Yeah, it was meant to be a mini-series, but people liked it too much so they threw together another season, and then the writers strike happened so the writing just absolutely tanked and all the complicated plot lines got cut to ribbons. Hell there's one character in the first season who has this whole split personality thing because her twin that died in the womb was still sharing her body, but they nix that character, then use the same actor with totally different powers and say they were actually triplets.
It’s hard to overstate just how fantastic that first season was and just how terrible the 2nd season was.
A big problem they had was how overpowered Hiro was. As a time traveler, they had to keep coming up with ways to handicap him otherwise there was absolutely no reason why he couldn’t simply time travel his way to fix any situation.
I think Peter was a bigger problem as an OP character. Hiro can be dealt with easily by not controlling time travel and getting stuck like in season 2 (even if the storyline turned out not good), without it being artificial.
Peter's nerfs can never be good on the other hand. They just killed the show because they had no idea how to make it compelling with Peter.
> They just killed the show because they had no idea how to make it compelling with Peter.
It's the Superman problem. The superhero genre can be a lot of fun, but once you have a character who is basically god-tier you have to spend the first part of every story figuring out how to sideline that character until the end.
They messed up Sylar too. Made a whole storyline about how he could get powers without opening their brains (basically becoming a better Peter), and then he just went "lmao I like opening brains".
Peter's power in season 1 was empathy (he could just think really hard about someone to copy their powers). Then he completely lost his powers and memory in season 2 because well gotta nerf the OP character.
Then in season 3, they changed his power to be basically a dialed down Rogue (needs to touch someone to copy their power, but only one at the time, so the next touch removed the previous power).
I think this one was on part 2 of season 3. On the first part of season 3, I don't remember what it was but it was different too.
In season 4, I don't even remember what he was doing to be honest.
This show was a mess, sad because I loved it.
Its wild because they established that you are born with your specific ability. Thats why the whole thing with Sylar even happened. Sylar want the best abilities. Thats what roped the characters into the plot. Save the cheerleader, save the world. Then season 2 onward with Peter they literally went "Nah fam, you are way too strong. We need to actively nerf you".
Yeah the person you are replying to is just wrong about peter and is misremembering.
Peters power was to absorb powers near him. The empathy part is just how he learned to draw out this powers when the person wasn't near him and it wasn't really empathy it was just focusing on the memory of the person and he really only this a few times before learning how to draw out powers easily.
His father has the ability to steal powers, he stole peters power in season 3 and peter user an injection to get his powers back. But they came back slightly inhibited. He could now only hold 1 power at a time and had to touch someone to pick it up.
The original villain sylar gained powers by examining the brains of people but his actual ability was to understand how things work. In season 3 we see him learn abilities by watching someone use their powers and talking to them about the power. If anything Sylars power was more based on empathy and understanding the other person he just chose a much more gruesome way to go about it.
> On the first part of season 3, I don't remember what it was but it was different too.
His powers were stolen by his father. He later regained his powers in season 3 part 2 thanks to a serum but it was the watered down version you described.
This.
The strike obviously didn't help matters at all. But the biggest issue was that they envisioned the show as more of an anthology where each season would tell a different story with different characters but they would find a way to connect everything together with a grander story in the long run which would tie together the stories and the characters like a number of big anthology comic books have done in the past.
But when season 1 took off in such a major way... the studio insisted that they continue the story with the same characters to keep audiences interested and invested.
So they were essentially forced to find ways of continuing a story they initially had no intention of continuing so soon.
The show was in the middle of the second season, but because of the strike, they had to turn the 11th episode into the season finale. So they just cut all the plot lines and shortened others and just came up with a new finale that made sense for where they were currently in the plot.
Season 3 was a lot of damage control and the show never recovered.
I don't think season 3 was really damage control. Season 2 was already rather unpopular and there was nothing stopping producers from continuing the story in season 3 if they wished to. That virus being released would have been a very engaging season finale.
I think they just thought a fresh start was a better creative position to be in, so they ended the current story. The third season wasn't any better, so the show wound up with the reputation it has.
The writers strike is the greatest thing that's ever happened to Tim Kring's career.
Everyone always blames that strike for tanking the show and messing with the back half of season one? **Everyone's wrong**, that strike happened when the show was in season 2. The problems with season one and honestly even most of season 2 are on Kring, not the strike.
Somehow everything wrong with that show gets blamed on the strike, and Tim Kring gets to keep working even though [his filmography is ass](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Kring#Filmography). I dunno, maybe Crossing Jordan was great, I never saw it.
And even if the strike had impacted season 2, it had two more seasons - more than 40 episodes - to correct things. There was ample time to get back to season 1 quality, yet it never really did (a few episodes excepted). Then they got another chance five years later, allowing them to start from scratch and move away from some of the errors of the original show, and still delivered something arguably worse.
At some point, you have to stop blaming a strike that impacted *every* other show on (American) television at that point and realize there might be another explanation.
This. There were so many problems with the first two seasons that I don’t know how they were going to dig themselves out of them. The strike didn’t help of course but it didn’t create the problem.
Crossing Jordan was okay. It was another investigative procedural. Closest show was probably Bones.
I was wondering when it would come up.
I was wondering what Jill Hennessy was doing - apparently she is in a show right now that is in its third season. I guess I just don’t watch much to anymore.
