Heroes Creator Apologizes to Saps
Tim Kring, creator of Heroes, caused a bit of a stir last week when he blamed Heroes' ratings problems on DVR, DVD and online viewing—which, he said, left the show's live ratings dependent on "saps and dips__ts" who didn't know how to use technology.
Kring has now apologized, in an open letter to fans (from SyFy Portal, via TV Tattle):
I was making the point that these platforms now offer a superior way to watch the show (without commercials, with extra content, commentary, at the audience's convenience, etc.) ... It was a boneheaded attempt at being cute and making a point. Instead, it turned out to be just plain insulting and stupid. I know now how it sounded, but I truly never meant to suggest anything bad about our audience.
In a way, the "saps and dips__ts" line was the most defensible part of Kring's statement. After all, you could argue that he was insulting the people who tuned in live to watch Heroes, but the larger group of people who watch something else instead. (Or at least, that Heroes' viewers are the smartest saps and dips___ts in sap-and-dips__t land!)
The bigger question is whether Kring realizes that his major problem is not technology—which has probably done much to build Heroes' audience over the years, just as it has for Lost and even The Office—but the quality of the show. We have the memo from Kring, and it's a gracious one. But hopefully he got the memo about his show's problems too.
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1
Yeah, DVRs are what killed Heroes. Right.... makes perfect sense. Next he'll be complaining about how the show didn't get moved to Fridays.
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2
I am getting really irritated by the defensive posture adopted by the Heroes folks. They've done nothing but apologize and scapegoat for as long as I can remember. And pander - there's been pandering in there too somewhere. Honestly, I'd rather them just take a stand - whatever that is - and stick by it. I'd have more respect for a guy who says "this is our vision for the show and if you don't like it then that's your problem" than one who does this:
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"we're altering our vision based on what we think the fans want, its gonna be great"
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"sorry, we were wrong to do that, we're sorry we suck now, we'll do better"
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"hey sorry we still suck but we're gonna do what the fans REALLY want this time"
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"hey sorry we still suck, its these people's faults and they're fired, don't give up on us"
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"hey sorry we still suck, its the fault of technology and stoopidheads etcetera"
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"oops, sorry we said that about technology and stoopidheads etcetera, we didn't really mean it"
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That's the timeline, right? This is now officially Tim Kring: The Obnoxious Apologist Chronicles. And I say this as a fan of the show. Just make your show and do the best you can. Let your work speak for itself - when the works stops being able to speak for itself, then address the actual problem of the work not speaking for itself. This just seems wishy-washy to the x-treme. -
3
Maybe it's obvious to other people, but I've always thought that the biggest problem with Heroes--and many other shows--is lack of foresight beyond the first season. What made the first season incredible was its seamlessness from start to finish, and you could tell that Kring (?) had the whole season in his head, down to smaller details like lighting design, before the show was even picked up. Now, each episode seems so slapdash and they are willing to compromise certain rules that had been set up as fact (Sylar=evil genius; Mohinder=power-free foil) and no one seems to know what's going on. The flashforwards/flashbacks make this glaringly obvious.
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4
[...] days later Tim Kring released a statement saying he was sorry and just trying to be cute. (Heroes Creator Appoligzies to Saps, Full letter here) I’m not sure if you’ve seen this man but cute is not something I [...]
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