February 9, 2009

• Heroes and the rise of the Mindless Shock Television Drama

  Heroes is back on television. A ten episode arc is airing deemed “Volume 4″. I find it remarkably hard to get excited about it this time around. The writers claim this volume will revitalize the series by bringing it back to its roots and help save it from its flagging viewership.  I find myself… doubtful.

  In the beginning I, like so many people had high hopes for Heroes. I’m a huge Comic Book fan. HUGE. And Heroes seemed finally to be a television series firmly rooted in the traditions of Comic Books. The characters seemed cool. The powers seemed cool. And the budget was high enough to make the effects not seem utterly cheesy (a flaw with many other “powers” TV dramas that have arisen over the years).

  But as time went by it became very clear that Heroes does not follow its Comic Book roots at all. Now I’m the first one to say that *most* comic books are far from literary genius, but Heroes is something else, something much much worse. Indeed, I would go so far as to say it is an insult to the entire Comic Book superhero industry to be considered in any way related to Heroes. Yeah. Heroes has gotten that bad.

  You see Heroes isn’t a Comic Book Drama… it’s more of what I would coin a Mindless Shock Drama. And probably one of the worst ones on Television right now. (It vies for that position with the ignominious “24″)

  What is a Mindless Shock Drama? Well at it’s basics its a series that values “shocking” the viewer more than it values plot consistency, character consistency, or creative content.  The idea of these dramas is to create “water cooler moments”. Events that people can talk about around the water cooler at work the next day. People are supposed to say: “Did you see Heroes last night? Wow, Can you believe THAT happened?!? I was totally shocked!”  The surprise is supposed to stick in your head more than the rest of the story. You aren’t supposed to think or wonder or reason, just be SURPRISED. That’s the whole entertainment value of the Mindless Shock Drama.

  There are so many examples of this in modern television its almost terrifying. And annoyingly they are amongst the most famous and popular shows that have been on Television lately. Examples include Heroes, Lost, 24, Battlestar Galactica, Smallville, The Sopranos, etc.

  Signs that you might be watching of a Mindless Shock Drama include:

  1. Characters that just disappear - 
  Clearly the writers just dont feel like dealing with a certain character or perhaps that character isn’t polling well. That character will just vanish. There will either be no explanation or a shallow sudden meaningless explanation mentioned once and never talked of again. Clearly the writers are trying to pull a fast one on you hoping that you’ll be so caught up in the “surprise” that you won’t notice.

  2. Test Scenarios that appear and then are suddenly Dropped -
  You can almost see the wheels in the writers head turning. “Let’s try out having a two dads one kid scenario and maybe we can turn it into a gay thing later on, oh people aren’t liking it, drop it!”  Or… “I wonder if people will like having Sylar be Good for a while? Oh people aren’t into it? ok back to evil!”

  3. End of Episodes are Predictably Surprising -
  If nothing surprising has happened and you are at the last five minutes of an episode, think about what the most surprisingly thing that could happen right now would be… chances are at leat 99% that will be EACTLY what will happen. Take 24 for example, if Jack Baurer is flying away in a plane at teh end of an episode, that plane will probably crash. If there’s a nuclear bomb unexploded or a President unassassinated at the end of an episode expect that bomb to explode or that Preisdent to be assassinated. In the universe of 24, something surprising happens every hour on the hour like clockwork. Other Shock Dramas aren’t quite as predictable… but they’re close.

  4. Characters Personalities and Characteristics Randomly Morph -
  This is particularly messed up in Heroes, a Comic Book series where the Character’s powers partially DEFINE them. Characters randomly lose powers, gain powers, writers forget that the characters have powers. (Sylar has super hearing you boneheads! And why the heck doesn’t Peter ever turn Invisible!?!??) An actor might be brought back to play a different character with a new power who just happens to look and act just like an old character. Etc.  In other shows a character might suddenly become a relgious fanatic, or suddenly have a change of heart forgetting his evil ways and struggle to save everyone. A character might randomly go into politics. A character might randomly start to go insane. A character might randomly commit suicide even though it is against their personality. Or a character might randomly cheat on his or her significant other. No explanation is ever given.

