Heroes may get that Mercy Killing

TV Insiders are saying the Superhero(fail) series, Heroes may be leaving the building.

New York Mag's Vulture had this to say:

For weeks, even in the face of Heroes' bottom-dwelling ratings, conventional wisdom among TV-industry insiders has been that NBC was leaning heavily toward bringing back its once-mighty superhero series for a fifth and final thirteen-episode wrap-up season. But as NBC has become more confident in its slate of new shows, all indications are that our Heroes are dead.

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But when NBC executives got a look at the new pilots they had ordered (five have already been commissioned as series), they fell in love with their own handiwork; the network felt far better about these new shows' potential than they did about Heroes'. Even though there's no guarantee that any of the newcomers will work, there's a lot more upside to giving a new contender such as J.J. Abrams's Undercovers the time to find an audience rather than yanking it off quickly and begging viewers to give Heroes one more shot. As a result, according to agency sources and chatter around Hollywood, Heroes has started looking less like a backup plan and more like a waste of money.

However, NBC (which declined to comment for this story) is nothing if not appreciative of the few Heroes fans who still care about the saga and doesn't want to leave them hanging. While a half-season appears to be out of the question, we hear there's a good chance the network will at least try to find a way to fund a two- or four-hour movie event in order to give some finality to the franchise. Those discussions haven't taken place yet, however, since NBC still hasn't officially told Heroes creator Tim Kring his show is canceled.

This may be for the best. The series was going down, and not in a good way. The storylines were tired and borrowing from 80s comic book storylines. I hate to say it, but this series is already dead to most of us.

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Interesting Quote: Mounir al-Wasimi

"How do we allow a gay, who wants to ban religions, claimed that the prophet Eissa (Jesus) was gay and calls for Middle Eastern countries to allow gays to have sexual freedom."

Their reason why Elton John's concert in Egypt could be canceled.

Good Night, Chuck

This release was an accident, but I think the cancellation was a mercy killing. The show was almost too slick for geeks and too smart for the average viewer.

Maybe if Joss or J.J. wrote the show, it would at least get a movie out of the deal.

Kings is Dead, Long Live Crappy TV Shows

This is sad...

NBC is replacing freshman drama Kings on Sunday nights, yanking the struggling allegorical series after four episodes.

Kings will be swapped out for another hour of Dateline, which will now run for two hours starting at 7 p.m.

Sunday's Kings episode was seen by 3.6 million viewers and received a 1.1 rating among adults 18-49. Yet Dateline had a 1.5 rating in its half hour leading into Kings. NBC suspects an expanded Dateline will provide a better lead-in for 9 p.m.'s Celebrity Apprentice, which has seen some audience erosion in recent weeks that might be attributed to Kings.

The remaining eight episodes of Kings will air on Saturday nights at 8 p.m. starting April 18.

The situation is a shame because, as nearly every TV critic pointed out, NBC took a chance here on an imaginative idea with a strong cast. Kings, which retold the story of King David in modern times, wasn't another police procedural, it wasn't a cynical programming move. Some may harp on NBC for airing Kings on Sundays at 8 p.m. -- it's a weak slot for the network -- but if the network had misjudged the show and it was truly effective its ratings would not have sunk week to week.

This was a new and exciting project and NBC f**ked it up! They kept Knight Rider, as if people are watching that crappy, crappy show. They could move that mess to Sundays and give Kings a proper chance. It's sad that creativity suffers, but it's really sad that most folks are afraid of something different.

Again, I see why geeks are elitists.