Heroes is tonight and it’s on notice

So tonight brings the season 3 premiere of Heroes on NBC.  It’s a three hour season kick-off extravaganza.  For those of you keeping score at home, that’s one hour of interviews and recaps you don’t care about unless you’ve forgotten the entire show and/or are the type of person to buy the show on DVD and watch all the special features, and two hours of actual premiere.  And by two hours and I mean 1 hour and 20 minutes interrupted commercials.

However, I’m also placing Heroes on notice.   Chances are I will watch the whole season, and chances are that I’ll give the show a few episodes to prove itself, because that’s exactly what Heroes needs to do this season: prove itself.

I’m being honest when I say that Season one was some pretty cool introduction and then action strung together by some ho-hum plot movement/character drama.  And season 2 was a cool beginning/continuation from season 1 with a kind of dry/nothing’s happening/can we hurry this up please middle cut short to meet an action packed season ending.  There are two lessons I think the writers/producers can take from this.

First, this is a show about heroes, and the main thing that draws people to heroes is that they fight the bad guys.  We enjoy action.  So far the action has been good.  No one will complain if there’s more.

Second, I don’t want to watch a show about Heroes just because there’s cool action, which for the most part feels like I’ve been watching to this point.  I want real characters who I care about that draw me back to the show.  I don’t watch Lost because I want to see if the smoke monster eats someone.  I watch Lost because the characters are worth watching.  Shoot, the reason people come back to House week after week (myself included) isn’t to see cool medical mysteries.  You watch House because of House, Wilson, Cuddy, etc.

So Hereos, you’re on notice.  The people in charge of the show have said they learned from their mistakes over Season 1 and Season 2.  It’s time to prove it.

An Open Letter to J.J. Abrams

Dear Mr. Abrams,

I watched the premiere of Fringe the other night on Fox, and I’ll admit I enjoyed it.  I’m excited to see where you take the show, and I hope the show evolves and improves as it continues so I can continue enjoying.

I have to admit I haven’t always been a huge fan of yours.  I’ve never watched an episode of Felicity.  I’ve heard some good things about Alias, and I’ve seen the first few episodes and I watched the last season online (I know that’s a terrible way to do it, but I had to sit in front of computer all night long for that job and I needed something to do.  I’d love to watch the whole series sometime, but I just haven’t gotten my hands on the DVDs.

When it comes to Lost, I’m an addict.  My wife and I watch the show almost religiously, and I’m happy to see you left the show in great hands with Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse.  The hype for Cloverfield was amazing, but I haven’t seen that either due to a cashflow issue at my home (the cash flows from bank account out to pay my bills) though I hear it wasn’t too bad.  I’m excited for the new Star Trek film you’re working on, and as I said, I enjoyed Fringe and actually watched the pilot because I saw your name attached the program.  And that’s why I’m writing.  I’m concerned.

Let’s be honest: as one of my friends put it, everything you touch turns to gold.  This could be a problem.  Look at your track record.  Alias started out genius, but most people would agree it wasn’t as great at the end.  Cloverfield had a lot of hype, but from what I understand didn’t do as awesome as the studio would have liked.  But then you’ve got Star Trek coming up, which I hope will be incredible, Fringe starting now which looks promising, and of course the legacy of Lost, which I blame and thank profusely for the return of good serialized programs.

I want to like what you make, but I’m just not sure if you can keep it up.  You’ve got a lot of pressure riding on your shoulders.  I don’t want to see you crushed under it.  None of your fans want to look at you as a tattered man saying “O how the mighty have fallen” as a promising project blows up in your face.  It’s possible the hype has become bigger than the man.  I think it’s time to step away.

I didn’t want to say that, but I think it’s true.  Before the J.J. hype becomes so huge you can do nothing but disappoint, you should take a break.  Maybe develop ideas under a pseudonym for a while, lie low, and then recatapult your career by returning from seclusion and claiming credit for all those projects.  Your fans will eat it up as just another great conspiracy from the mind of J.J. Abrams.  Some might even blame your disappearance on the Dharma Foundation or perhaps Whidmore.  I would probably blame it on Lance Reddick.

Any way it goes you can’t lose.  Sure, you might continue to make awesome projects that allow people like Kristin Dos Santos at E! Entertainment to continue to worship the ground you walk on.  But you also might slip up, and suddenly everything you touch won’t be gold.  And rather than remember your Lost’s, people will just talk about how horrible the end of your Alias’s were.

Or you could take a break after you’ve wrapped up your current projects (please see Star Trek and Fringe through first) and come back to create the television series that unites America and the world to the point where we all turn on our televisions and laugh, cry, scream, and lean forward on our seats at the exact same time.  We won’t know, unless you take the risk.  Don’t worry about us.  We’ll be ok.  I’ll put on all 6 seasons of Lost on loop until you get back.

Mike

Some Real Talent Here

I admit it.  Who am I kidding, you’ve noticed.  I fell off the face of the blog o’sphere after the Lost season finale.  You may have assumed that this was because like Lost, most other shows ended at the same time.  This is partially true, though it’s also not a good excuse.  The reason it’s not a good excuse is because this summer I have been watching some television including back seasons of House, the first season of the show Life, and an amazing show on USA called Burn Notice. Seriously, if you’re not watching Burn Notice, you should be.  If you’re wondering, hopefully I’ll put together another post soon to explain why.  For now I leave you with two words: Bruce Campbell.

But that’s not why I’m popping in on my own blog.  No the reason I’m here is because of a quality link I received today.  This link was to a YouTube video from the band MercyMe.  And that video hooked me on what they refer to as the “Cover Tune Grab Bag”.  I will readily admit that they’re hit and miss.  Some are amazing, some are laughable, and some are like a train wreck.  Below, I’ve included my favorite.  If you want more, you can find them here. Enjoy!