Trusting your audience
Spoiler Warning: If you have “Heroes” sitting on your TiVo, watch it first.
Last night’s “Heroes” did something I wish more shows would try: they trusted their audience to fill in missing scenes.
If you’ll recall, near the start of the episode, bad guy Sylar escaped, locking Claire’s Faux-Daddy in his cell. Sylar then went to Claire’s house, to chit-chat with Mom and await Claire’s return — presumably so he could eat her brain. Growing bored, The Man of Endless Eyebrows eventually revealed his menace and got all telekinevil.
Something had to happen, or Mrs. Bennett would certainly end up dead. But the options were few. Claire was off visiting Trailer Park Mom in Kermit, Faux-Daddy was locked in the cell, and Hiro was trapped in a thunderously dull subplot about his father.
So it was a genuine surprise when Faux-Daddy showed up, guns blazing. A few steps behind him, we saw the not-really-mute Haitian Guy who works for him, and realized, “Aha!”
Simply by putting Haitian Guy in the room, the writers were able to omit the seemingly obligatory scene in which Haitian Guy finds Faux Daddy, frees Faux Daddy, and nods silently as Faux Daddy shouts that, “We have to get to my house, now!” As television viewers, we’re sophisticated enough to figure out what we missed — and therefore, not really miss it. But too rarely do shows really trust us to make these logic leaps.
My kudos to the hard-working writing staff for not writing that scene. (Or, if they did, kudos to the editors for omitting it.) I almost guarantee they got a network note saying it was unclear how Faux Daddy got out, but one benefit of being the hottest new show on television is the ability to ignore notes.
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February 6th, 2007 at 10:16 am
Hmmmm, I guess I could take it either way. They either a.) trusted the audience to fill in the scene, which makes sense. or b.) Didn’t know how to get him out of that room, since they already had to underline how impenetrable it was when Eyebrow man was in there.
The whole subplot actually left me with a mixed reaction. Did anything actually happen ? Syler got away, Daddy escaped, and Mrs Faux Daddy is a blank slate yet again… Last night’s episode was actually the one where I finally took “Heroes” off the series manager on my tivo. It seemed to be more sound and fury, signifying not much of anything. (Especially after alll the commercials were telling us how much we would say “wow” to ourselves, mouths agape from watching it. And doing a good job of telegraphing their final twist at the end.)
Was it all just so that Claire can realize how mean Faux-daddy is ? Seems like overkill. Anyhoo, not trying to be a hater, just what I thought of the show.
February 6th, 2007 at 10:36 am
I agree, the writers make very interesting choices. I am, however, getting really tired of the lame subplots, like Hiro and his family drama, and even Nikki/Jessica. I couldn’t believe the biggest drama with Micca and DL last week was that he couldn’t find his backpack.
I was also disappointed when the Invisible Guy (did they ever say his name?) said he was going to get Simone out of Peter’s head, and they find her hugging Issac. It was too predictable, and not very believable, since it was so innocent.
February 6th, 2007 at 10:46 am
Trivial question: If you could be a special guest writer for a T.V show for one episode, what show would it be?
February 6th, 2007 at 10:56 am
What’s really interesting is that you can find some of the best television from 9pm-10pm by watching Heroes, followed by the worst show on television, Studio 60. I can call Studio 60 the worst show on television because of all the talent that’s involved in producing the show.
The most interesting thing about your post is about how Heroes trusts its audience to make logical leaps while Studio 60 took 2 hours to tell a story about a runaway snake and (sigh) people trapped on a roof. Even the scenes between Matthew Perry and Sarah Paulson seemed insanely redundant. “Let’s talk about our relationship at the table.” “Let’s talk about our relationship outside…for some reason.” “Let’s talk about our relationship backstage”
Jesus Christ, enough!!
It looks like this horrible show is close to cancellation. And it couldn’t happen too soon.
On the flip side, I’ll be on the set of Heroes in March!!
February 6th, 2007 at 11:16 am
Richard (#3):
While I’d love to write a guest episode of Heroes, it would spoil a lot of the fun of not knowing what’s coming up next. (Ditto for Lost.)
A show like 30 Rock would be a much better choice, since it’s not nearly as season arc-y.
February 6th, 2007 at 11:40 am
studio 60 spoiler I was thinking that same thing about Studio 60 last night. It should be good, but somehow isn’t. I sat through most of the hour before realizing that despite liking most of the characters, it never really matters to me what happens to them. I kinda half wanted Harriet and dude to get back together just so they could shut up about it, but that was it. And although I always root for those stuck in the hell that is unrequited love, it didn’t even move me when Jordan finally gave Danny the green light.
There’s never anything significant at stake on that show, yet they behave as though things are monumentally significant. It just takes itself too seriously. I really, really want to like it. I’m trying. But it’s not looking good.
February 6th, 2007 at 12:23 pm
That’s funny you mention that scene as it’s one I noticed as well. When I first saw Bennet bust through the door I thought, “How the hell did he-” and then I saw the Haitian guy and then, as you say, the gap was filled.
