Jeph Loeb and Jesse Alexander have been fired from Heroes!!

[Nivek]

I'm not that impressed with Loeb's writing skills, look at what a dead fish Rulk is (his attempt at doing the Hulk and that awful Red Hulk character mystery). I hope they bring in fresh imaginative talent and give the show a good chance before it gets cancelled.

 

[LexFactor]

maybe Loeb can come back to Smallville now.

I would love that to happen. Anyway, I'm surprised that he's been fired. Don't know much about the other guy though.

 

[Casius--J]

Ok this is interesting news, i'm not sure what to expect now. I hope that it does improve the show, not because i have any against these two writers but because i wouldnt want them to be fired for no reason at all.

Personally i've really enjoyed this season so far, a lot more than season 2 which was horrible in my opinion!

 

[Captainhulk]

I'm not that impressed with Loeb's writing skills, look at what a dead fish Rulk is (his attempt at doing the Hulk and that awful Red Hulk character mystery). I hope they bring in fresh imaginative talent and give the show a good chance before it gets cancelled.

You don't like the red Hulk series??? I think you're alone on that.

 

[Jennifer Walters]

No, when Loeb took over Hulk writing duties, I left the book and never looked back.

Hopefully this gets the show back on track because so far this season is shaping up to be a disaster.

 

[GL1]

They just fired their two best writers. This is, by no means, good news for the show.

The idea of fans b*ing on a forum causing the quality of the show to go down - the cause of lost viewership - is laughable, as is the idea that "real fans" don't complain about the show's clearly visible and increasing faults.

The "problem" with seasons 2 and 3, is that, quite simply, the writers aren't as good, and apparently not as dedicated or cohesive since they have failed to plan things out ahead of time as S1 was. The writers know they're not as good as S1, and they say so pretty clearly in the interviews.

If my career was on this show, I'd want to be fired before things got any worse as well... especially if I have another gig which I'm "moderately" successful at.

I think that if S2 had been as forward thinking as S1, the show would have only continued to grow in success... but they decided not to evolve the show or characters, they decided to pull them from their status quos and evolve them back into their S1 ruts. That's really, really dumb from a serial storytelling point of view to do that to the majority of your characters. That's not a corner S1 created, that's a deliberate decision of writers who are bound to season 1 and short on creativity, so they just cut and paste the climaxes. It's silly.

 

[Prison Mike]

this whole "real" fans thing reminds me of "real" America and fake America. lol

 

[Matt]

I don't think its a matter of how good the episodes that Loeb or Alexander wrote are. It is a matter of them pretty much being Kring's right hands and the show runners. They were the heads of the writing staff, and quality does some to have corrolation to ratings. Therefore, as management they share responsibility for every bad episode that gets written and made. If your show is failing, you have to shake things up. I do not believe they can boot Kring as he probably owns at least a portion of the show. His right hands, however, they can. And I love Loeb but I think its a good call. The show has needed fixing since season 2...the best they could do was recycle plots and make the characters come off as ridiculously stupid in the process? It had to be done.

 

[Rac]

Wow. They fired Jeph Loeb?! Huh.

 

[The Incredible Hulk]

not a good sign when you fire producers mid-season. I'll admit the show has gotten really stale to the point where I only DVR it and sometimes never even watch the recording. Their problem is in the first season they were successful by "main-streaming" a lot of recycled plots we'd seen in comics before, The Watchmen, X-Men, new Mutants, etc. Once they started getting away from that crutch, the show went off kilter. Plus their per episode budget ($4 million) is outrageous. No wonder expectations are so high, if theyre at that price tag. Although it does make me ask where is all that budget going? Because I can only recall a handful of times when I've seen $4 million worth of effets in any given episode.

 

[YJ1]

not a good sign when you fire producers mid-season. I'll admit the show has gotten really stale to the point where I only DVR it and sometimes never even watch the recording. Their problem is in the first season they were successful by "main-streaming" a lot of recycled plots we'd seen in comics before, The Watchmen, X-Men, new Mutants, etc. Once they started getting away from that crutch, the show went off kilter. Plus their per episode budget ($4 million) is outrageous. No wonder expectations are so high, if theyre at that price tag. Although it does make me ask where is all that budget going? Because I can only recall a handful of times when I've seen $4 million worth of effets in any given episode.

Great points! I can't even recall that many times where I've seen any effects worth that kind of money.

If they're going to borrow from X-Men or New Mutants, I wish they would go all they way. It's not the stale ideas, it's the poor execution and poor writing. They put their own spin on the concept and it seems it's without direction. Hopefully, they'll start writing less convoluted and less silly shows from here on out. Less time travel, power swapping and out of character/continuity contradictions are required. The whole formula idea flies in the face of the X-Men type of mutant concept. (What made X-Men popular in the first place) Everyone switching, losing or developing powers just serves to pull people out of the story. They need to scrap this idea very fast and start a decent story or else this show is doomed. Also, inept comedy relief Hiro is a TERRIBLE idea as is incoherent, butt kicking cheerleader.