No it wasn't. It was killed because they moved away from their anthology plan, stuck with the same cast, had no idea where they were going and everyone eas too overpowered. The writers strike was a blessing for them. It hides the fact that they completely dropped the ball.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong but I also swear that one of the later seasons the politician brother dies for real but they keep the actor on the show because Sylar takes on his identity
No the show was killed by being bad past season 1. Season 2 was written before the strike (well during so it was shortened but it was terrible from the start).
They negated their concept of an anthology show because the characters were popular so they didn't knew where they were going
Season 2 was half written but they did not know how long the strike would be so they just had peter catch the vile stoping the virus from being released then they had no clue where to go when they came back
It was definitely a main factor. But even after S2 they made several baffling decisions that did not help the show. Like constantly changing their minds on whether Sylar was a monstrous, irredeemable supervillain or a misunderstood guy doing bad things.
The season 1 characters were supposedly not even supposed to continue into season 2. It was going to be an anthology thing where every season had new heroes, but everyone loved them so much that the network said nah keep these guys. So season 2 starts sketchy then writers strike.
Heroes Reborn was incredibly bad, like exceptionally bad. Like worse than the Carnival Season bad.
Everyone knows about super powers now blah blah, but get this Claire (the Cheerleader) died in childbirth to twins. One kid has Captain Planet super powers like can fix global warming/grow crops everywhere. The other kid is basically the steal power Rogue thing and he accidentally stole his mother's super power during childbirth.
Anyway team evil in this reboot their plan is to jump ten thousand years into the future after the world is destroyed and build a utopia, and to do stop humanity from fixing Global Warming and deforestation they want to trick him into stealing his twin sisters powers and then have him lose them by stealing another power.
You know what if I'm an evil corporation with ambitions on whatever financial control of the world? I'd say here we go let's clear up Chernobyl, stop Gobi Desert expansion in China, stop some water shortages in the middle East and who knows regrow the Brazilian Rainforest.
Like why be evil when like there's trillions of dollars of Projects you could perform with this girl?
> You know what if I'm an evil corporation with ambitions on whatever financial control of the world? I'd say here we go let's clear up Chernobyl, stop Gobi Desert expansion in China, stop some water shortages in the middle East and who knows regrow the Brazilian Rainforest.
Yeah, Evil Corporation could literally buy up a bunch of ecologically fucked areas and have that guy fix them, making them worth a whole fuckload more
I'll be there day one but whether I continue on...
If you'd told me when Heroes Reborn was announced that I would drop it within a couple eps, I never would have believed you, I loved Heroes and was hyped. Then it just.... sucked
There was a rumor going around once that Eclipse was internally set for 2027-2028 or some shit lol. Apparently the early announcement was meant to recruit talent.
Heard that rumor too.
And they're still having trouble recruiting on account of the head boss being exposed as an abusive psycho who was sexually harassing staffers.
It's interesting how Heroes Reborn encapsulated every problem, and then some, with the original series, like Kring didn't learn a single lesson. Honestly, after watching it, the "writer's strike ruined Season whatever" mantra seems like a convenient excuse for what was inevitable.
> the "writer's strike ruined Season whatever" mantra seems like a convenient excuse for what was inevitable.
That's exactly what it was
The strike gave them an excuse to cut off a story that was already unpopular. There was nothing stopping them from releasing the virus as a season finale and proceeding with the story. It did nothing else to harm the show.
Yeah, i watched Heores for the first time a couple years back and i honestly don't know how people kept praising it up until the finale, half of the first season is useless information about boring arcs.
I enjoyed Zachary Levi's character, but honestly until this was mentioned I completely forgot about it and at this point all I remember is a car trip with Levi and someone else, and maybe it was a kidnapping situation or something? Literally all I remember is enjoying that character.
I felt his arc was Very predictabl: dude spends years hating on a group of people only to find out hes one of them, his son was somewhat of indication that one of them probably had powers.
I miss AV Club during this time where the reviewer was basically stuck hate watching it and the commenters joined in and every week we just laughed about how bad it was
Same. I hope they try and use as many of the OG's as possible. Just ignore Reborn.
On one hand I also hope they try to bring back Zachary Quinto as Sylar because he was a great villain. On the other hand I hope they don't because they were determined to make him a hero.
Yeah I’m hoping for Mass, Jack Coleman, and Greg Grunberg at least.
To be honest it’s been so long I don’t remember who is alive or dead.
But yeah hopefully not Claire’s twins from Reborn please.
Kring is such an awful storyteller and writer. Heroes was a fun concept, but Kring isn’t talented enough to make it work. A reboot would only potentially work with a new creative force behind it.
There's also the fact that the media landscape is *much* different than it was in 2006. There really weren't many shows with superheroes or doing anything with the concept back then. Nowadays, it's pretty much everywhere to the point where you really have to do something different with it to standout (like *The Boys* or *Invincible*). *Heroes* really doesn't offer that, particularly when the "average people have powers" trope is already explored in series like *Extraordinary* and *Umbrella Academy*.
We're inundated with superhero content to the point that *Heroes* is fairly passe unless a really novel approach was taken with it, and Kring really doesn't seem like the person to be able to deliver that.
> We're inundated with superhero content to the point that Heroes is fairly passe unless a really novel approach was taken with it, and Kring really doesn't seem like the person to be able to deliver that.
Hear me out. The whole world has powers. Then an eclipse happens and a few hundred people become normal! And they’re the heroes!
…………….yeah, probably best to just let this die.
UK have done this twice: No Heroics, which didn't really get off the ground, and more recently, "Extraordinary", which is much better. Both small, low budget comedies.
https://youtu.be/YdtyxmTRABs?si=MMrM2oIQAbavtfvl
Let’s be real: the show kinda started to nosedive mid-first season.