  5. Every Season has an Entirely New Plot –
  New plot, new villains, little or no connection to previous seasons. These writers clearly presume that viewers memories are too short ot keep track of anything that crosses seasons. More importantly in order for each new year to have sufficient surprises, they need to bring in new elements because continuing to develop old story lines is rarely surprising. Hence Heroes random morphing of major antagonists from Sylar, to the Company, to Adam, to the Shanti Virus, to Pinehearst, to Arthur Petrelli, to Nathan Petrelli to who knows what’s next.

  6. Actual explanations are Avoided like the Plague -
  The reason is simple, if you actually UNDERSTAND what’s going on you won’t be surprised. And talking just isn’t shocking enough for the writers. Hence they never bother to really explain how Claire and Adam’s healing ability really works, nor the power absorbtion abilities of Sylar, Peter, and Arthur. Why can you be blowed entirely up but still heal but a bullet the the head kills you dead? How the heck does understanding “how things works” translate into Sylar being able to use everyone’s power?

  7. Elements are chosen for Popularity more than Substance -
  You know how critics say of many recent movies that this movie “feels like it was written by committee”? Well many Mindless Shock TV shows are even worse. They feel like the were written by survey.  It’s like the series producers examined the demographics of its viewers and proportioned characters to fit the demographics. If 60% of the viewers are teenagers then 60% of the characters have to appeal to teenagers. If it’s 70% female, than 70% of the show has to appeal to the average female. Only it’s worse than that… cuz they tend to then target to the least common denominator in each group. If there’s a question of which direction a plot should go in, it almost feels like they just took a vote and whichever possibility won 51% of the vote got the nod. Nevermind the 49% of the people who will be disappointed every single time.

  There are many other signs but these are the basics. Just ask yourself if this series is trying to entertain me through a cheap thrill shock rather or does it actually have something interesting or meaningful to say? If it’s the former then it’s probably a Mindless Shock Drama.

  To be fair though, some of these are my favorite shows too. Just because something is templated after the Mindless Shock Drama model does not prevent it from being a good show. If the writers DO pay enough attention to plot and character development or add something original to the series, the series can STILL be good. Take Lost for example. The plot in Lost is intricate and interesting but appears to be somewhat CONSISTENT. More importantly, *most* of the characters don’t go through substantive radical shifts that leave the viewer “Lost” and confused.  But you can still see that it is a Mindless Shock Drama, because if you pay a modicum of attention you can see where plot elements are dropped, characters are killed off for simple expedience and many elements seem made up on the spot just to give people something to talk about.

  But Heroes has gotta be one of the worst. You know how they say that if there’s a knife on the mantle in Act 1 of a play it ought to be used by act 5? Well Heroes leaves all kinds of knives lying around on the mantle, and shotguns under the bed, and vials of poison in the fridge, and bombs stuffed away in the closet. They make a point to show you these things with sufficiently dramatic music and make you think it matters only to NEVER mention them again. The show clearly has no purpose other than to make money. There is no story. There is not plot. There are no characters. It’s just a random set of events stuck together in arbitrary order the only guiding rule behind it is the need to put a “shock” event toward the end of every episode or two.

  And yet… sadly I’ll still keep watching Heroes. As much as I hate it, as much as it’s come to disgust me, I’ll still watch.  Why? I don’t know. Maybe it’s my fealty to the shows lost potential and my desire to keep up hope that the show might turn around. Maybe it’s just that I can’t help but like certain characters like Hiro and Ando because of the skill of the actors who play them. Maybe I’ve just got nothing better to do.

  Or maybe I’m just a sucker like everybody else and the Mindles Shock Dramas, however idiotic, actually do work.

  (But none of these recent shows holds a candle to quality TV dramas like Star Trek:TNG, Babylon Five, Firefly, Star Gate SG-1, and Doctor Who)

  • 10:45 am
  • 7 Comments