 

[TNC9852002]

WTF? I love the show more than ever and I don't think the low ratings is really the issue, but it seems like the show was moreso running over budget constantly. I mean, the low ratings didn't seem to reflect when an episode was bad or anything like that.

We'll never discover the real details behind all of this..

-TNC

 

[BubblyHustla]

Great points! I can't even recall that many times where I've seen any effects worth that kind of money.

If they're going to borrow from X-Men or New Mutants, I wish they would go all they way. It's not the stale ideas, it's the poor execution and poor writing. They put their own spin on the concept and it seems it's without direction. Hopefully, they'll start writing less convoluted and less silly shows from here on out. Less time travel, power swapping and out of character/continuity contradictions are required. The whole formula idea flies in the face of the X-Men type of mutant concept. (What made X-Men popular in the first place) Everyone switching, losing or developing powers just serves to pull people out of the story. They need to scrap this idea very fast and start a decent story or else this show is doomed. Also, inept comedy relief Hiro is a TERRIBLE idea as is incoherent, butt kicking cheerleader.

Agree to disagree on Hiro-hating. I think he and Ando are consistently one of the better parts of this show. I am D/L season 2. I watched the first ep and then fell off. I have recently D/L all season three eps to this point and read summaries of the season 2 eps. I like the third season and I think it's gotten back to some of the HOLY ****-type endings the first season had in practically every episode.

I dunno how much the firing of these guys will affect the show, but I hope it can turn itself around to give us at least four or five seasons...five max.

 

[Double Down]

Entertainment Weekly's take:

'Heroes' loses two of its own heroes
A major development to report from the set of NBC's Heroes: EW.com has learned that co-executive producers Jeph Loeb (left) and Jesse Alexander, two of the show's most instrumental writer/producers, are leaving the three-year-old series. Their departure comes at a watershed moment for Heroes, which has taken a serious hit in the ratings amid complaints by critics and fans alike that the show has lost its zeitgeist-tapping appeal. The drama is averaging 9 million-plus viewers this season, down from last year's 11.6 million average.
Loeb and Alexander are celebrities in their own right among the fanboys. Loeb is an author of many comic books, including Batman, The Hulk, and Superman For All Seasons, which inspired the creation of Smallville. Loeb joined the then-WB drama in its second season. Alexander was previously a co-exeutive producer on Lost and Alias. It's unclear whether Heroes creator/executive producer Tim Kring will replace the two writer/producers.

 

[TNC9852002]

As far as I know, the entire network is low in ratings and Heroes, despite this, is still very popular.

I think the only reason the show may be dropping in ratings like this is probably because of them introducing too many characters too fast. The large percentage of the Heroes fans are casual sci-fi adventure tv watchers. They may have liked the first season and the second, but they might get confused really quickly by the third season and they'll probably skip it now to watch the reruns.

Heck, even with the weird and dangerous directions the show has gone in this season, it hasn't affected my loyalty to the show.

-TNC

 

[Double Down]

The thing about shows like Heroes is that once they start dropping viewers, they rarely get them back.
For many viewers, it is hard to stop watching a show with cliffhangers, but once they do stop, they rarely come back later -- after having broken the habit and then missed out on episodes.
And Heroes is unlikely to get many new viewers. Who would start to watch it now after all the bad press?
It's the same thing that happened to The OC and it is going to happen to Heroes.

From Entertainment Weekly:
"[Heroes] is now averaging only 9.4 million viewers, down from last year's 11.6 million average. And the Oct. 6 episode notched its lowest number ever at 8.2 million viewers — a far cry from its peak performance of 16 million in season 1."

And here is what happened to The OC:
"Based in the affluent Orange County, Calif., city of Newport Beach, “The O.C.” caught fire in its first season, 2003-04, as the top-rated drama among advertiser-favored young adults and with a total audience of nearly 10 million. The show’s story lines revolved around Ryan (Benjamin McKenzie), an outsider thrust into a heady new world of money and sex, and rich high school kids including Seth Cohen (Adam Brody) and Marissa Cooper (Mischa Barton) and their families. “The O.C.” didn’t sustain its momentum, dropping to about 7 million weekly viewers during 2004-05 and then to fewer than 6 million last season. This year, returning in November after Fox wrapped its postseason baseball coverage, “The O.C.” has only drawn about 4 million viewers."

Once you start to lose viewers like that, you tend to never get them back.

