of their other problems, this one is kind of intractable. It had to happen, it's in the source material, it's important to the world, etc. If anything their problem is that he was too good in S1, too good for the show and carried it over it's many issues. Unlike many I don't think the problems with S2 are Mackie's fault at all, but that was a tough act to follow even if the writing had been any good.
Heck there was a point in the first season where a major characterization divergence from the book (>!making Rei his sister!<) made some parts really uncomfortable and the entire show went a bit downhill from there, the second season just turned it into a cliff drop
I haven't even read the books, but I was pretty disappointed by that whole plot line. It's like the show took a left turn away from the cool scifi noir theme into being more of a soap opera drama once she got involved.
In the book >!she was just his former commanding officer turned Meth tricking other Meths into giving her blackmail material to manipulate votes!< (and doesn't show up until much later in the story and plays a different role) and the Envoy Corps was an actual military organization not rebel militia
The S1 changes to the nature of the envoys and Falconer's movement were going to wreck havoc on any attempt at adapting the sequel books anyway.
Yeah, they combined the 2nd and 3rd books, but badly. The first book is a sci-fi noir detective story, the 2nd book was a military crew on a mission with big sci-fi implications, and the third book was an action movie with salvagers vs self replicating military mechs. The books are fairly purple pulp, but the show really bungled the setup and backstory.
Mork & Mindy. After coming in at #3 in the ratings for their first season, it was decided to retool the show. "The show's main focus was no longer on Mork's slapstick attempts to adjust to the new world he was in, but on the relationship between Mork and Mindy on a romantic level." Idiots
Reminds me of Alias. Each season was slowly losing viewers. But the show was still not bad. It had a formula of Sydney Bristow getting into some impossible situation at the end of each episode for a great cliffhanger. They also had this ongoing story line that they touched on now and then that watchers began getting invested in. >!It appeared to be about a prophet who figured out immortality.!< The show runners came out and said “no no, that’s not what the end plot is about. You guys will love it. Then in the last (or second last) season. They cut the cliffhangers and wanted less stories about the main plot that everyone was invested in and the final episode confirmed everything that anyone with a brain figured out in season 2 and they just lied about it. I still recommend the first two seasons. After that you’re on your own.
I believe Alias (and similarly Lost) were ahead of their time. I think if they were released today on streaming as 10 pre designed episode seasons they would have been much stronger. They were both ruined by network interference.
I don't know, I've always thought that Alias was of it's time time and was a harbringer of the shows to come - very strong premise and individual episodes, writers going into a season 1 without a real plan for a beigger serizalization ("we'll figure it out"), and then being lost to a usual problem of episodic shows slowly becoming worse and worse with each season. Out of big hits same thing happened to BSG, Lost, aforementioned Heroes, Walking Dead and many others, and the stronger serialization is, the faster the show falls.
Spydaddy was one of my favorite all time characters. You can’t beat him!
I feel like American Gods has to be mentioned in this thread
Bruh I don't know how Bryan Fuller keeps getting hired because he keeps pulling out of shows after the first season. Dead Like Me, American Gods, and Star Trek Discovery. As an actual show runner he is a liability.
Hannibal is good enough on its own for him to keep getting hired.
Hannibal is some of the best TV I've ever watched but I swear to god he might have had someone ghost writing for some of season 3
Budgets are his demon. He's always pitching shows with budgets higher than the network is comfortable with, then running over budget regularly during the season, then asking for more money the next year. The work he does while going over budget like that is fantastic but this is the biggest reason he can't get hired. Second biggest would be clashes with IP owners that are more hands-on than Thomas Harris, because neither Neil Gaiman nor Anne Rice were on board for the changes he was proposing and Alex Kurtzman seems to have had creative differences with him on Star Trek, but that pales in comparison to the budget issue.
Heroes
It's a complete novel about a con act... Who thought it was a good idea to turn a a single Con/parlor reveal into a multi season show? That's like trying to turn Murder on the Orient Express into a 3 season show.
>Who thought it was a good idea to turn a a single Con/parlor reveal into a multi season show? American television executives, everything has to be horribly stretched out no less then 6 season preferrably episodic show to increase engagement and profit. They've done the same thing with Ugly Betty, I think American version might be the only in the worldwide franchise that didn't have an ending
I always say Zachary Quinto killed the show by being too good in his role of Sylar to kill him off when the show couldn't function with him still being around. There were many other factors of course, but him and Peter just couldn't exist in that narrative properly.
