8. Heroes (NBC, 2006 - 2010)
What Was The Show? A gritty drama about people with superpowers.
What Was The Stupid Decision? Abandoning almost all of Season Twos storylines.
How Did It Kill The Show? Like a lot of American shows, Heroes was affected by the 2008 Writers Guild Of America strike. But unlike other scripted shows that just had a reduced episode count that year, Heroes was set on a gradual path to the TV graveyard. The main plot of Season Two was an immortal man named Adam Monroe attempting to unleash a virus that would kill millions of people. We saw a glimpse of what this would cause when Peter Petrelli accidentally time travelled to a year later where the Shanti Virus had killed 93% of the human race and buildings all around the world were filled with rotting corpses that were waiting for disposal. Peter left his love interest Caitlin in this future after accidentally travelling back to the present, and at the end of the shortened Season Two he destroyed the virus thus erasing that future and removing Caitlin from time altogether. This was never mentioned again. But it didnt end there. The storylines of Peter joining a gang of Irish thieves and technopathic pre-teen Micah living with his extended family were completely ignored as well with the final scenes of Season Twos last episode setting up several new plotlines including an assassination attempt on politician Nathan Petrelli and serial killer Sylar regaining his powers after spending all of Season Two unable to use them. Going with the original story of the virus being released wasnt an option since some of the required scenes hadnt been filmed in time for broadcast but the surrounding plots could have easily been picked up later and the Shanti Virus story could have been revisited in some way further down the line. Especially since two of the shows main characters were capable of time travel. This was the start of Heroes long and slow decline where it started to lose viewers for being too complex and having too many different characters and stories going on. The show eventually ended with a pitiful viewing figure of 4.41 million for the finale of Season Four and was cancelled. If Season Three had connected to Season Two more, Heroes might have survived longer. Unfortunately, it didnt and the show crashed and burned as a result.