 

[GL1]

On Stealing storylines as a crutch

The storylines have been told time and time again, long before X-Men, Watchmen and whatever other men that we are all familiar with and somehow presume to be the inspiration for anything involving super powers.

On the Price Tag
That's why Heroes can't afford to stagnate like they decided to do in pre-production in season 2. They can't afford to just keep what they have. In order to be more profitable they would have to reach more people, which means changing things and taking risks and learning to keep the beloved things while still adapting. Instead, they went fans-only in S2 and lost a lot on nearly every front.

Regardless, The computer effects they're using are almost abusive, imho (The train scene with claire was just her in a field, no ocean, no train, no tracks, no flying Peter, just CGI)... and if those are their 'effects' then yeah, obviously money is being wasted on things that do not tell the story.


On New characters
I think this is NOT the problem. New characters introduced well with interesting storylines and purposes and depth to them are well accepted, no matter the series, no matter the timing. The problem with adding new characters only comes when you refused to get rid of the old ones, or force the old ones to stay in the middle of the spotlight, which causes bad storytelling, plot holes, as well as makes new characters clog things, because your cast still has the arrangement from S1, with little room for newbies.

Thoughts...
If Loeb and homeboy are behind the stagnation, if they think that the Heroes Universe should revolve around the Petrellis, then this is the only chance that Heroes has to survive and had to be done. If they aren't the culprits of Heroes' stagnation, this was a uber-stupid move, and really is kind of the death knell for the series, because of the timing, position and profile of the fire peoples, regardless of your opinion of their talent.

On Holy-**** endings

Yeah, they're getting back to them. But they aren't as good as the S1 ones, because they aren't built up to. They are random, like the LOST Holy-**** endings, as opposed to "why didn't I see that coming?" like a lot of the S1 stuff. Also, the S1 endings often helped flesh out characters instead of just advance the plot.

 

[Fanticon]

that EW article really must have been a wake up call! Honestly...this whole thing revolving around the patrelli family is absolutely ridiculous...time to patch it all up.

 

[The Sage]

I don't think its a matter of how good the episodes that Loeb or Alexander wrote are. It is a matter of them pretty much being Kring's right hands and the show runners. They were the heads of the writing staff, and quality does some to have corrolation to ratings. Therefore, as management they share responsibility for every bad episode that gets written and made. If your show is failing, you have to shake things up. I do not believe they can boot Kring as he probably owns at least a portion of the show. His right hands, however, they can. And I love Loeb but I think its a good call. The show has needed fixing since season 2...the best they could do was recycle plots and make the characters come off as ridiculously stupid in the process? It had to be done.

Well said.

 

[chaseter]

Oh well, time to clean house if changes are to be made

 

[Brainiac 8]

It surprises me that they decided to let Loeb go. This doesn't bode well for the continuing of the show. I hope it doesn't effect it, since while I'm not much of a fan, I have several friends who love "Heroes."

I hope maybe Loeb will come back to write for Smallville periodically. I mean Geoff Johns is writing an episode for Smallville, why not get Loeb back.

Heck he wrote one of the best episodes of Smallville with "Perry."

 

[chaseter]

It surprises me that they decided to let Loeb go. This doesn't bode well for the continuing of the show.

Why? With him on board the show has gone downhill Were they going to leave him on board and wait and see what happens for another couple of seasons

 

[Brainiac 8]

Why? With him on board the show has gone downhill Were they going to leave him on board and wait and see what happens for another couple of seasons

Not at all. While I agree that there are times when a management change needs to be done, it is usually difficult for a show to pull back from that sort of major change.

But who knows, new management sometimes works very well for a show. The change in management has done wonders for the direction and writing for Smallville, maybe new management will pump some much needed new blood into "Heroes."

 

[Dotten]

Maybe we'll get a "constant" hero now. The characters are to "schizzo". The show is titled Heroes, but this season there has been none of them. Even f¤%¤ing up Peter (badass Future-Peter was fun, but mistake to make "our" Peter get all crazy).

Character-development is not about a character being all other characters within a season. Good guy one episode, bad guy next episode. I'm wondering who these people are and where Peters gone. Turn back to more consistent characters, at least the main ones. And maybe let them do some hero-stuff. Save a kittycat from a tree at least.

Season one was awesome, get back to it!

 

[Sawyer]

Why? With him on board the show has gone downhill Were they going to leave him on board and wait and see what happens for another couple of seasons

It's not like he joined the show right before it started getting crappier and crappier. He's been there from the beginning. How do we know Kring isnt the problem? How do we know the network isnt the problem? Getting rid of these two wont do a damn thing to improve the show. I'm 98% sure.

Now, I'm not saying I'll stop watching with them gone, but I really cant see how getting rid of them will help whatsoever. They wrote some of the shows best episodes.