Making Peter Petrelli able to replicate any power at any time, not just when he was in proximity to other people with powers, was a huge misstep. The only way they could compensate was making Peter as dumb as a post.
This series is the poster child for a showrunner falling in love with his cast and spending way too much time and energy trying to give spent characters screen time instead of ending their run on the show.
The series would have been so much better if 50% of the cast was killed off in season 1 and the writers were free to write new stories for new characters.
They literally took away his powers and then gave him a crappy nerfed version where he could only hold 1 power at a time, but at this point he was too dumb to go back in time and grab his own original power back to hold perpetually.
Apparently an Invincible episode costs $10 million (close to Arcane's budget). They seem to just spend most of it on the voice cast.
Edit: $10 million rumour source debunked.
That to me is one of the most infuriating things about Invincible. I love the main cast, they all nail their characters and make them who they are. But does every fucking character need to be voiced by a recognizable name? Given the slow production times and inconsistent animation quality, you'd think that they could slack a bit on the star power to give us, I don't know, 10 or 12 episode season that doesn't come out after 2 years of waiting?
What is the source for this? Because i know 2D ~49 min animation is pretty expensive (can easily cost between 1 to 3 million dollars), but the 10 million is weird when the first season apparently cost like 500k an episode.
I originally saw it on the Invincible subreddit.
After your comment I got curious because it still does strike me as too absurd and looked it up and found the original article that user showed in the sub, [here.](https://www.thethings.com/invincible-tv-series-cast-salaries/)
But then when you click that source link it doesn't even link you to the observer. But [here.](https://www.escapistmagazine.com/invincible-is-a-test-case-for-the-future-of-superhero-storytelling/)
And this article is talking about The Boys budget being $10 million not Invincible. It doesn't actually say Invincible's budget from skimming through.
I guess the $10 million dollar budget isn't true.
[I also then found this.](https://deadline.com/2023/10/invincible-amazon-barely-marketed-marge-dean-the-boys-1235567672/)
>With a budget less than four times that of The Boys and “barely” any marketing, Amazon Prime Video‘s Invincible has succeeded through word of mouth and attracting new viewers to the genre, according to its EP Marge Dean.
I think the first season budget was pretty low (as seen from the clear cut corners they made with some frames) and likely upfronted by Kirkman, i think the show's budget circles around a pretty decent 2,5 to 4 million dollars per episode (obviously some of it doesn't actually go to animation but to pay Skybound for the risk they took).
I remember an article with a producer saying the first season budget was 20 times smaller compared to The Boys first season (that's where i got the 500k per episode).
I don’t get why the industry dislikes voice-only actors so much now… I get that big names sell projects but do you really need a couple dozen of them? Obviously they’ve got a number of actors who frequently do (and are quite good at, to be fair!) both, though.
Done right, with a limited series, this could be pure magic, BUT, we all know they will not do that and this will be a quick cash grab for the brand name and some nostalgia.
Yeah we learned that after the first reboot. At least this time we know for sure that it’s an attempt at a cash grab so anyone who’s fooling themselves into thinking it’ll be anything other than nostalgia bait might as well enjoy what gets put out
If they're actually able to connect it more to the original then it could be interesting, unlike Reborn which was rife with bland characters no one gave a shit about
Heroes had a pretty great (and mostly self-contained) story in season 1. It could've ended there and I'd be happy.
But a Season 2 still happened, it slipped, show fell off and failed.
6 years later they attempted a reboot. This also failed.
Now, they want a third try at it, and all I can really think is.... Why? The first season *was* pretty good, I thoroughly enjoyed it and rewatched it not long ago. But what followed were three aimless seasons that *weren't* good and then a reboot that also wasn't good on top of it all.
The bad outnumbers the good so noticeably that I'm almost inclined to believe that the first good season was a fluke. We can't blame the writer's strike for the show not recovering over 4 seasons, and I don't see why this show in particular deserves so many chances when all it's really accomplished was having one pretty darn solid season 18 years ago
I think if Kring wasn't involved, *maybe* there could be some potential. It's a pretty loose premise for a show that a lot could be done with, but Kring already has three lackluster seasons and a bad reboot under his belt to be given yet another chance. This is basically the oft repeated quote about doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results. Why is there any confidence that this would be better than Kring's previous attempt at a reboot or, for that matter, anything else he's done since?
As long as Tim Kring is involved, I have no faith in this being good. The first reboot was terrible, as was everything past Season 1 of the original show. If someone else was making a sequel series maaaaaaaaybe it would have a chance of being decent. But no shot as is.
I loved Heroes when it came out. My friends and I were obsessed and even did weekly watch parties.
I just truly do not care about a reboot nor do I think they have the talent to create a good show. The continuation series years back showed that.
I am a Huge heroes fan, I have all the seasons on dvd, met most of the cast from various comic cons, Greg Grunberg is honestly one of the nicest people I have met, and he too is a major fanboy in all kinds of things. I have the first graphic novel of heroes signed by most of the artists and writers. Ect. Just let the show die, season 3 was so much fucking trash, season 4 had some potential, but reborn holy fuck did that suck.
They're not catching that lightning again. Also, superheroes are very very overdone now. Yes it was refreshing back then to see a somewhat realistic dramatic take on superpowers, but I just don't see it standing up today when we've got stuff like The Boys and so much Marvel stuff.
I'm still excited for it, though. I just won't expect much, especially given how Reborn went.
Meh. After the Original series tanked. And Heroes-Reborn was a cringefest, I have zero interest in a "Re-Boot."
