The Neurotic Monkey's Guide to Survival

"These STILL aren't my pants!"

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

"Save the Writing. Save this Show."

Heroes is a rather large hit for NBC. Despite this, I know only 2 other people that watch it (my roommate and my girlfriend). So perhaps what I'm about to say will fall on the deaf ears of my general readers (by which i mean my girlfriend, my roommate, and I guy looking for brutal monkey sex porn but ended up here instead. Sorry, Melvin!), but it's time to discuss this show.




Now, some of what is going to be covered here ventures daringly into the land of Spoiler Territory for Heroes and for Lost. So if you're not all caught up with the show, I suggest you go watch the episodes you've missed and then come on back here. In the meantime, I'll just amuse myself by looking at this pornographic playing cards.

All set?

I don't think Heroes is a bad show; it's just an unrefined show. It has loads of potential with some good actors, clearly a good budget, and some talent behind the screen. It also has loads of albatrosses bringing it down - including bad actors, bad sense of pacing/plot, bad dialogue, and some bad talent behind the screen. The pieces are in place for this show to be good, but it just needs some polishing, some buffing, and other activities that will help make it shine a little bit.

I will also point out that Heroes doesn't really have a central mystery. While Lost's inherent story derives from "where are they?" and "how can they get off where ever they are?" Heroes's main mystery appears to be "How did they get their powers?", except that doesn't seem to ever be a question and is usually just answered by "genetics" or "evolution"(which to some viewers in the south must be akin to saying "Magic!"). The other mysteries are more temporary - Who's Sylar? What's up wit dat huge friggin' atomic explosion in NYC? Who is Mr. Bennett and his Black friend? - or at least don't seem to be immediate questions with which the viewer needs to concern himself. And yet...and yet...and yet, Heroes is somehow compulsive to watch. What has me tuning back in? Do I want to see where all these different strands of stories converge and intereact? Is it the prospect of turning a beloved geeky idea (superpowers!) and actually making it a viable and compelling hour of television? I would assume it's the latter, since the prospect of these characters interacting is semi-interesting, but I know that the reality would be anything but.

So how can the creators fix this show so it fulfills the geek promise? How can they actually make it more than just a Lost clone?

Look upon my works ye mighty, and despair!:

I) Stop saying Your Stupid Ass Tag Lines!!! I know that they will be moving from "Save the Cheerleader. Save the World." and onto "Are You On the List?" in the new year, but I can't tell you how faakin' sick I am of hearing that crap. Firstly, it's the stupidest tag line of all time. It's dumb, vague, and completely silly. Secondly, when you have it uttered approximately 8 times in each of the last 5 episodes, it gets even more ridiculous. It's called browbeating, and while it's pretty bad when they are repeating something actually interesting, it becomes downright insufferable when the characters are repeating this swill. It's an obvious attempt to make it a question on everyone's lips, and also a very jarring shout out by the writers to the latest of the show's mysteries. Unfortunately, it only succeeds in making all of the characters look silly and the writers look inept. So I don't want every character in the new year asking each other "are you on the list?" Let's learn from our mistakes, people!

II) I Care About this Why? For the love of god - give me a character to give a damn about! I will say that Hayden Panettiere's character, Claire the cheerleader, is actually interesting. She's ashamed of her powers, but embraces them when necessary. She uses them to right wrongs, but is still discovering her place in this world and how to best use her powers. Plus she's cute. So she's an interesting character - because she grows, she changes, she modifies, she tries new things, and interacts within her own social environment of her family and high school. Claire also has displayed all emotions - love, sadness, fear, anger, happiness, etc. She's not a one note character and is the reason why so many people enjoy her (not even going into the whole "cheerleader fetish" thang). Unfortunately, she's the only one (although Greg Grunberg's Matt the Cop is also very interesting as he's the simply every man coping with his powers and trying to do Good as well). Who else is interesting? The Petrelli brothers who are constantly locked in that endless Mulder/Scully paradigm of saying "It's Possible!" "Forget about it! You're insane!" "It's possible!" "Forget About it! You're insane!" over and over again. I hate when characters have to be willfully stupid and incredulous, for no reason (looking at you, Lost). Hiro? Who just has a lot of asian enthusiasm and no real depth? Sure, he's the Morpheus of the show (the one who endlessly espouses the philosophy of the show and the morality involved in the ridiculous situation), but he seems completely unfazed that his girlfriend was lobotomized by Sylar. Mohinder follows the same pattern as being a man who keeps saying that he wants to believe, but then continues to refuse to believe. It doesn't make sense. And none of these people have any range of emotion. They are one type and that's it. Nathan's the incredulous bastard, Peter's the hopeful hero, TJ/Nicki/Micah are all unhappy, Hiro is the cutesy fool, and Isaac can't act (seriously - help this brother out). How about actually making these characters real characters, with histories that exist OUTSIDE of the main plot points. Show they have had heartbreak, and have done things they aren't proud of, but are capable of humor and love and acts of bravery. The best characters on the show (Claire the Cheerleader and Matt the Cop) are the closest to real people who are struggling with their powers but also trying to use them. They have issues with the people around them and with the power inside of them - it's the basic Stan Lee formula, and there's a reason it's been working for about 40 years.

