‘Heroes’ to Simplify for Volume Four
At the Screenwriters Expo in Los Angeles, Heroes’ creator Tim Kring addressed the criticism heaped on not only the second but the current third season of the NBC series.
“The problem is you run into a whole series of issues,” he said. “Where show and business run into each other. The network falls in love with characters, the audience falls in love with characters, the press falls in love with characters. And it’s contractually hard to get people onboard for a brief period… You find yourself writing for characters you thought would be gone.”
As a result, characters intended to be short-lived have gained prolong life. He does like having a large cast of characters to work with since it allows storytelling flexibility. “An hour of television should have the vibe as a day of your life,” he said.
He assured fans that the oft-used time travel elements would be dropped after the current volume, “Villains”, concludes next month. Kring called the serialized format, which he was working with the first time an “absolute bear of a thing. The serialized story is so Writers Room-intensive and requires an ‘all hands on deck’ quality to it; you’re often just carrying the water for the next storyline.”
After discussions with NBC and the dismissal of Jesse Alexander and Jeph Loeb, Kring said the series would continue to break the season into volumes to ensure compact storytelling and allowing different characters to be spotlighted. As a result, viewers who might have found the mythos off-putting can sample each new arc.
“You can hop on the train and you won’t have missed too much."
I think Tim Kring is worrying too much about what the masses think. I know the show is on air not only to entertain but also to make money. However, seeing as though Kring and the other exec. producers and writers told everyone up front about how the show would go (storylines following a serial comicbook-like format, superpowers being shown, old characters leaving and new ones coming in) since season 1, they shouldn't start changing their concept just because people now decide they can't handle it. The writers and the creators should have the most control over where a show's storyline goes, not the audience and the network CEOs.