Bryan Fuller (former Heroes writer) speaks frankly about Season 2

[Captain_BluTac]

You were part of the creative team behind the first season of Heroes. Do you think the criticism of season two was fair?
"I think one of the things that was so special about the first season was these characters discovering their abilities. The central metaphor for the characters was very clean and clear: you have the indestructible teenager; the single mother who has so much on her plate she needs two personalities to take care of it; the arrogant politician, so arrogant he could fly. In the second season it felt like that the central core to those characters was re-examined in a way that maybe lost a little bit of its heart."

Where do you think they went wrong?
"I think one of the problems was there was a redundancy to some of the stories in the first season. I worked on Star Trek for five years and one of my frustrations with that show was the magical 'history eraser' button at the end of every episode, so you didn't have any sense of serialisation. In Heroes season two there were a lot of things that weren't taken advantage of, such as the Niki character. Ali Larter's an amazing actress and as much as I loved the new characters, I missed a more thorough explanation of what was happening to the characters I'd grown attached to in the first season."

What do you mean by "redundancies"?
"In the first season we broke up the characters so that each writer had a different character and wrote for that character for all the episodes. I was primarily writing for Claire so I became very attached to that arc. Hayden Panettiere is such an amazing actress - she could read the 'phone book and it would be watchable - but it seemed like that the Claire-HRG relationship was going over familiar territory in the second season. I felt like I had seen those scenes before and so Claire's story suffered from redundancies."

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/a102972/qa-pushing-daisies-man-talks-heroes.html

 

[carrrnuttt]

Great insight, and I agree with the repetitiveness of the Claire + HRG dynamics.

 

[Neptune]

I agree with everything he says. It's too bad they don't see these things while writing those episodes. Or he saw it and told the other writers but they didn't listen to him.

 

[Sawyer]

Great insight, and I agree with the repetitiveness of the Claire + HRG dynamics.

Yeah, especially with Claire finding out that HRG kidnapped West, being shocked about it, and turning against him. Uhh, Claire, I thought you were already aware of what your father had done? It just felt stupid to me...much like my feeling on the character of West.

 

[Neptune]

I don't think West was that bad. Sure he was a little forced and he's certainly not my favorite character but he redeemed himself in cautionary tales. Now Maya and Alejandro were bad characters. And they underused monica.

 

[Sawyer]

But, at least Maya was nice to look at.

 

[Captain_BluTac]

But, at least Maya was nice to look at.

And my sister fancied Alejandro.

 

[Sentinel X]

Monica was so under used its not even funny. When her powers debuted everyone on this board was like "HOLY **** that was awesome!!!".....and than she got her ass kicked by 4 thugs...so what was the point of her

I also agree that Nikki sucked in season 2 also (I liked her in season 1 btw)...when she didn't rip that guy in half who shot DL I was really disappointed

And yes, the show was redundant. first scene they tried to save New York from exploding now they tried to save it from a lethal virus...no.

 

[pyromaniac]

I don't think West was that bad. Sure he was a little forced and he's certainly not my favorite character but he redeemed himself in cautionary tales. Now Maya and Alejandro were bad characters. And they underused monica.

I think Maya and Alejandro had potential because I could see with the virus storyline that they were linked in well: they suffered from bad writing and redundancy in their own right. Seriously, she blacks out in every episode she is in. It overuses her power to the point that any impact or consequence is lost.

And I did not like the somewhat prolonged story of Hiro in feudal Japan and the contrived nature of their romance, as well as Kensei's, even if the acting was great as usual and the payoff wonderful.

Similarly, Peter's setup in Ireland was just poor through and through and very unrealistic.

Everything else, no complaints except for spotty characterisation and quality screen time on behalf of Nikki and Nathan most notably. Monicia, she definitely was underused. But she is going to return in Volume 3, so can't wait to see what she brings to the table. And if Maya is coming back, she better be fresh and better written, it may be a little difficult to erase any bad memories of her presence in Season 2 but it can be done if right.

Wish D.L. was still around though.

 

[Nathan Petrelli]

It was the strikes fault which cut the season in basically 1 half, not the writers fault themselves, everything had to end too quickly. Look at the Nightmare Man, he was hyped up in season 1 to be some almighty force of evil, then he is defeated in 2 episodes.

 

[pyromaniac]

The strike is a factor, but not the only factor. The problems I pointed out began in the early episodes, written long before the strike happened.

 

[Nathan Petrelli]

Hiro and Kensei back in time was great, I don't understand how you couldn't like it. It was one of the best stories in season 2, then how Adam found out what was happening, it made it even greater when Hiro was back in the future.

Oh wait, you like Nikki, my bad.

 

[Koz]

I thought the Japan storyline lacked impact. It spanned too many episodes, and I don't think enough really happened in that story to justify it. First off, there should have been more action. We should have seen Hiro and Kensei go on their little quests. We just saw them going to them and coming back from them. I like to see my action, not get told it happened. I think watching them adventuring together would have helped to better establish their friendship as well, therefore making the upcoming betrayal more compelling.

The same is true for the romance between Yaeko and Hiro. We were basically told they fell in love, but we didn't get that many scenes of their love blossoming. It was very vanilla and boring. Also, I thought it cheapened Hiro's romance with Charlie because from Hiro's perspective, Charlie really didn't die that long ago. It made Hiro look even more like an emotionally-******ed child pining for anything with a pretty face.

 

[Neptune]

It was the strikes fault which cut the season in basically 1 half, not the writers fault themselves, everything had to end too quickly. Look at the Nightmare Man, he was hyped up in season 1 to be some almighty force of evil, then he is defeated in 2 episodes.

I still want to know exactly why Maury worked for Adam.

 

[neemer5]

Really appreciated the insight. He totally didn't condescend in the "fans were expecting this, and that's why they didn't like it" sort of way we've been hearing.

 

[storyteller]

Maybe this is one of the problems of having a cast this huge. Everyone has their own adventure. But how do you show these adventures without putting other characters to the side.

 

[Raiden]

Looks like the writer himself knew what went wrong with season 2. Hopefully the creative team for season 3 does too and they can figure out how to make this upcoming season avoid the pitfalls that dragged down season 2.

 

[Evo King]

Looks like the writer himself knew what went wrong with season 2. Hopefully the creative team for season 3 does too and they can figure out how to make this upcoming season avoid the pitfalls that dragged down season 2.

Yep, that's all we can hope for right now.