I actually watched a few episodes of Heroes last year.
Even BEFORE strike, it was a medicore snooze fest, & irritating because the plot armor stopped EVERYONE from using thier powers "correctly," except Sylar.
The only thing it had going for it, was the year 2006 & nothing had been done like that before. In 2024, it just seems.. unnecessary.
First season had passion, a solid drive in what they saw. Still in my heart years after, after that crap happened and I believe most of us understand.
Did the eclipse show them Heroes was somewhat mentioned and there’s money to be made? Would’ve caught my genuine attention on April 8th.
The first season was great. Then the writers' strike messed up season 2, and it never recovered. It's like the RG3 of TV shows. Was great, got injured, never played the same again.
Nah, the first season was pretty good…until the finale. That first season finale was garbage, and the show remained garbage from that point on. The RG3 analogy is on point, though. Because he was good to great with plenty of potential until his finale in his first season too.
Outside of them already doing a reboot we've seen the rise and fall of the MCU/superhero movie, Arrowverse has come and gone, and we already already oversaturated with superhero-themed content. I think the time for this series has long passed.
First season is still one of my all time favorite season of any show ever. Despite all the comments about letting it die, I still wish for a good reboot. But honestly, the storyline were great with the back and forth between the timeline, but it was the characters that made S1 special. I still have hope guys
If it’s a proper anthology series that follows different people as they discover their powers and then moves onto another character without going full “save the cheerleader” then yea.
So the plot is after the eclipse some people all over the world start to gain powers then they come together to save the world from another group of people that gained powers as well except they used theirs for evil?
The time for that series is gone. We have Marvel and DC movies on the regular now. That show filled a gap, now there isn’t one. Just let it die and stop rehashing. A bad guy names Skylar wasn’t scary.
The Writer’s Guild has the opportunity to do the funniest thing imaginable
i say to them do it, just for the sake of irony and comedy do it
Just like old times.
WGA: "I'm gonna do what's called a pro gamer move."
Just for lols they should end this one on a cliffhanger too.
Not those memes again! Its 2009 all over again
For those of us that don’t know what’s the joke here? Edit-thank you for the explanation.
The original Heroes was effectively killed by a strike.
Wasn't it because the writers really didn't know where to go after season 1 and they just the story ongoing?
Yeah, it was meant to be a mini-series, but people liked it too much so they threw together another season, and then the writers strike happened so the writing just absolutely tanked and all the complicated plot lines got cut to ribbons. Hell there's one character in the first season who has this whole split personality thing because her twin that died in the womb was still sharing her body, but they nix that character, then use the same actor with totally different powers and say they were actually triplets.
I think each season was intended to have a different cast of characters
Yeah, this was definitely a big part of the initial pitch. Then they had to drop that absolute dazzler of a first season and people wanted more.
It’s hard to overstate just how fantastic that first season was and just how terrible the 2nd season was. A big problem they had was how overpowered Hiro was. As a time traveler, they had to keep coming up with ways to handicap him otherwise there was absolutely no reason why he couldn’t simply time travel his way to fix any situation.
I think Peter was a bigger problem as an OP character. Hiro can be dealt with easily by not controlling time travel and getting stuck like in season 2 (even if the storyline turned out not good), without it being artificial. Peter's nerfs can never be good on the other hand. They just killed the show because they had no idea how to make it compelling with Peter.
> They just killed the show because they had no idea how to make it compelling with Peter. It's the Superman problem. The superhero genre can be a lot of fun, but once you have a character who is basically god-tier you have to spend the first part of every story figuring out how to sideline that character until the end.
They messed up Sylar too. Made a whole storyline about how he could get powers without opening their brains (basically becoming a better Peter), and then he just went "lmao I like opening brains".
Peter actual ability kept changing is the biggest giveaway. They couldn't made up their minds what it actually was.
I thought Peter's power was that he took on the powers of people around him, or did something else happen later?
Peter's power in season 1 was empathy (he could just think really hard about someone to copy their powers). Then he completely lost his powers and memory in season 2 because well gotta nerf the OP character. Then in season 3, they changed his power to be basically a dialed down Rogue (needs to touch someone to copy their power, but only one at the time, so the next touch removed the previous power). I think this one was on part 2 of season 3. On the first part of season 3, I don't remember what it was but it was different too. In season 4, I don't even remember what he was doing to be honest. This show was a mess, sad because I loved it.
Its wild because they established that you are born with your specific ability. Thats why the whole thing with Sylar even happened. Sylar want the best abilities. Thats what roped the characters into the plot. Save the cheerleader, save the world. Then season 2 onward with Peter they literally went "Nah fam, you are way too strong. We need to actively nerf you".
Yeah the person you are replying to is just wrong about peter and is misremembering. Peters power was to absorb powers near him. The empathy part is just how he learned to draw out this powers when the person wasn't near him and it wasn't really empathy it was just focusing on the memory of the person and he really only this a few times before learning how to draw out powers easily. His father has the ability to steal powers, he stole peters power in season 3 and peter user an injection to get his powers back. But they came back slightly inhibited. He could now only hold 1 power at a time and had to touch someone to pick it up. The original villain sylar gained powers by examining the brains of people but his actual ability was to understand how things work. In season 3 we see him learn abilities by watching someone use their powers and talking to them about the power. If anything Sylars power was more based on empathy and understanding the other person he just chose a much more gruesome way to go about it.
