Comments on: Tim Kring says ‘Heroes’ ratings woes aren’t his fault

By: Drachir Notshurt

Drachir Notshurt — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 05:28:14 +0000

Awful show. Simply juvenile and asinine writing. Poorly acted in most cases. No originality. No creativity. Besides the stole paintings, I wouldn’t be surprised if the entire concept was not stolen.

By: Pepper Spray

Pepper Spray — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 17:04:24 +0000

Robert Seidman must be really stupid or NBC pays him a lot of money to post on this site.
The strike didn’t kill Heroes, the lawsuit and Tim’s theft of two other artists work and his lack of writing talent did.

By: Heroes fan

Heroes fan — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 15:56:55 +0000

Sadly, this show will die due to the lack of ratings, though it is the best acted, best written, and best produced show on television. Season 2 was widely panned but was superior to Season 1 in many ways. Season 3 may be the best of all yet the viewership is down. I have no idea why, but I would hate to see this show get cancelled.

By: Robert Seidman

Robert Seidman — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 17:58:44 +0000

Rob’s (above, not me) slogan would be “Kill the cheerleader, save the show!” if true, that’s pretty humorous irony.

By: Robert Seidman

Robert Seidman — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 17:23:15 +0000

Pete, that’s not accurate. What happened was this: in season ONE, there was a huge hiatus (months!) and when the show came back off of hiatus, it didn’t have as many viewers. The writer’s strike mucked things up [in the sense that there was no real hiatus for the show, just the one "chapter"], but for whatever reason NBC was still enamored with the idea of the hiatus, and so it wanted self-contained 12 episode arcs.

That doesn’t mean Kring doesn’t prefer the 12 episode approach, but clearly season one was not written that way. season one was better than anything since, though that doesn’t necessarily mean its because of the 12 episode arc approach.

By: Pete

Pete — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 07:20:17 +0000

NBC did not force Tim Kring to use a 12 episode mini arc. Tim Kring decided to tell the strories in “chapters” this chapter just happens to consist of 12 episodes. The first chapter lasted all of season one. So this has nothing to do with why the show is losing it’s audience. Heroes is failing because you feel like your intelligence is insulted every time you watch an episode. The plot is absolutely ridiculous and they have gone so far beyond the original concept of “ordinary people discovering they have extraordinary abilities” that they have no other option than to try to keep stretching the mess that Tim Kring has already made. I mean Kring’s the one who claims to have never read a comic book, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that the show is already in the toilet. Perhaps Tim Kring should have spent more time concentrating on his own show rather than bragging about how Heroes was so much better than Lost. He was obviously wrong about that. Heroes had about 6 episodes that were intelligent and really well written, episodes that could be considered on par with Lost. But the rest haven’t been anywhere near as interesting. This season has been a joke and last year was awful as well because Kring never had a long term vision of what the story should be. He’s just winging it, that’s why Heroes sucks!!

By: rob

rob — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 22:46:55 +0000

Wanna save Heroes Kring? Then Kill the Cheerleader…and don’t bring her back. It’s like Smallville. The less we saw of Lana Lang the better the show became. Now I hear she’s back.

By: Mel

Mel — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 21:25:24 +0000

Ando — still my favorite.

I thought last week’s episode actually contained a gliimer of hope –I thought the scene w/ Elle and Sylar was great. I dunno if it meant anything — but it shore was purty.

I swear, Peter needs to grow the emo bangs back. Ever since he cut them, the show has sucked . . . . .

By: Alde

Alde — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 16:35:57 +0000

Wasn’t that the intention of Season 3 to begin with? I recall watching the premier special episode where one of the actors hinted that ‘this time, HEROES is new and everyone can tune in. We start over.,’. That led to completely uncalled African character who ‘worked,’ as the ’season 3 replacement,’ for the painter guy from Season 1. I could draw the same conclusion from the Hiro situation, too.
I found this attitude wrong and alarming to begin with. Who cares about brand new viewers when you’re loosing current ones week by week?

By: Tony

Tony — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 16:21:27 +0000

Last episode when Hiro rediscovers his power….they are actually trying to tell the same story all over again just to gain viewers. I can’t believe I’m gonna say this but they actually dumbed down Heroes, how is that even possible? I thought it couldn’t get cheesier anymore but Kring proved me wrong.

By: matt

matt — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 13:50:22 +0000

I watch Heros on DVR, but I’m using the fast forward button through most of the shows. Except for the first season, the show is just bad and not worth the viewing time.

By: Nick C

Nick C — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 01:32:11 +0000

Robert, actually that 12 episode arc isn’t a bad idea. It’s pretty smart. If you’re telling good stories that is. You can have open ended things with characters but the story be completed in 12 episodes. This is very much like a comic book. Comics generally have a lot of stand alones and some longer story arcs.

I think the problem really is the writing. Coming up with stories for 12 episode arcs isn’t that big of a problem. Give that limit to some great story tellers and they will provide you with great stories.

It however doesn’t work with this crew. I’m not sure anything would work with this crew.

