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Is Heroes doing too much, too soon?
I was thinking about this the other day. Even though I named Heroes as the best show of the year, I've been worried lately that season two might turn out to be an over-hyped, overdone disaster that will make me tire of it really quickly. I mean, they're adding cast members at an astonishing rate (Kristin Bell, Nichelle Nichols, David Anders, Stephen Tobolowsky, Janel Parrish, Jessica Collins). They're going to have a storyline in another time (Hiro), produced a spinoff mini-series to be directed by Kevin Smith, produced online stories and comics to keep fans entertained and well-fed and gone on a world tour to promote the show. It's really overwhelming, and I hope they're not doing too much, too soon.
The Boston Globe's Matthew Gilbert is worried too.
Gilbert's main point is that it seems like Tim Kring and NBC are throwing so much at us that it's turning the little show that could into an overyhyped money machine that dwarfs even other overyhyped shows:
As the fall TV season approaches, and we wonder which series will shame themselves, "Heroes" is looking increasingly like a prime suspect. Since the Monday night show is NBC's only newish non-reality hit, the network and Kring have spent the summer heaping tacky expansion gimmicks onto it with abandon. "Heroes" has been turned into a relentless and tiresome source of merchandising, casting, and spinoff hype -- hype about how the show will grow as a product, not media-generated hype about how good it is.
To me, it's as if NBC is pressing "Heroes" into child labor. The network is working the show like a mature blockbuster -- on the order of "CSI" or "Lost" -- too soon. Underneath all the great expectations, there is just a wee sci-fi TV series whose unformed back is carrying too much weight.
"Heroes" has great potential, based on much of its first season, to be special and enduring. But, like many new series, it still needs refining and tender loving care before it deserves to be turned into a synergistic linchpin. Its Emmy nomination this summer for outstanding drama series came too soon.
He makes some good points, though there's no way I'm not going to watch, of course. The first season was way too good to simply say this show has "jumped the shark" (I really hate that term now) already. I just hope they really weave the new cast members into the show really well. There was already a giant cast, and now they're adding a ton more, and those storylines could really get out of control really fast. Unless they plan on killing most of the original cast (which of course they aren't).
So what do you think? Is Heroes going overboard?
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