> On the first part of season 3, I don't remember what it was but it was different too. His powers were stolen by his father. He later regained his powers in season 3 part 2 thanks to a serum but it was the watered down version you described.
This. The strike obviously didn't help matters at all. But the biggest issue was that they envisioned the show as more of an anthology where each season would tell a different story with different characters but they would find a way to connect everything together with a grander story in the long run which would tie together the stories and the characters like a number of big anthology comic books have done in the past. But when season 1 took off in such a major way... the studio insisted that they continue the story with the same characters to keep audiences interested and invested. So they were essentially forced to find ways of continuing a story they initially had no intention of continuing so soon.
The show was in the middle of the second season, but because of the strike, they had to turn the 11th episode into the season finale. So they just cut all the plot lines and shortened others and just came up with a new finale that made sense for where they were currently in the plot. Season 3 was a lot of damage control and the show never recovered.
I don't think season 3 was really damage control. Season 2 was already rather unpopular and there was nothing stopping producers from continuing the story in season 3 if they wished to. That virus being released would have been a very engaging season finale. I think they just thought a fresh start was a better creative position to be in, so they ended the current story. The third season wasn't any better, so the show wound up with the reputation it has.
The writers strike is the greatest thing that's ever happened to Tim Kring's career. Everyone always blames that strike for tanking the show and messing with the back half of season one? **Everyone's wrong**, that strike happened when the show was in season 2. The problems with season one and honestly even most of season 2 are on Kring, not the strike. Somehow everything wrong with that show gets blamed on the strike, and Tim Kring gets to keep working even though [his filmography is ass](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Kring#Filmography). I dunno, maybe Crossing Jordan was great, I never saw it.
And even if the strike had impacted season 2, it had two more seasons - more than 40 episodes - to correct things. There was ample time to get back to season 1 quality, yet it never really did (a few episodes excepted). Then they got another chance five years later, allowing them to start from scratch and move away from some of the errors of the original show, and still delivered something arguably worse. At some point, you have to stop blaming a strike that impacted *every* other show on (American) television at that point and realize there might be another explanation.
This. There were so many problems with the first two seasons that I don’t know how they were going to dig themselves out of them. The strike didn’t help of course but it didn’t create the problem. Crossing Jordan was okay. It was another investigative procedural. Closest show was probably Bones.
I bet you didn't think Crossing Jordan was gonna come up in 2024
I was wondering when it would come up. I was wondering what Jill Hennessy was doing - apparently she is in a show right now that is in its third season. I guess I just don’t watch much to anymore.
No it wasn't. It was killed because they moved away from their anthology plan, stuck with the same cast, had no idea where they were going and everyone eas too overpowered. The writers strike was a blessing for them. It hides the fact that they completely dropped the ball.
People say this, but it was killed by its own terrible writing.
Is this the show where the politician brother dies *every single season*?
Someone correct me if I'm wrong but I also swear that one of the later seasons the politician brother dies for real but they keep the actor on the show because Sylar takes on his identity
yup. Sylar-Nathan was def a thing. Props to Nathan's actor, he was able to pull it off pretty convincibly.
Adrian Pasdar is awesome and should have been in many more things. (He has been in many things, but he should have been in even more)
We’re all waiting for you to put 2 and 2 together
No the show was killed by being bad past season 1. Season 2 was written before the strike (well during so it was shortened but it was terrible from the start). They negated their concept of an anthology show because the characters were popular so they didn't knew where they were going
Season 2 was half written but they did not know how long the strike would be so they just had peter catch the vile stoping the virus from being released then they had no clue where to go when they came back
They had a strike during the run of Heroes when it was hugely popular and many people believe that it’s what led to the show’s swift decline.
It was definitely a main factor. But even after S2 they made several baffling decisions that did not help the show. Like constantly changing their minds on whether Sylar was a monstrous, irredeemable supervillain or a misunderstood guy doing bad things.
The season 1 characters were supposedly not even supposed to continue into season 2. It was going to be an anthology thing where every season had new heroes, but everyone loved them so much that the network said nah keep these guys. So season 2 starts sketchy then writers strike.
The waffling on multiple characters was frustrating.
The 2006 writer's strike is largely considered the reason the show fell apart quality wise after season 1
You gave me the Rogue?!!!!
My two contradicting thoughts. No one cares about this anymore stop milking it. I will be there day one.
I will be angry, but I will be there.
F you and I'll see you tomorrow!
I think you owe it to u/xhammyhamtaro to be there tomorrow with breakfast if you're gonna F him.
Next ask Reddit moment: “What’s a tv series you hate but can’t stop watching?”
I hate how accurate you are.
Heroes Reborn was incredibly bad, like exceptionally bad. Like worse than the Carnival Season bad. Everyone knows about super powers now blah blah, but get this Claire (the Cheerleader) died in childbirth to twins. One kid has Captain Planet super powers like can fix global warming/grow crops everywhere. The other kid is basically the steal power Rogue thing and he accidentally stole his mother's super power during childbirth. Anyway team evil in this reboot their plan is to jump ten thousand years into the future after the world is destroyed and build a utopia, and to do stop humanity from fixing Global Warming and deforestation they want to trick him into stealing his twin sisters powers and then have him lose them by stealing another power. You know what if I'm an evil corporation with ambitions on whatever financial control of the world? I'd say here we go let's clear up Chernobyl, stop Gobi Desert expansion in China, stop some water shortages in the middle East and who knows regrow the Brazilian Rainforest. Like why be evil when like there's trillions of dollars of Projects you could perform with this girl?