By: sam

sam — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 01:30:44 +0000

i use to LOVE heros BUT ITS NOT THE SHOW I FEEL IN LOVE WITH!!!! i miss save the cheerleader save the world!!!!! bring it back to the good times season 3 sucks to many characters abd to much hiro

By: Robert Seidman

Robert Seidman — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 00:41:18 +0000

Again, I don’t think the problem can be solved even with writing. I think the biggest problem is NBC forcing 12 episode mini-seasons that must be completely self-contained arcs with beginnings and endings. It creates all kinds of wacky crap that wouldn’t happen if it were allowed to be more open ended. I understand why it is NBC went down that path, but it doesn’t work and they need to abandon that approach.

By: Nick C

Nick C — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 00:33:22 +0000

Alde, from a screen writing perspective Tim Kring’s episodes are some of the worst on the show. He has always been (going back to CROSSING JORDAN) a “Story pushes the characters,” writer vs characters drive the story writer. You may like some of his episodes but I’d say a lot more do not.

People can bash Bryan Fuller all they want, but the man understands story telling. I bash him myself. PD had too many soap opera stories going on. HEROES however is built for that. Each character should have a story going on (some characters may share a story). So since Fuller understands things like character development and continuity (two things Kring does not) he couldn’t be any worse.

Sure my opinion is subjective, but I can point to parts of Kring’s scripts since season one that you’re specifically taught not to do in film school. Kring has some bad habits.

By: Kate

Kate — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 00:01:52 +0000

Pah— that is horse puckey Tim! People will watch serialized dramas as long as the storytelling is good. The show has lost viewers- a lot of them because it is hard to follow and week after week of too many things with people we don’t care about. Streamline the storytelling and you can bring people back with clean, clear stories.

By: Vader

Vader — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 23:59:05 +0000

Uhh no I wasn’t talking to you Robert, I was talking to Matthew whose name I apparently thought was Robert. My bad.

By: Alde

Alde — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 22:50:39 +0000

That being said, I can’t help but think that he’d be the most ‘mainstream,’ show-runner. I’d wager that if Fuller (or even the guy behind MIDDLEMAN, who’s been mildly gossiped as one choices for a show-runner for HEROES) would’ve ran it since the very start, it’d have gotten the axe much sooner, and quite ironically *because* of the creative decisions.
Go figure.

By: Alde

Alde — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 22:47:27 +0000

I know I will be in the minority here, but there are 4 episodes I’ve liked on HEROES this season. The back-to-back premier and the recent two episodes. 3 of them were written by Kring. I understand that by being the creator all the creative (no pun intended) decisions go through him and based on that he has done very poor choices over the recent time (read: since the finale of Season 1). But the fact that I’ve liked the episodes he himself has directly written seems to suggest to me on some level, that perhaps to some regard he’s not so much *directly* at fault here by driving the creative car backwards but it’s his creative crew. Then again, in case he knows they suck, why be so lazy in correcting them? Oh well.

That being said, he really seems being completely pissed because he doesn’t even want to mildly censorize himself in his forthcomings, it seems. It’s almost like he has let go and doesn’t care anymore.

By: fin

fin — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 22:36:27 +0000

Although insulting the veiwers was a pretty retarded move: he must be so pissed off.

By: fin

fin — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 22:35:04 +0000

To be fair to Tim Kring he’s obviously pissed off about the show failing about people not supporting the show but watching it on DVR. See if he was a hit in the UK with those numbers on (BBC) they would keep him as the BBC is the goverment funded channels. Though i think its harsh to say the shows shit: when i could say that all the CSI’s are just the same storylines with little and far between character developement, along with just horror (like gladitors in Roman times) as the shows stimuleous. So i think when Heroes is better this season and give it a chance the first seasons all look better for shows like Heroes because they seem so original but then for some people its just the idea that keeps them watching. So i think to call it laughable is a over-statement. Then again thats my opinion.

By: Mel

Mel — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 22:33:46 +0000

So basically he just called the viewers who are still watching live, who actually count for something, idiots. Wow. Who spit in his oatmeal that morning?

Did he learn that in PR classes – how to be nice to people who keep your show on the air?

Aparently he liks to insult his fans. So when Heroes gets canceled he’s going to rant at the fans for that too? Nothing is his fault? It couldn’t be because the whole show has gotten so convoluted no one can keep any of it straight anymore?

Oh, I guess that’s because, according to him, I probably don’t watch TV correctly. *snerf*

By: Josie

Josie — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 22:15:05 +0000

Give the man a shovel. He’s so full of it, it can’t help but coming out of his mouth. I remember an interview about this time last year where he basically said that he didn’t understand the fan uproar over Season 2. It was great! people just needed to learn how to watch TV correctly. At the time I rmember thingking that I failed at watching TV.

By: Cookson

Cookson — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 19:26:14 +0000

Stacy,

Nice list there. I think that’s live viewers plus DVR watches… actually I’m pretty sure it is.

By: Robert Seidman

Robert Seidman — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 18:50:22 +0000

Vader, if you were addressing me, i have no idea what you’re talking about…sorry.