10 TV Shows That SUCKED After The First Season

The original run for Tim Kring’s Heroes came at the absolute perfect time, airing in 2006 and 2007. This was just before the Marvel Cinematic Universe began to lay the groundwork for super-powered humans becoming a huge part of the next decade of pop culture. Instead of being about spandex-wearing do-gooders, Heroes was instead about a series of normal, seemingly disconnected people around the world suddenly gaining new abilities.

From time-travelling Hiro to the flying nurse Peter, from future-painting Isaac to impervious cheerleader Claire; Heroes was leading the new wave of television’s high concept storytelling in its first season. Its cast of characters was stellar and the mysteries it laid out for its audience were the stuff that water-cooler discussion was made for.

Many people would say that the 2007/2008 Writers Guild of America strike was the thing that killed Heroes off but this isn’t so. Sure, having its second season essentially cut in half didn’t help but the actual pacing and writing for its second volume was not what its established audience wanted to see. Season 2 isolated its most overpowered characters off with plot convenient storylines that stopped them from interacting with the wider arc so that it could be a slow-build... but season 1 had already been a slow build and, by now, the audience wanted to capitalise upon that momentum.

They may have saved the cheerleader and saved the world, but Heroes couldn’t save itself from what season 2 did to the show’s initial promise.