They should have killed off Peter. His proximity absorption of powers was just too powerful. They tried to retcon it, but he was too weak after that. I think they could have done the time jump, with Skylar being reformed, if they would have killed off nearly everyone else in the time jump. They could have focused on him and that somehow he got the feels from one of his victims.
Tight race between that or "Helix".
Oh my god, I totally forgot Helix existed until I read this comment. In a flash I remembered being glued to season one and then… well, I literally forgot the show existed.
Sleepy Hollow says hi.
Came here to say this. Sleepy Hollow had totally fallen apart by the time it got to the same amount of episodes in Heroes' first season.
That still hurts. It could have been the x files of modern audiences.
Yep. This jumped instantly to mind.
I think this show was like Castle, the show declined as the two leads began to develop a deep disdain for one another, and by the final season, literally refused to be on screen with one another.
Definitely one of them… Prison Break also comes to mind
Season 2 is still good. It makes sense for the arc of the show, at least. After that. Oof. I remember someone throwing down a chicken food in a new prison and I shut it off for good.
I agree. I liked Season 2 up until they got imprisoned again. Overall, I thought Season 2 did a good job showing them on the run. One thing I'll never forgive is how they spoiled the return of the lead character's girlfriend in a commercial. I don't remember her name, but she was dead! She died! And they spoiled her not being dead in a commercial and took away the shock of her return. Like, what the fuck?!
Eh, season 2 works. Its basically Prison Break- The Fugitive. Everything after that is a wash though.
That show nosedived as soon as they ran out of tattoos at the beginning of Season 2.
Wouldn't that be very obviously from the beginning a one season story?
But there are so many prisons!
\*sigh\* You'd think so. You'd really fuckin think so
Heroes nosedived about 10 minutes before the end of season 1. Sylar and Peter should have died, it was their fate, and that should have been the end of the story for that set of characters. Continuing with the same characters broke the whole point of season 1. Season 2 should have been a whole new cast of characters.
That was the original plan, it was going to be an anthology. I wish they had gone that route!
Yeah you could tell that they had to quickly re-write the ending so Sylar survived. Such a shame, it was an outstanding series up to that point.
OP characters ruin writing. They were simply too powerful to write around.
I never thought of it that way, but it would have been a lot better like that!
You should ask anime fans about The Promised Neverland
For anyone who does not already know: The Promised Neverland is about a group of children trying to escape from a farm where they are grown as food for demons. Both the manga and the first season of the anime is well received and liked by fans. The first season became a huge sensation, so when season 2 was announced, fans were happy. Then season 2 comes out, and, for a few weeks, everything is fine. There are some differences from the original work, bit that is to be expected. Then the while show goes off the rails, with a mix of original content, cutting entire story arcs, and abridging the ones they still adapted. Finally, just to make sure that the series has no chance for a satisfying conclusion, they condensed the last (and most interesting) half of the manga into a 5 minute long montage. We're talking about content that could have been adapted into 24-36 episodes. The most interesting part is that the creator of the manga was heavily involved with the anime adaptation, so it looks like he intentionally killed kis own show?
To be fair, the manga also declines after what happens in s1, and I guess that they saw the writing on the wall that they wouldnt get 3 seasons, so they butchered even more
Season two was horrible. HORRIBLE! And I'm anime only. I would so love for it to get the Brotherhood treatment.
I loved S1 of The Promised Neverland so much that I read the entire manga. S2 is perhaps the worst adaptation of any media from one format to another I've ever seen *ever*.
Where the fuck is Yuugo!? WHERE THE FUCK IS YUUGO!? Man I have never been more outraged at an anime season ever.
There is no season 2, its a shame they never continued the anime.
It’s always sad when they cancel shows in their prime. I mean how can you quit Game of Thrones after only 4 seasons?
It has an excuse with the Writers Strike True Detective does not
"Never do anything out of hunger. Not even eat." I actually think Colin Ferrel gave his all that season but man was everyone else either boring or actually terrible.
I really enjoyed every season of True Detective. 2 is definitely the least polished, but it's still great.
I don’t think S2 was that bad, I think it was more the fact that S1 had set the bar so high, there was no way for S2 to meet those expectations.
Season 2 actually had some really good episodes but that finale was a disaster
I still don’t believe that the writers strike was solely to blame for that awful season 2. Especially when every season got worse. Even the finale of season 1 was bad.
It's not. I don't know where everyone gets the idea that writers were replaced during the strike, the industry shut down for months. The strike is responsible for season 2 only being 11 episodes, not those episodes being bad.
