Heroes fires Alexander and Loeb

It would seem the general decline of excitement in Heroes has resulted in the writers/co-executive producers Jesse Alexander and Jeph Loeb getting the can!

ComingSoon reports:

The duo had been with the show since its first season and were known to have led the day-to-day production operation under the direction of creator/executive producer Tim Kring.

“Heroes,” produced by Universal Media Studios, has struggled in the ratings its third season. It’s understood that Alexander and Loeb were let go because of NBC executives’ frustration with the creative direction of the show.

I was a HUGE fan of Heroes back in its first season. I had to supply John with episodes like a pusher getting kids hooked on crack, and he too was on board.

This show was awesome. Little weak on its ending, but all the elements were there. I was glued to my screen every week watching this show.

Then the second season happened, and even when Milo Ventimiglia (Peter Patrelli) made an appearance on the live Uncut Show here on TMB, he admitted that the second season was a disappointment. No one is trying to gloss over that one.

But the third season had promise. A real shakeup in the storyline. But even with my drooling fanboy status, even I can’t say its been better. I just keep watching it HOPING it will get better.

I do like the speedster, because she is irresistably adorable and has replaced the hot and legal Hayden Panettiere for the eye candy quotient of the show, but some of the other characters I just don’t have any use for anymore.

Hiro has not grown. His character is stagnant and stale. I used to just love every second this guy was on screen because he was quirky, and funny and geekishly charming. But he is still that guy and hasn’t moved on at all. I just don’t have much use for him like this. I want to see him become the hardened katana toting soulpatch wearing warrior from the future but he just isnt. And I almost was happy when Ando was killed because I had no use for him either.

Parkman was getting interesting when we saw his powers were not limited to just glimpsing people’s thoughts, but even he isnt doing anything for me.

I liked when there was more mystery. I want that draw again, but right now it feels like they see the end is coming and are giving away too many answers just so we can see them fight with powers.

Maybe with new writers, the show will get new life. Maybe Alexander and Loeb gave us all they had in them for this series and it was time for new blood.

Maybe.

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34 thoughts on “Heroes fires Alexander and Loeb

  1. The first season was amazing mostly because it was still new and could get away with not explaining things. The second season started the downspiral when the plot took forever to get going. The third season is a vast improvement over the second and is showing promise but who knows where it could go?
    I think there are a few main problems with the series.
    – Keeping around useless characters. Maya should have been killed off, she was so pointless and only stuck around because she was a nice piece of ass.
    – No character growth. Hiro is the same dweeb, Matt still doesn’t know what he’s doing, the only character making any progress is Claire.
    – Underused characters. Mr. Bennet is by far the most interesting character in the series yet he’s kept on the sidelines for most of the episodes. They also got rid of several characters such as the Haitian who was a very interesting character.
    – Illogical powers. No attempt has been made to establish limits on powers or how explain how any of the powers work.
    – Terrible writing. The writing for Heroes has become attrocious, leaving massive plot holes and characters speaking terrible dialogue. How does Sylar get his powers from brains, does he eat them? What happened to Matt’s wife and what’s the significance of the dream with her and the baby?
    It’s issues like these which have been pestering me.

  2. The reason why this show has gone downhill is that they did not set clear limits on the characters with multiple abilities (ie Peter, Sylar) and gave these characters too many abilities in the first place. The writers conveniently forget many of the powers these characters have in order to suit the plot.

    The writers have no idea how to handle time travel and again do whatever suits the plot.

    Characters often make the dumbest decisions to suit the plot.

    The writers seem to have started with a fixed ending in mind without any thought as to whether such an ending could naturally evolve with the set of characters they have. It’s the reason why Season 1 ended on such a down note. They made it too clear how it was going to end and then when they got to it they had effectively written themselves into a corner. They should drop the whole future prediction thing.

    Every single “disaster” could be stopped if the Haitian were around.

  3. Ah when the economy turns around the show will do better it’s just tough right now for any television program other than CNN at the moment the presidential election is sucking up a lot of peoples attention. The economy is at an all time low record numbers of unemployed and people loosing their homes. Now I doubt is a good time for any show on television because advertising isn’t paying out as it should so it’s hard for shows to get advertisers and lack of advertisers means it’s hard to pay the salaries of good actors. The show being canceled is much more complicated than them just firing Alaxander and Loeb although they are a piece of the bigger picture.

  4. I watch this show every week and I totally agree that season 1 was great. For myself I can say I still try to find the story or the point of the show. It seems like the writers have no idea where to go next. Always new characters you can’t get known cause they are faster gone than they appeared in the show. Its a coming and going and I hope they find a way back to the quality of season one. But I think thats not likely.

  5. I don’t think the badguys are becoming the good guys. The “future” shows us there is potential for that, but it hasn’t happened yet. Everyone is dabbling in “bad guy” territory.

    And I am Rodney… not John.

    Just sayin.

  6. I have to disagree with you John on this one. I like the direction of the current season and I think its an improvement over last season. I have never seen a show where the bad guys have become the good guys and the good guys the bad guys.

  7. Yes, I agree with most of the complaints people have had so far. I too LOVED season 1, season 2 was a let down and I want season 3 to live up to the potential of season 1.

    I think another of the problems with the later seasons has been the same mistake George Lucas made with the Star Wars prequels by making the whole world seem much smaller and less intriguing by making EVERYONE connected in some stupid, convoluted way.

    Sylar is Peter and Nathan’s brother. Clair is Nathans daughter. Blah, blah, blah. At the start of season 1, the appearance of those with powers was like a global phenomenon, appearing randomly. And you have far too many people with powers, who just treat them as if it’s really not that special. Where as it had a great ‘real world’ feel to season 1.