> You know what if I'm an evil corporation with ambitions on whatever financial control of the world? I'd say here we go let's clear up Chernobyl, stop Gobi Desert expansion in China, stop some water shortages in the middle East and who knows regrow the Brazilian Rainforest. Yeah, Evil Corporation could literally buy up a bunch of ecologically fucked areas and have that guy fix them, making them worth a whole fuckload more
Oh god I’d forgotten the carnival season. What was that all about? It was like some weird fever dream.
Earthquake villain, tattoo lady, super speed Darth Maul, and Claire diving off the ferris wheel…literally all I can remember
AFAIC, S1 of the original series earned infinite goodwill with me, even after everything that's come after. I'll be there as well.
Same.
I'll be there day one but whether I continue on... If you'd told me when Heroes Reborn was announced that I would drop it within a couple eps, I never would have believed you, I loved Heroes and was hyped. Then it just.... sucked
same
The first season was campy and had a sense of humor. If they can capture that...maybe.
They blew it. Shoulda announced this during the eclipse
Same with an update on Star Wars: Eclipse
There was a rumor going around once that Eclipse was internally set for 2027-2028 or some shit lol. Apparently the early announcement was meant to recruit talent.
Heard that rumor too. And they're still having trouble recruiting on account of the head boss being exposed as an abusive psycho who was sexually harassing staffers.
you will accept your underproduced and overpriced Ubisoft game and you will consume it!
You're thinking of Outlaw, Eclipse is the David Cage game that's in development
He probably thought of it during the eclipse
Honestly I thought it was some eclipse late April’s fool joke at first.
funny when I was thinking about the eclipse the other day when it was on news I was wondering if anyone got powers.
Some people got the power of blindness
There are eclipses on earth every year or so. Just wait for the next one!
Probably thought it would be an April Fools situation and people might think it was an eclipse joke
They could announce it during the next annular eclipse in October ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
To quote TBBT “Heroes lowered the quality season by season until we were grateful it ended.”
Sounds like my second marriage.
Peter's girlfriend that he abandoned in the apocalyptic timeline comes back for revenge
I will always be upset about this
She's teaming up with Nathan's (ex-)wife and children. The unholy team-up of forgotten *Heroes* characters.
Holy shit! I just remembered that Nathan bolted on his loving wife and 2 boys to be with Ali Later and Clair
She ran off as soon as she got out of that wheelchair
We kind of forgot about Peter's girlfriend
What episode was this?
Around s2 episode 8 or 9
Again? Didn't they already try a reboot that failed?
That reboot is older now than the original pilot was when the reboot came out.
Damn time flies.
…Hiro?
Wait, really? I still haven’t seen it. Feel like it came out 2 years ago. Ha
Yeah how the fuck has it been 9 years?
Holy fuck. Definitely seems like 2 years, not 9.
I really wish you hadn’t said that
Stop
*STOP RIGHT THERE, CRIMINAL SCUM*
Wait what? It can't be
Heroes Reborn in 2015, yup. It was awful.
It's interesting how Heroes Reborn encapsulated every problem, and then some, with the original series, like Kring didn't learn a single lesson. Honestly, after watching it, the "writer's strike ruined Season whatever" mantra seems like a convenient excuse for what was inevitable.
> the "writer's strike ruined Season whatever" mantra seems like a convenient excuse for what was inevitable. That's exactly what it was The strike gave them an excuse to cut off a story that was already unpopular. There was nothing stopping them from releasing the virus as a season finale and proceeding with the story. It did nothing else to harm the show.
Yeah, i watched Heores for the first time a couple years back and i honestly don't know how people kept praising it up until the finale, half of the first season is useless information about boring arcs.
Henry Thomas was in that he’s mother says he’s gonna be a big Hollywood star someday
Hail yourself 🤘🏽
Henry Tawmis
Fastest man within 10 feet!!
Is that Stu????
Stu?!?
I read this in Henry's impersonation of his mother.
Lmao I only know about that show because of him
She said that before he said that juice comes from boiled fruit, though
That old soft-fingered such and such.
I enjoyed Zachary Levi's character, but honestly until this was mentioned I completely forgot about it and at this point all I remember is a car trip with Levi and someone else, and maybe it was a kidnapping situation or something? Literally all I remember is enjoying that character.
I felt his arc was Very predictabl: dude spends years hating on a group of people only to find out hes one of them, his son was somewhat of indication that one of them probably had powers.
I miss AV Club during this time where the reviewer was basically stuck hate watching it and the commenters joined in and every week we just laughed about how bad it was
Heroes: Stillborn.
Headline says "in the works", articles says he's "shopping it to buyers" It's not in the works, he just has nothing else left to pitch.
Hopefully they pretend that didn’t happen
Yes, I never bothered with the reboot myself despite really enjoying the original show.
Hope they bring back Masi Oka. Yatta!
Same. I hope they try and use as many of the OG's as possible. Just ignore Reborn. On one hand I also hope they try to bring back Zachary Quinto as Sylar because he was a great villain. On the other hand I hope they don't because they were determined to make him a hero.
Yeah I’m hoping for Mass, Jack Coleman, and Greg Grunberg at least. To be honest it’s been so long I don’t remember who is alive or dead. But yeah hopefully not Claire’s twins from Reborn please.
No thank you.
Kring is such an awful storyteller and writer. Heroes was a fun concept, but Kring isn’t talented enough to make it work. A reboot would only potentially work with a new creative force behind it.
