Peter David on the current season of Heroes:
It’s like someone poured both previous seasons into a blender, started it up, yanked the top off, and the resultant explosion all over the ceiling is what we’re seeing.
Every time I read something new about the series, I’m happy again that I gave up on it months ago. I think it used up whatever limited storytelling chops it really had in the first couple (if not the very first) seasons.
This is why I’m very reluctant to start watching new TV shows with continuing plot lines. They start off strong, but then the writers start to run out of ideas and they stretch things out it and the shows get stupid and convoluted until they get canned. X-Files and Twin Peaks were two prime examples for me. I haven’t watched Lost for that reason. It looked like Battlestar Galactica was heading down that route until they decided to end it this season.
I’m taking a risk with watching Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles and Pushing Daisies (which had only a minimal continuing story, and its already been canceled).
I think Babylon 5 is the only show that’s done it right. Networks should demand an overall story-arc outline and a real ending before giving these shows the greenlight. Of course, the networks need to be willing to let shows end even while they’re still popular, something the executives will never learn to do.
I think Lost really learned from the mistakes of The X-Files and Twin Peaks — to be sure, two key influences, but also shows that to one degree or another never really wanted their continuing storylines. The mythology arc of The X-Files, especially, was a product of necessity grafted onto the show after the fact when Gillian Anderson got pregnant. It will be interesting to one day see the show that learns from the mistakes of Lost as well. That said, I think it does an awful lot of things right with its continuing storyline. I’m eagerly anticipating its return, even while I’m also glad it has a planned end date ahead of it.
I think B5 faltered rather dramatically in its final season, spinning its wheels and stretching things out when the bulk of its interesting story (the Vorlons, the Shadows) had been told. So I don’t think even a meticulous plan before a show is greenlit is any guarantee.
Ending shows when they’re still popular really isn’t the problem with the networks. It’s ending shows before they have any shot at popularity. There are exceptions like Heroes. If this third season was a new show, it would likely have been canceled already. But, by and large, shows get canned before they’ve had a fighting chance to tell their continuing stories. (Pushing Daisies is a good case in point.)
You’re absolutely taking a risk with any new show, but that’s with or without a continuing storyline, with or without a plan from Day One. Any show can falter in its later season, get stupid and convoluted, and betray its earlier promise. Sometimes the gamble pays off — Lost lost a lot of viewers in its less-than-perfect third season, but has since bounced back and then some. Sometimes it doesn’t — I hated the last season of The X-Files. But I think they’re worth the risk.
Yeah, I’d say that’s a very apt description. It’s… actually kind of interesting to watch, in an odd, occasionally train-wreckish way, but I’m really glad that it’s not one of those shows I got incredibly emotionally invested it, or I’d probably be climbing the walls.
Re: the comments above, I agree that Lost, while hardly perfect in this regard, seems to me as if it is on track to avoid the X-Files‘ issues. Hard to say until we’ve reached the end, of course, but the fact that there is a definite end in sight is indeed a good sign.
You know, it seems to me that the current (and IMO generally laudable) trend towards shows with overarching novel-style structures does come into direct conflict with the typical attitude of American networks that as long as something continues to be popular, of course you should keep on making it (and then cancel it abruptly when the ratings fall). British TV, I think, is often much better at this, being willing to tell one complete story in, say, 13 episodes, and then stop when it’s done.
Anyway, I’d say that both not ending shows when it’s their time and cancelling shows before they’ve been given a fair shot are problems. The world would probably be a better place if we had one season of Heroes and three seasons of Firefly.
And, by the way, clicking on the “Peter David” link takes you back here, rather than to wherever the Peter David quite actually came from. Just FYI.
Then, too, there’s HBO’s The Wire, which I think got the novel-for-television formula down perfectly and was, arguably, the greatest television series ever.