Were you on the list Friends and Neighbors? Today we explore the cultural contributions of the epic television show that is no longer with us, "Heroes."
Television is an ever changing medium, ever evolving and forever finding new and innovative ways to act as a window onto the world. Television programming needs to evolve and adapt along with the technology in order to maintain viability in the market that fuels the consumption. Not simply a tool for viewing of stories, television is a sign post for the ideas of the times as much as it is also a showcase for merchandise and a major force in the economy. Through advertising and storytelling, writers are able to express their views and ideas about society and the world at large. Social messages are distributed to establish and promote the hegemony. Advertising dollars are king, however, and as such the programming must often bend to the will of the consumer. This often lends itself to fear, uncertainty and doubt by producers as to what programming to show. Mistakes can cost millions of dollars; therefore, few chances are taken. Still every now and then a show comes along that is granted the chance to take a risk. One of these shows was “Heroes.”
The summer of 2006 Comicon, a comic book and geek culture convention, was held as it has been for many years. The attendees were able to see a pilot for a new television show. For the past several years the television stations had been inundated with so called “reality television.” After the success of “Survivor” and “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” the networks realized how much cheaper they could create programming. It would seem that aside from a few procedural dramas such as “Law and Order,” fiction based television was few and far between. “Heroes” was widely accepted at Comicon and thusly developed a fan following. It was this fan following that helped to get NBC to accept “Heroes” as a show in their fall lineup. “Heroes” would go on to not only be widely successful but the show would also innovate new methods of promotion and even go so far as to reinvigorate a genre of television, that of the scripted drama.
Season one of Heroes debuted in the fall of 2006. The first buzz came about with the use of a tag line that would be on the lips of people around water coolers everywhere- “Save the cheerleader, save the world.” This tagline would outline the events that would be happening for the next eight weeks of programming. The mysteries in the story, involving use of cliffhangers and cryptic symbols became an all encompassing topic on fan forums. 9th Wonders was created and serviced the fans need for discussion. Every character was dissected and each plot point was inspected to discover clues as to what would happen. Fans were rabid to get information about the show and to express their theories about it. Fans were of all ages, multiple demographics were represented beyond the traditional scope of the genre. NBC had a hit.
As the mythos grew about the show, so did the fan demand for clues. Wiki fan sites emerged that espoused theories as to who was on “The List.” The list was an in-show roster of those characters that might have super powers. Fans would gather screen shots of episodes and try to decipher picture based clues to see what was being shown to them. Other fans would try to find codes in the meaning of the mysterious symbol that would appear in some places on the episodes. One of the ways fans influenced the show was to begin giving pet names to events on the show. These events were later picked up and became part of the show mythos. One such example is that of the character known as “HRG.” Originally a small part intended for a few episodes, the character known on screen as “Bennett” was even started to be called HRG on the aired episodes. Fans created slash fiction about the characters, often wildly derisive from the show itself as mysteries were solved. Fans were so avid about the presumed sexuality of one of the characters, that letter writing campaigns were initiated to get an answer.
NBC fed the fan demand greatly by offering comics online after every episode that expanded the universe of the show. The comics were soon augmented by heavy product integration. The Nissan Versa was a prominent product placement item in the first season. Nearly every character drove a Nissan; however two of the characters took it further as to take a Versa on a cross country road trip. The Versa was displayed in every comic. They even had an episode wherein after a heavy gun battle the only car not riddled with bullet holes was the Versa. The comment on screen was that the Versa was invincible. Nissan Versa commercials were right before every return from commercial break, in order to catch those zipping and zapping along. Product integration continued with Nissan in the second season. A new year meant a new model and the Nissan Rogue became the featured car of the Bennett family.
It was due to this level of fan involvement and product placement that the producers put together a heavy content, feature packed DVD of season one “Heroes.” The special edition DVD contained artwork postcards from the show’s plot point involving the character Isaac who could paint the future in cryptic paintings. The DVD also was rife with deleted scenes, commentaries and examples of mysteries from the show. Now fans could watch and re-watch this new content to discover things that they missed the first time around. DVD product integration is a hugely growing industry. “DVD box sets are changing both the cultural use of television programming and the creative choices made by producers. Many viewers have been so taken with the freedom, flexibility and lack of advertising enabled by DVD’s that they wait for video releases to follow their favorite series. … Television writers have latched on to the possibilities of DVD viewing to redefine the way they tell stories – because DVD viewers are more likely to watch series with smaller gaps between episodes and frequently will re-watch favorite series, shows such as Lost, Arrested Development and Heroes feature more complex storytelling strategies that demand regular viewing with close attention, supplemental commentaries and extras, and the ability to rewind for details.”