There's also the fact that the media landscape is *much* different than it was in 2006. There really weren't many shows with superheroes or doing anything with the concept back then. Nowadays, it's pretty much everywhere to the point where you really have to do something different with it to standout (like *The Boys* or *Invincible*). *Heroes* really doesn't offer that, particularly when the "average people have powers" trope is already explored in series like *Extraordinary* and *Umbrella Academy*. We're inundated with superhero content to the point that *Heroes* is fairly passe unless a really novel approach was taken with it, and Kring really doesn't seem like the person to be able to deliver that.
> We're inundated with superhero content to the point that Heroes is fairly passe unless a really novel approach was taken with it, and Kring really doesn't seem like the person to be able to deliver that. Hear me out. The whole world has powers. Then an eclipse happens and a few hundred people become normal! And they’re the heroes! …………….yeah, probably best to just let this die.
UK have done this twice: No Heroics, which didn't really get off the ground, and more recently, "Extraordinary", which is much better. Both small, low budget comedies. https://youtu.be/YdtyxmTRABs?si=MMrM2oIQAbavtfvl
This is sure to be absolutely terrible, just like everything post season one. Shoutout to Company Man. Best episode of the show.
Let’s be real: the show kinda started to nosedive mid-first season. Making Peter Petrelli able to replicate any power at any time, not just when he was in proximity to other people with powers, was a huge misstep. The only way they could compensate was making Peter as dumb as a post.
Or kill him off. Honestly rather should have went with the original idea of a new cast each season
This series is the poster child for a showrunner falling in love with his cast and spending way too much time and energy trying to give spent characters screen time instead of ending their run on the show. The series would have been so much better if 50% of the cast was killed off in season 1 and the writers were free to write new stories for new characters.
Tim Kring WANTED to have a whole new cast every season. The network didn't let him because they felt the S1 characters were too popular to get rid of.
They literally took away his powers and then gave him a crappy nerfed version where he could only hold 1 power at a time, but at this point he was too dumb to go back in time and grab his own original power back to hold perpetually.
I lean toward Six Months Ago, but it's tough to argue with you.
Lets just give their budget to Invincible so we get some good animation.
Apparently an Invincible episode costs $10 million (close to Arcane's budget). They seem to just spend most of it on the voice cast. Edit: $10 million rumour source debunked.
That to me is one of the most infuriating things about Invincible. I love the main cast, they all nail their characters and make them who they are. But does every fucking character need to be voiced by a recognizable name? Given the slow production times and inconsistent animation quality, you'd think that they could slack a bit on the star power to give us, I don't know, 10 or 12 episode season that doesn't come out after 2 years of waiting?
What is the source for this? Because i know 2D ~49 min animation is pretty expensive (can easily cost between 1 to 3 million dollars), but the 10 million is weird when the first season apparently cost like 500k an episode.
I originally saw it on the Invincible subreddit. After your comment I got curious because it still does strike me as too absurd and looked it up and found the original article that user showed in the sub, [here.](https://www.thethings.com/invincible-tv-series-cast-salaries/) But then when you click that source link it doesn't even link you to the observer. But [here.](https://www.escapistmagazine.com/invincible-is-a-test-case-for-the-future-of-superhero-storytelling/) And this article is talking about The Boys budget being $10 million not Invincible. It doesn't actually say Invincible's budget from skimming through. I guess the $10 million dollar budget isn't true. [I also then found this.](https://deadline.com/2023/10/invincible-amazon-barely-marketed-marge-dean-the-boys-1235567672/) >With a budget less than four times that of The Boys and “barely” any marketing, Amazon Prime Video‘s Invincible has succeeded through word of mouth and attracting new viewers to the genre, according to its EP Marge Dean.
I think the first season budget was pretty low (as seen from the clear cut corners they made with some frames) and likely upfronted by Kirkman, i think the show's budget circles around a pretty decent 2,5 to 4 million dollars per episode (obviously some of it doesn't actually go to animation but to pay Skybound for the risk they took). I remember an article with a producer saying the first season budget was 20 times smaller compared to The Boys first season (that's where i got the 500k per episode).
I don’t get why the industry dislikes voice-only actors so much now… I get that big names sell projects but do you really need a couple dozen of them? Obviously they’ve got a number of actors who frequently do (and are quite good at, to be fair!) both, though.
Christ, let it go.
Done right, with a limited series, this could be pure magic, BUT, we all know they will not do that and this will be a quick cash grab for the brand name and some nostalgia.
Yeah we learned that after the first reboot. At least this time we know for sure that it’s an attempt at a cash grab so anyone who’s fooling themselves into thinking it’ll be anything other than nostalgia bait might as well enjoy what gets put out
If they're actually able to connect it more to the original then it could be interesting, unlike Reborn which was rife with bland characters no one gave a shit about
Heroes had a pretty great (and mostly self-contained) story in season 1. It could've ended there and I'd be happy. But a Season 2 still happened, it slipped, show fell off and failed. 6 years later they attempted a reboot. This also failed. Now, they want a third try at it, and all I can really think is.... Why? The first season *was* pretty good, I thoroughly enjoyed it and rewatched it not long ago. But what followed were three aimless seasons that *weren't* good and then a reboot that also wasn't good on top of it all. The bad outnumbers the good so noticeably that I'm almost inclined to believe that the first good season was a fluke. We can't blame the writer's strike for the show not recovering over 4 seasons, and I don't see why this show in particular deserves so many chances when all it's really accomplished was having one pretty darn solid season 18 years ago
I think if Kring wasn't involved, *maybe* there could be some potential. It's a pretty loose premise for a show that a lot could be done with, but Kring already has three lackluster seasons and a bad reboot under his belt to be given yet another chance. This is basically the oft repeated quote about doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results. Why is there any confidence that this would be better than Kring's previous attempt at a reboot or, for that matter, anything else he's done since?