    Here’s hoping it can get back on track.

  8. I like the Sylar stuff so far this year, maybe the only good thing about season 3. Quinto is very entertaining to watch and he is proving his veratility as an actor. Definetly my favourite actor and character on the show.

  9. My take: When people die they die.

    There’s no true meaning behid any of this. Supposedly these people were gaining their powers, not born with them. And finally more cohesiveness in the storyline, wrap up some of these loose ends.

    Lost has a lot of loose ends, but jeez. Heroes is waaaaay worse.

  10. I got tired of the story taking place in the present and the future, and apparently everyone in the future will have slicked backed hair and wear black.

    The story has gotten too convoluted. I thought this season was about villains so it should have been heroes teaming together against villains instead we got all this time travel crap going on.

    Not sad to see Loeb go. His comic writing has gotten just as bad as this show has.

  11. Should we dare to hope that Heroes might get better by the end of the season?? I have to admit with this news there may be hope. I was looking forward to Season 3 and at first I thought it would redeem itself after Season 2, but sadly it hasn’t. It’s not as unbearable as last season, but close.

    Rodney, I completely agree with you regarding Hiro and have been saying this to a number of friends as we discuss the current episodes. I don’t understand how they feel justified to keep his character stagnant especially after his epic journey into the past! It’s brain numbing.

    When you’re not sure what to do with a character send him on a spiritual walk through the desert half way around the world! So Matt meets another guy who can paint the future and shows Matt how to have a vision, which causes him to see his future with Daphne. Now their growing relationship feels forced and rushed.

    Mohinder’s character was lost in the mix second season and now has become some mad scienctist with scaley skin. I’ve lost complete interest in him. At least in the process of his madness we lost Maya, so there is a plus, man was she ever annoying.

    At this point the only character I enjoy watching is Sylar and the rest are expendable.

  12. I REALLY want this show to improve. The first series was possibly the best TV show I’ve ever watched. I have never been that glued to any show. Even my wife was right there with me, and she’s normally pretty apathetic to Superhero stuff.

    The second series was meh, and this series has potential that it really isn’t living up to.

    There must be some writers out there who can injuect a bit of life into it

  13. The Dude: Totally agree with you.

    I wonder why they turned Mohinder into The Fly.

    There are way too many characters now and no clear villain anymore. Sylar is the good guy now, apparently…

    It’s all going down man.

  14. I have to chime in here, I have strong feelings about the show. After season 2 I was hoping that they could do better, and they haven’t. Season 3 is so bad it’s almost unwatchable.

    The writing is the worst it’s ever been, there are way too many plot holes to even list, but here’s one. How is it that Peter can die now after being shot with a gun? And is Clair really stupid enough to think that a gun is enough to go up against him?? Why doesn’t Hiro go back in time and take the formula out of the safe before Daphne can steal it? And the storyline about everyone getting powers from the formula was a big mistake because it makes all the main characters less special. It’s really dumb.

    Too many characters add up to too many stories going on at once and so it seems like nothing of significance every happens in any episode. It’s very frustrating to watch.

    There are some good things happening on the show, my favorite being Sylar trying to be good and teaming up with Mr. Bennett.

    This show had so much potential. Dropping the writers is a step in the right direction. They have to stop with all the mystery and crap going on, drop the dead weight characters and focus on good stories with smart writing.

  15. this show has divided the geek community more than anything i’ve ever seen. i loved season 1 too, but it’s near unwatchable now. for some reason, i’m holding out hope too, but its gotten so boring and stupid i can’t even hide my apathy for it anymore.

    quick fixes –

    kill tracy, she is boring.

    make hiro a bad-a$$ – he’s not funny anymore and better dead than what he is now, if this means killing ando, do it, in fact, make it hiro’s fault.

    don’t build to a giant, earth ending finale. take a season to focus on something smaller, more character-centric. this will help earn a world wide disaster plot later.

    bring in some cool new blood, daphne is a start but they absolutely WASTED david anders talent. kill off some main stays, make their deaths small mysteries that involve the new characters.

  16. Too many characters jammed into 1 hour of TV. They should dedicate one episode to a character or two and develop them for 20-30 minutes rather than give each character 5-10 minutes of screen time and hop around.

  17. Good news I guess. The show was great but it became stagnant and a bit confusing. Getting rid of the possible source(s) of what made it turn into shit yayy! Hope it gets good again, used to be a great series.

    This should be done with way more shows that turn into shit, go NBC.

  18. I was sooo looking forward to Hiro’s journey from naive desk worker to super kantana time freezing badass but they’ve just wasted that and reset him each season, theres no real feeling of growth there. I mean c’mon at the end of S1 he kills a guy with a sword and is still this funny geeky guy surely something like that would mature you in someway.

    Even with these two writers gone we wont see any real change on the show good or bad till after this Villians Volume, i’m assuming the production is like 5-6 episodes ahead.

    Fingers crossed the show gets back on track.

  19. fisrt season was awesome, second one, not so much. this thrid season i am actually pretty happy with, i means its not crap my pants awesome, but still good, and i know i wont miss an episode. Where as season two, i didnt really care.

  20. The problem I have with the show is that anyone can seemingly do anything. You never know who will have what power anymore, how they can use it, and what the point to them having it is/was. Even so far as bringing poeple back from the dead! What the hell’s the point? If no one dies, then there’s no new blood. Season 2 introduced too many new characters for no reason, and season 3 is giving too many powers to even more people, again for no reason. I think the story has lost any momentum it had from season 1, and needs some fresh thinking. Maybe that’s what the execs thought as well, and hopefully, it’s not going to be too little too late.

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