Another huge leap forward in “Heroes” came in the form of the ARG, or Alternative Reality Game that accompanied the airing of the show. Fans that were adept enough could notice particular clues and join in a game made by the producers of the show in order to feed and cultivate the fan base. Upon going to a website that was flashed on a business card on screen, fans were able to enter their information as an application to join the Primatech Paper Company. Primatech was one of the mysteries in the show, thus fans were now immersed in the world of the show. Soon however things got even more interesting. Some people were sent text messages by an unknown person claiming to test them in order to get their help. After a series of challenges in which players had to test their knowledge of the show and other new puzzles, the text sender revealed herself to be “Hana Gittleman.” This character was never seen on the show at the time but would text before events were to happen and after successful completion of a puzzle, the player was rewarded with information that would be shown on screen. Sometimes the player’s actions were set up to actually affect the events on the show.
The ARG character of Hana Gittleman appeared in multiple comics. Some of the prominent posters on the forums were featured by screen name in the comics as the character put out a call to arms to help stop the rigging of an election that was happening on the show. Once in the show Hana Gittleman actually made an on screen appearance, which was unheralded and mysterious to those who were not playing the game. The player’s actions were commented about by the characters later in the show when the election tampering was uncovered. Players became ever more enthralled with the show because they felt that they were part of the universe. They were agents helping take down the enemy and they got real texts on their real phones, their actions seemingly made an effect in the world, as seen on the show. Later studies showed exactly what effect that the ARG had. “Between January 22 and March 22 of 2007, the Heroes 360 Experience had more than 48 million page views and 27 million video downloads … Since launch, the “Heroes” WAP site has seen over 200,000 page views, followed by the Primatech Paper WAP site with over 150,000 page views … Heroes even gained the award for Outstanding Interactive Media Programming, 2008 Creative Arts Emmy Awards.”
It can be shown by this level of fan demand that a show such as “Heroes” when properly cultivating a Fan base can become very popular. The number of spin off shows that resulted from this level of fan commitment was large for a first season show. “Heroes: Origins” was scheduled to debut directly after the second season ended. Other online webisodes were also produced that chronicled smaller characters that never made it to the television screen. It was clear that the fans liked the mysteries and puzzles. They sought out little clues in order to be closer to the show. This even spawned a huge amount of imitation shows that would follow the formula. The genre of scripted drama had reemerged as a dominant force to challenge reality television.
Not all of the fan demand was created by fans, however. As “Variety” points out, some fans are created by the studios. “Dubbed "Zeroes," it's a roughly two-minute send-up of the Peacock's hugely popular Monday night drama "Heroes." The spoof has been widely passed around via the Internet, racking up more than 1.5 million views over several platforms, including You Tube and Break.com. But unlike most other network-created viral videos, "Zeroes" contained not a trace of evidence that it came from NBC. No Peacock logo. No "Tune in Mondays at 9" message at the end. No credits whatsoever. "It was an experiment," Manze says. "We wanted to see how far we could go, and we wondered if (auds) knowing we did it would be a detriment." Project, made for about $17,000, was so clandestine that Manze says he didn't even tell "Heroes" creator Tim Kring about "Zeroes." Keeping the clip's origins a secret was a means of building up its credibility with potential viewers. The "Zeroes" clip is just one of dozens, if not hundreds, of NBC-created viral videos the network has unleashed over the past year.” This is an increasingly popular way of attempting to both survey fan demand and in a way control it.
“Heroes” was in so many ways a groundbreaking television program. While the ratings began to taper off after the Screen Writer’s Guild strike of 2007, the show did continue for some time. The fans were avid followers of all things related to the show, from the alternate reality game to the web content and the DVD purchases. Even after being cancelled there is still a demand for “Heroes” information. Sites remain active with fan fiction and theories, as well as the requests to bring the show back to the air. In the wake of “Heroes” is a new breed of scripted dramas to keep the torch going. The super hero specific genre torch in particular has been taken by similar shows such as “No Ordinary Family” and “The Cape” who owe quite a bit to “Heroes.” New shows out of the genre are adopting alternate reality games to promote such genres as procedural drama and even some situation comedies. In the end, “Heroes” helped to show the public that television, like the characters on “Heroes” knew how to adapt and evolve into the new and changing environment.
Be Excellent to Each Other,
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~BAT