Armchair TV Exec

According to tradition, most magazines put out some kind of "year in review" issue right about December. This time around, I have noticed that in the pop culture-driven mags, whenever they talk about tv, Heroes is a popular punchline. As in "how far a tv golden child can fall," etc. There is also something known as a "sophomore slump," (which happens to sports rookies as much as tv writers), and I have an idea as to why this happens to tv writers. It's the networks' fault.

Maybe it has always been this way, I don't know, but lately networks have been very quick to drop the axe on shows that aren't instant ratings performers, no matter how high the quality of the show. Maybe it's the reality tv invasion that has caused execs to get trigger happy, as reality tv doesn't have as much overhead as scripted, but I digress.

With this ever-looming threat of axe wielding, show creators, producers, and writers are under tremendous pressure to grab and retain audiences early (much like the opening-weekend nonsense movies have to contend with), so they present all the really good stuff right out of the gate, not always planning to have a second season. They do well, and then, what next? They leave themselves with a very tough act to follow. So they often go back to the basics of character development, which they would have done first, but networks often do not trust the audience to stick around for that in the beginning, (though chances are it would be better for the story in the long run). And of course by this time, the audience is used to a hard-hitting format, and NOW doesn't have the patience to sit through a ramping-up period waiting for payoff (miraculously around sweeps time), no matter how big. So you end up with poor reviews, reduced viewership numbers, and a spot as the year-end punchline.

Heroes is past it's sophomore slump, but it's still reeling from the effects. Season 2 turned the show in a direction that is proving difficult to reverse smoothly. I imagine the options were to cut it off at the hilt and start over, losing continuity between seasons, or transition gradually back to the formula and core characters that granted them success in Season 1. I believe they chose the latter, and it's definitely the hard road. Though some lost their jobs over it, the show is still around to make good on its promise to return to being the show its fans love. Tim Kring issued a verbal mea culpa, and found that most fans are very forgiving, even if the critics hold an impenetrable grudge.

Of course, I'm not in the entertainment business, so I'm just speculating here, but I've seen the sophomore slump occur in enough shows--some got the guillotine, some pushed through it--to take a guess as to the cause.