10 Great TV Shows That Lost It By The End
1. Heroes
Remember we mentioned that rarely does a show nosedive as badly as Dexter? If youre trying to think of another massive hit television show that crashed and burned so badly that it poisoned the careers of everyone involved for years to come, let us end the suspense. It was Heroes.
Dr. Cooper knows his stuff. Showrunner Tim Kring has gone on record as saying that he preferred to have seasons of the show written on the fly, and it showed. Where the largely fantastic first season seemed like pieces of a perfectly fitted jigsaw puzzle slowing moving together, everything about seasons two, three and four seemed more like desperation in television form: trying to recapture lightning in a bottle, and failing.
Introducing more characters, more powers and more conspiracies certainly didnt help. Adding to the mythology by writing in more arcane subterfuge, mysteries and secrets has never helped a television show retain the interest of viewers. It made the X-Files main arc plot too complicated to follow, it contributed to viewer dissatisfaction with Losts final season, and in Heroes it simply squandered all of the goodwill created by the first season.
Season two was longwinded and tedious, season three was more of the same, and worse, season four was unforgivably boring for a television show about people with miraculous superhuman abilities out of a comic book. And heres a little hint for anyone out there thinking of writing their own genre TV show: if youre plotting out an arc involving a shadowy government/corporate cabal and the consequences of all their secrets, dont. Weve seen it all before and its so stultifyingly dull that we would literally rather watch infomercials for hygiene products. And that goes double for Kring and miniseries Heroes: Reborn.
There are more, obviously but which is your favourite example of a brilliant TV show that spectacularly lost its mojo? Tell us all about it in the comments!