Thursday, October 11, 2007

The TV Equation

Does anyone know what happened on "Heroes" this past Monday? (I missed it) -- oh wait, I just don't care anymore. In fact, I came across this scientific study conducted at several top Universities nationwide about the show and it's current level of quality:

Lame season finale + lame premiere + lame 2nd week episode = bye bye!!

Hmm. Makes sense to me.

5 comments:

Laini Taylor said...

ARG! Totally. All for the best. Too many good shows is bad for work ethic!

Jim Di Bartolo said...

Amen, Hot Stuff!

xoxo

Liz B said...

The dreaded Second Season. Sometimes I'm glad that my favorite shows never made it to a second season, so that they can always remain perfect & unblemished in my memory.

On a more serious note, I think some storytelling may be better when it's not multiple seasons/ no defined end. But, I fear that mainstream TV networks still want the cash cow (we must have 100 episodes, we must have x number of seasons.)

Stilll, I put Season One on my netflix queue.

Jim Di Bartolo said...

Hey Liz!

Yeah, a defined end to a show (especially something serialized like many of the better dramas that are done) is ALWAYS a welcome thing in my book. One of our favorite short-lived shows, Wonder Falls (awesome!) got word of their impending doom and managed to wrap up the story somewhat within 13 episodes.

But yeah, when a show is successful, it seems that the networks want to milk it and drag it out as long as possible even though 2 or 3 seasons could totally satisfyingly conclude it. Partly I've heard that's because they need 100 episodes in order to sell the syndication rights for re-runs (which is supposedly HUGE $$).

By the way, despite my dissing the show, I found Heroes to be mostly VERY enjoyable during season 1, but with some definite faults here and there. In my opinion, it's biggest flaw is the meanderiness (is that a word?) of what exactly the overall plot is and in what often appears to be lazy writing. Last season's finale and the eps I watched this fall were bad combinations of those flaws in a big, boring way.

Alex S said...

Most of the plots on Heroes, as you know, were nabbed directly out of the very real plots that constitute my very real(ish) life, my every waking hour. Its weird when you see a not fictionalized version of your life presented on network television as fiction. The other show that is based on me -verbatim - is Laverne and Shirley.