Mythology: Heroes
By Martin Felipe
September 24, 2009
BoxOfficeProphets.com
The show itself has its own real world mythology. Heroes debuted when Lost was at its creative bleakest. It had come off of a season that disappointed many of its legions of fans. Season three opened with a six-episode mini-arc which most Lost fans consider to be the show at its absolute worst (I disagree, but I expressed my views on that in a previous column at the end of last season; now I'm here to rip on Heroes).
Heroes debuted in the midst of Lost's identity crisis. With those six episodes leaving fans so cold, the opening was there for a fresh mythology show to swoop in and steal Lost's thunder, and Heroes nearly did. It landed with what passes for a bang in our current, fractured television landscape. Viewers, soured on Lost's slow pacing gravitated to NBC's upstart offering. And when Lost took a short hiatus between the infamous six and the rest of the season, Heroes kept on plugging, at a much faster pace. Many saw it as a bit of a savior and the typical cyber-battles popped up all over the net: Heroes vs. Lost.
Then Lost came back, rejuvenated. It had a few duds here and there, but ever since that epic low point, most critics and viewers seemed pretty happy with its direction. It seemed that there might be some sort of happy co-existence developing between Lost and Heroes. That is, until Heroes delivered an anti-climactic season finale that turned the tables forever. It took the opposite trajectory as its islandic counterpart. While Lost redeemed itself, Heroes sunk further and further into despair for the next two seasons, never regaining its former glory. After seeing the fourth season premiere, I can tell you, it still hasn't.
My opinion on the matter is that Heroes came along at just the right time in Lost's history to claim the crown of top current mythology show from it. But Heroes never really had what it takes to earn the crown, right from the start. Despite its cultural relevance, Heroes was always just as bad as it is today. That's why it was so easy for Lost to snatch the crown right back. The near legendary first season of Heroes is plagued with the same weaknesses that trouble it to this day.
There are a litany of flaws in Heroes that we've seen in reviews and blogs, both professional and fanboy, but I think the biggest reason why Heroes fails where other mythologies succeed is lack of direction. Yes, I'm talking about the much debated master plan vs. making-it-up-as-they-go-along. Lost is famous for adhering to a predetermined endgame, the general skeleton of the story known from day one, if not the details. Battlestar Galactica, on the other hand, never had a planned out story, but it does have a goal, to find Earth, which gives it direction and focus. Most successful mythologies fall into one of these paradigms. Problem is, Heroes is neither.
Tim Kring may claim the contrary, but there is a sprawling quality to Heroes that grows more muddled and confusing as it goes. Where is this all going? It seems to have no end in sight, just more and more story lines that intertwine but don't seem to connect, characters who know one another but never gather, and a timeline that grows more convoluted with every Hiro time jump. It never gives a sense that there's a resolution coming. The never-ending plot threads could weave around each other, season after season, with no unifying picture forming.
I hate to continue to draw the comparison, after all, the shows have more differences than commonalities, but with every Lost revelation, every plot twist and turn, we draw ever closer to the master scheme. Or Galactica. There may not have been a master scheme, but we always knew where it was going. I guess it's the difference between literature and soap opera. A great show tells a story. It may be serialized, but there is a cohesive whole, a beginning middle and end (also known as an arc, to state the obvious). A soap opera may also be serialized, but it's really nothing more than just continuing adventures, extending on indefinitely. And with the epic sweep that Heroes tries to have, with no end in sight, it just grows more muddled and more boring. I've compared shows like Lost and Galactica to televised novels. Heroes, perhaps appropriately, is a televised comic. No, that's not quite right, nor is it fair. The best comics are cohesive. It's more like all of the Marvel or DC universes in one single show. Not one title, just the entire mythology, multiple stories, crossing paths here and there, with the only endpoint being lack of profitability. A look at the ratings indicates that that endpoint may be close.