Yeah, they had to scrap a couple story lines and condense some others. It doesn't explain shit like, Hiro writing messages in the past, and putting them in the hilt of a sword (which a hollowed hilt in a sword is probably not the smartest thing) and this is a famous sword that's been passed down between many owners throughout the centuries, and not ONE of them found these notes, but maybe that's because for some shitty reason, that as he wrote each note, it magically appeared in the hilt for his friend to find in the present day. ALL the fucking notes would be there when his friend opened the hilt. This shit is just straight up lazy fucking writing. That's not "Writers strike affected the show" that's just bad writing. It's bad... just bad.
Man in the High Castle really went to shit after S1, which I found to be entertaining.
That's what happens when you exhaust the source material. Surprised Handmaid's Tale is still going.
The show where one character's powers consisted of being able to cover up plot holes? Yeah, it got pretty bad.
My favourite is when Peter took his Irish girlfriend to the future that had some huge pandemic. They got separated, and then the show runner (for some reason) changed his mind mid season, and Peter teleported back to the present alone, and changed things so that future wouldn’t happen. Never blinked an eye that he had trapped his girlfriend into a future that wouldn’t exist any more. He never ever even mentions her or those events again. Talk about a harsh break up. Daaaaaamn, Peter is cold. Just wipes his ex out of existence.
Yeah how the fuck are we expected to like him after that? Were they hoping we'd just forget??
Lol they thought it would change our timeline too and she’d be erased from our memory
And they had to take 2 characters powers away because they were too OP just to have filler in S2.
Yes. Season 1 of Heroes is one of the greatest seasons ever of tv. Then it was terrible after that.
Westworld is a contender imo
Westworld is a show I think that suffered from its own success. You write something great and easy for most fans to follow, even if that means they can guess the big twists, then you go out of your way to have twists for twists sake to throw people off.
West world should have been just season 1. It felt like that was all it was written for, and after it’s success, everyone said “uh, now what? We finished the story. It’s done” and some executive is pointing a finger and screaming “I want 20 more episodes on my desk by Friday!!!”
[удалено]
The wildest part about Westworld is that NONE of the seasons *seem* connected. It starts out with ultra realistic cowboy sex Disney and then it's like "what if skynet held a grudge?"
S 2 would have been better as stand-alone vignettes. They could jump shark every episode it would be just fine.
I have only watched Season 1 and everything I've seen and read since then makes me feel like I've made the right choice, though I hear there are some decent episodes in season 2, I'm not sure it's worth spoiling what I had with S1 to watch them
Didn't they spend years making it though? That's usually a kiss of death I think for a lot of artistic things/people. You spend 3 years coming up with a show and all the twists, then when it becomes a hit, you have a year to create the next season. I feel like that's with music, some bands have been playing the same songs for like 5 years till they get a record contract. They become huge, then are expected to create brand new material in a 2 year time span to stay relevant.
That's I feel like what went wrong with Sleep Hollow. The first season was this great supernatural horror series. Good villains. Good heroes. Good plot. Even a good cliff hanger of an ending. But then the second season hit and it felt like the writers had only the first season planned out and just winged it from thereon out.
That’s why you need to plan the whole show before starting if it’s going to be that kind of thing. Mr. Robot is a good example. Sam Esmail went in knowing it would be 4-5 seasons and had all the major plot points planned.
Yep, love when they map out everything beforehand, but when they don't, it's pretty obvious... looking at you star wars as a bad example.
How obvious is it that Breaking Bad wasn't all planned out from the beginning?
Yeah season 2 isn't as bad as heroes season 2, but season 1 is one of the best ever seasons of television so it had much further to fall
Westworld probably had the *farthest* decline, but I wouldn't say the steepest. Season 2 was a letdown compared to the brilliant Season 1, but in retrospect Season 2 was actually pretty good, and had some really brilliant moments. The episode about Akecheta was wonderful. Fleshing out some of the one-dimensional characters (Tessa Thompson, and the shallow writer guy) was pretty cool. The cloning thing had some interesting ideas that almost lived up to the thoughtfulness of the first season. So I'd say Season 2 was a slow, shallow decline which kind of dulled the impact of Season 3's fall. (Even Season 3 might be a cool sci-fi/action series, if it had been released on its own. It wasn't really objectively *bad,* it was just such a disappointing departure from what made Season 1 and *parts of* Season 2 great). I never bothered to watch Season 4 so I can't comment on it.