(SIDE NOTE: Have you noticed that Lost and Heroes both deal with a lot of characters that have major Daddy issues? Heroes: Claire, Nathan & Peter, Mohinder. Lost: Kate, Locke, Jack. The mothers in the shows tend to be willing idiots who prefer complicit ignorance than to stand up to the fearsome Patriarchs. Or else, just not really mentioned. Meanwhile, everyone has real problems with their fathers, either the legacy they left behind, how their fathers treated them as kids, or the types of man/life/connections their fathers were before they died/disappeared. Is this a commentary on our times? Is this the first large piece of television writing from children of divorced and/or broken homes that arose in the 70s? Or is this just an empty cliche that is easy to go and re-use time and again? What if God was one of us? Just things to consider, I suppose...)

III) Decompression is for Bitches. Yes, 24 made the ultra-serialized story popular. So now a real time hour of plot can occur and be worthy television. Unfortunately, it doesn't translate as well to other shows. When using the plot device of real time, then decompression can work - but only if you have multiple narratives and constant events spurring the plot along (like 24 does). If you have multiple narratives that are all languishing slowly, meandering towards a plot like a far sighted drunkard to a urinal, then it gets really boring. Decompression (which is when you take a simple act or event and then draw it out over a long period of time - or multiple issues of a comic book, or multiple episodes of a tv series) can be useful. It provides time to create depth for characters, establish emotional sincerity in the relationships between characters, and therefore creates the possibility that when an event in the plot occurs, people will care more about that event since they have (theoretically) grown to know the characters so well. This is done well on shows like Sopranos and Deadwood, where character building events and conversations pile upon each other before a huge event (like someone is killed or two characters hook up) finally happens that has emotional resonance for the viewers. Well, since there is no emotional resonance for the viewers on Heroes (see my last point), it hinders the effectiveness of the decompression. So instead you have bland characters stuck in their modes, slowly marching off to some event (that can be obviously foreseen by some viewers) that no one cares about because there's no immediate emotional response. For example, let's say Jackie had been more of a character in Claire's story -- she had been a much larger bitchy presence, had interviews where she was claiming Claire's heroic exploits as her own, pretty much fucked with Claire's head from the git go. Then when she died, people would either be happy (morbid bastards) to see her go, or sad since she was a fun high school villain. Either way, people actually react to see her head get split open. So you can keep the decompression in, Heroes, but only if you promise to use it wisely. Otherwise, I'm taking it away from you!

IV) Time to Start Killin' Bitches. In the beginning, What made Lost seem interesting and exciting was that it seemed intent on challenging viewers' expectations of plot points and characters. Locke seemed evil, but he wasn't really, and he couldn't even walk! The pilot got eaten, or at least just skinned alive out of nowhere! Kate was the fugitive! Someone's gonna die! In fact, the producers constantly spoke about how they wanted to defy normal TV conventions and make it seem that anyone can die at any second, and that if a Lead character and a red shirt go into the forest, maybe the red shirt will be the one to survive. Unfortunately, that completely wasn't the case and the producers dropped the ball. Instead just following the rote characters to do the exact same thing and react the exact same way to any given situation. But the reason why some people still think Lost is thrilling, and why the first season holds up best, is because there's a sense of danger. You don't know these characters, so you don't know how they'll react. Same with Heroes. We don't know any of these characters - all we know is that they have powers now. And if people think a show is dangerous, that at any given second someone could die, or turn traitor or be revealed to have a power, then they will tune in more often and talk about it a lot more. If no one is safe, then everything becomes more significant and necessary to watch. So perhaps it's time to start killing people off - starting with Matt the Cop's wife, which would fill Matt with a bunch of guilt. Then move on and start killing children and pets - nothing says evil and unpredictable universe like a murdered pet.

We can all agree that the majority of people in this world is stupid. But, everyone wants to be challenged intellectually. It's true. People like investigating mysteries together, they like talking about them and theorizing what they just saw with friends and online. They like poring over each still of an episode hoping to find the one clue that will crack open the case and prove them smarter than the writers. They are willing to work for it if the series seems emotionally and intellectually engaging. If they care about a series, people are willing to invest a lot of themselves, their time, and their money into the show. And with viewers becoming savvier and savvier, TV shows should be rising to the challenge.

So stop coddling us, Heroes. You have the raw materials needed to be an excellent show - so start cutting away the fat. Make the show's characters more interesting and more real. Work on the dialogue so people aren't either spouting tag lines or simply saying exposition and helping fill in lazily created plot holes. Make the events count by raising the emotional interest of the viewer, or else have more events occur to be entertaining. And make the threats real and make them immediate, that way people feel absolutely compelled to watch this show.

Together, we can be Heroes, just for one day. (GROAN)

YATTA!


QUICK NOTE: Shout out to CHUD.COM who also wrote something about the decompression and how Heroes is doing currently. I agree with most of it, however I think the writer's take on Lost is the exact opposite of what is actually happening on the show. For while it is a character driven show, it has stalled out as characters are now stuck in a moebius strip of constantly performing the same reactions to every situation (Saayid will torture and/or repair electronics, Locke will speak cryptically, Jack will come up with a horrible plan, Sawyer will be swarthy but have too much heart for a con man, and Hurley will say "dude"). Beyond that, though, the article is pretty good and helped define decompression for me in terms of serial television. So check that shit out, yo!

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