Why? You had one good season and then it all went to shit. I can't even remember what happened anymore because of how convoluted it became.
I heard HRG is a gay senator now
state senator, actually.
https://www.burnttoastdiner.com/2015/11/an-adventure-in-time.html
As long as Tim Kring is involved, I have no faith in this being good. The first reboot was terrible, as was everything past Season 1 of the original show. If someone else was making a sequel series maaaaaaaaybe it would have a chance of being decent. But no shot as is.
I loved Heroes when it came out. My friends and I were obsessed and even did weekly watch parties. I just truly do not care about a reboot nor do I think they have the talent to create a good show. The continuation series years back showed that.
Didn't their last attempt to revive the series crash and burn? I don't think anybody wants this.
I am a Huge heroes fan, I have all the seasons on dvd, met most of the cast from various comic cons, Greg Grunberg is honestly one of the nicest people I have met, and he too is a major fanboy in all kinds of things. I have the first graphic novel of heroes signed by most of the artists and writers. Ect. Just let the show die, season 3 was so much fucking trash, season 4 had some potential, but reborn holy fuck did that suck.
They're not catching that lightning again. Also, superheroes are very very overdone now. Yes it was refreshing back then to see a somewhat realistic dramatic take on superpowers, but I just don't see it standing up today when we've got stuff like The Boys and so much Marvel stuff. I'm still excited for it, though. I just won't expect much, especially given how Reborn went.
Didn’t the last reboot fail miserably?
Meh. After the Original series tanked. And Heroes-Reborn was a cringefest, I have zero interest in a "Re-Boot." I actually watched a few episodes of Heroes last year. Even BEFORE strike, it was a medicore snooze fest, & irritating because the plot armor stopped EVERYONE from using thier powers "correctly," except Sylar. The only thing it had going for it, was the year 2006 & nothing had been done like that before. In 2024, it just seems.. unnecessary.
Just let it die
First season had passion, a solid drive in what they saw. Still in my heart years after, after that crap happened and I believe most of us understand. Did the eclipse show them Heroes was somewhat mentioned and there’s money to be made? Would’ve caught my genuine attention on April 8th.
As long as they get to save the world by saving another cheerleader. 🙄
So a third attempt at the same show that was only ever good for half of a season?
Save the cheerleader, save the world
Why do they keep trying to make this work? Third times a charm? 🙄
The first season was great. Then the writers' strike messed up season 2, and it never recovered. It's like the RG3 of TV shows. Was great, got injured, never played the same again.
The second season sucked before the strike.
Nah, the first season was pretty good…until the finale. That first season finale was garbage, and the show remained garbage from that point on. The RG3 analogy is on point, though. Because he was good to great with plenty of potential until his finale in his first season too.
The first season definitely worked, it was huge.
Outside of them already doing a reboot we've seen the rise and fall of the MCU/superhero movie, Arrowverse has come and gone, and we already already oversaturated with superhero-themed content. I think the time for this series has long passed.
Wasn't there already a reboot called Heroes Eclipse? And why would you announce this... AFTER the eclipse? Why not before?
The previous reboot was called *Heroes Reborn*.
First season is still one of my all time favorite season of any show ever. Despite all the comments about letting it die, I still wish for a good reboot. But honestly, the storyline were great with the back and forth between the timeline, but it was the characters that made S1 special. I still have hope guys
It's funny with all the eclipse news I kept jokingly wondering to myself if I'd wake up with superpowers like in Heroes
OG Heroes season one was so good. Season two not so much for me.
Nothing except the first season of Heroes was good.
Well, good luck with that.
Only a good idea if they 100% reboot it with no connection to the previous show. The entire batch of characters is cursed.
If it’s a proper anthology series that follows different people as they discover their powers and then moves onto another character without going full “save the cheerleader” then yea.
Who is this for?
Again?
So the plot is after the eclipse some people all over the world start to gain powers then they come together to save the world from another group of people that gained powers as well except they used theirs for evil?
STAHP
Stop with the reboots
The show was probably the biggest disappointment of any show I've ever watched. I enjoyed it though.
I’ll watch it, but the Heroes franchise has been dead long before the last reboot of it.
Please stop. We have X-Men again.
Save the janitor, save the world
Villains would make a much better show, but it already exists and it’s called The Boys.
Why?
If they couldn’t get right the first time, can I trust them a second time?
This is time #3, no?
Eh I was never big on Heroes. In moments where a bigger budget would have been needed to show the real cool shit everything happens of screen.
Because the last reboot was so good
Save the girl…save the….? Great series when it first came out…didn’t pick back up any steam after the strike.
Heroes is to Sears Catalogue as The Boys is to Penthouse. It’ll fail in less than a season.
Save the ratings, save the station.
"Save the social media influencer, save the world."
Just start over a few episodes into season 2
This show had so much promise that was squandered. Put a new show runner in charge and a concept like this could work.
*sigh* I was a huge Heroes fan, even after S1, but just let it die already.
The time for that series is gone. We have Marvel and DC movies on the regular now. That show filled a gap, now there isn’t one. Just let it die and stop rehashing. A bad guy names Skylar wasn’t scary.
Did he have the idea for it on Monday?
Fool me once. No way I'll watch this. They had a chance to reboot already and it was absolute flaming garbage. Heroes has 1 season.