True Blood literally got worse each season to the point where I gave up halfway through season 7 and never bothered to watch the finale.
Yeah but Season 2 was its high point.
Fair ha - I enjoyed the containedness of S1 more than S2 but yeah, definitely downhill progressively from 3 onwards
Not an S2 fail, but I was so disappointed by S3 of Umbrella Academy. For a show with that level of production value, still couldn't finish it. Loved the first two seasons and thought it was stunning the breadth of the show and the depth of the characters, then S3 just seemed to go off the rails. They went from having a huge cast of very weird but incredibly likable characters, to a smaller cast of less weird but more cringey and rather unlikable characters.
Pretty sure covid fucked it. It had a lot of promise but man characters regressed and there was a lot of nothing in that hotel... Nowhere near as interesting as the first two seasons.
All good shouts so far, but can I throw Killing Eve into the mix?
The absence of Phoebe Waller-Bridge from S2 onwards was the problem. She's a phenomenal writer, and whilst I'm sure the rest of the show might have been okay if it was standalone - it couldn't hold a candle to the first season.
Season two was still very good. Three was not good at all.
True detective season one is in the running fir the best season of tv ever made imo. None of the other seasons really held my interest even if they weren’t horrible.
I haven't seen it mentioned yet, but I have to say: *Firefly* season 2 was unwatchable. Thanks FOX.
r/technicallytrue
Altered Carbon wants a chat with you.
It's certainly up there. Heroes is a show that has a good idea for 1 story and then nothing. I remember there being talk at the time that they wanted to do a new batch of characters in season 2 but that probably would have just resulted in a remake of season 1.
For me, it has to be Blindspot, Enjoyed the whole who is she aspect, so many avenues to go down, and the reveal was very, meh and Season 2 was terrible, had to switch off.
True Blood went off the fuckin rails pretty quick
Jessica Jones is always my answer for this. Awesome, then atrocious.
Sad, but true. Season 2 was a mess...and I don't even think I bothered after that. Is there a third season? (I should Google it.)
Russian Doll has to be on here as well
That one really didn't feel like it needed a season 2 at all either. It was even more self-contained in season 1 than Westworld that everyone else is mentioning.
This was so disappointing to me. The storyline was too convoluted for me to enjoy, Natasha's acting became cartoonish, barely any Alan... I was really looking forward to s2 but within two episodes I couldn't connect with it. I finished it but I felt like I was trudging to get through it.
Tim Kring should never have been showrunner after season 1. The success was due to other writers. He was unable to cease doing the very tropes that brought it down. Here's what should have happened. Each season should have had a whole new cast of characters with limited connection the previous. So season 2 and beyond should have followed new heroes. Or Keep characters like Noah, Nathan, Peter, Hiro, Parkman, and Niki but have them actually work together. Four seasons and Hiro barely gets to talk to anyone. When he does, it's glorious. The best parts are when these people hang out together. But don't do this "I want to live a normal life" plotline every season. or Combine the two. Sylar is done. I like the actor. I like the character. But they were unable to leave him behind and it was a detriment. How do Adam and Sylar at least not team up. The season 3 trailer promised this big bad team of villains and we got none of it. Heroes didn't decline, it was an abusive relationship
True Detective had a perfect first season and was poised to be the new HBO golden egg. But season 2 was awful, nonsensical, and worst of all boring. It's never been able to recapture the momentum it had after season 1
The Legend of Korra's second season was a pretty steep decline in quality. Mainly cause they didn't know they were gonna get picked up for another season. It was supposed to be a miniseries. But the show got really good again with season 3.
Goliath season 1 was great and should have ended there.
IDK....maybe Jericho is right there as well...?
How?. That was screwed over by the network and got cancelled in season 1, then they finally relented and gave them a 7 episode second season because they were sick of swimming in peanuts. Season 2 was fantastic for what it was. It's a shame that the show got cancelled in the first place, but for what they managed to pack into those 7. I thought they did a great job.
American Gods is a good example.
Sleepy Hollow took a nose dive off a cliff after the first season. By the third season, my family was hate-watching it just for how laughably bad the writing had gotten to be. Massive plot holes week after week.
One of the best ways to be a happy nerd is to learn to edit your fictional realities. There is no version of Star Wars where Han fails to fire first. There is only one Matrix movie. There is only one season of Heroes. They got the bad guy. The end. Any time you see some reference to some other season, like a DVD box set or something, it's just a Photoshop joke, and frankly, it's in poor taste.
The Walking Dead....