February 6th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
I’ve been tired of Heroes since day 1. Every week, my roommate and I watch it, thinking something significant will happen and/or be explained, but nothing ever does. How many episodes are there now? 14? In all of that, there was perhaps ONE major event—and that event resulted in a month-long hiatus for the show, only to bring it back to boring, pointless subplots upon its return.
Now, we just watch 24 instead.
February 6th, 2007 at 1:43 pm
Yeah, that was nice. Induction I call it. You put two elements together and the viewer/reader creates the third. But I can’t go all weepy over that moment of excellence because of two things:
1) As much as I loved Peter getting thrown off the building, the whole subplot with Peter and the invisible guy didn’t turn for me. Peter doesn’t catch them screwing. He doesn’t catch them professing eternal love for one another. And what he does overhear could even make him okay the whole thing. It’s certainly not the kind of evil that the invisible guy is accusing people of. Weak emotional turn.
2) Hiro’s supposed to get out of his family quandry with a rhetorical trick? Overcoming centuries of Japanese tradition by tricking his sister into an outburst? I don’t think so. If his father is really traditional, the words aren’t going to matter. All of which is beside the point. The title is “Heroes”. Not “People-Who-Save-the-World-Without-Really-Sacrificing-Anything”. Tell me the story is not 10 times better if Hiro has huge fight with his Dad and totally alienates him? Tell me Hiro doesn’t more heroic by making that sacrifice? Lessening the conflict can’t be the way to create drama.
Am I nuts? Okay, nevermind that. Am I wrong?
February 6th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
Sadly never heard of Heroes, so the plot summary was entertaining gibberish, but the point stands. Cool.
February 6th, 2007 at 2:16 pm
When I critique a script and I come across a missing scene that I’m not sure was intended to be missing I’ll point it out and offer, “You’ll get a note that a scene is missing. You should either write that scene or prepare to explain why it’s not needed.”
February 6th, 2007 at 3:43 pm
THANK YOU for the spoiler alert…just went to my Ghetto-Tivo (cablevision DVR) and watched the latest episode. I love that show…it’s really fun. A great example of show not tell when Hiro sister wanted to talk to him and just shot a glance at his friend. Well written, well acted.
(is the parenthetical above an example of not allowing the reader to fill in the blanks)
February 6th, 2007 at 7:57 pm
Compare this to the Studio 60 exposition we get every week, where we see a scene and then the characters rehash it for us in the next scene. I don’t watch Heroes, but after sitting through so many weeks of Studio 60, I have to appreciate anything that I hear is different.
Studio 60 is extremely addicting thanks to a good hook and several solid characters — Cal, Tom, Jack, and Matt when he’s not in lovelorn mode. But the romances are incredibly awkward (validating stalking is definitely a low-point for television), the racial tension angle is absurd, and the show is so painfully self-righteous that it makes it hard to take it seriously. Matthew Perry recently said that he was on a ratings hit once, but he was glad to be on a show that aspires to be smart. Which is incredibly ironic since Friends, on its worst day, was far more intelligent about everything than Studio 60.
Guess Sorkin makes nice Kool-Aid.
Sorry. End of rant.
February 6th, 2007 at 8:38 pm
Patrick (#9):
You get no argument from me on those two points. I think Heroes is terrific, but it doesn’t always get the most mileage of the situations it creates.
And am I the only one confused/annoyed by the way the “Previously…” clip packages show moments that are actually going to happen in this week’s episode? I keep feeling like I missed something.
February 6th, 2007 at 8:43 pm
A smart friend emailed me:
The show’s outsmarted me before. When last night’s episode was over, it was me saying, “So Peter’s her cousin, right?” (Answer: uncle. I’m bad at family math.)
February 6th, 2007 at 9:32 pm
Its a good point… but really, I can’t believe that companies feel like they have to spell everything out… I mean… a note… FOR THAT!!! Its wasn’t even a really big surprise.. I was just happy they didn’t make us sit through the whole getting him out bit… For me the Peter/invisible man story was one of the best bits about the ep… I mean how powerful could Peter be if he could control every power he comes in contact with?…
But no doctor, which might be my fav character…
Also John, Thanks for the explination on the Parade thing… I didnt realise you were re-writing mundane answers to dull question and that in itself definately make them far more enjoyable… I rather making fun of people on the sly then directly to their face’s…
February 7th, 2007 at 12:26 am
As a Hollywood-o-phile and a quality trash-telly-o-phile from New Zealand I would love to hear what you all think of Entourage, comparative to the above. It has only just started airing in NZ but I have seen series 1 and 2 on DVD and series 3 by other means… My friends and I huddle around my telly for special Entourage nights where we binge on up to 8 eps in a row. It’s the most keenly awaited night in our social calendar. Almost. To me it’s smart enough, hot enough and rude enough - not to mention accessible enough to entertain even if you don’t get all the in-jokes. Kinda Sopranos lite. Ultra lite. But how does it fit with you guys?
I have yet to see Heroes which has also only just started to air here - I have a couple of eps on my tivo however. I have been hanging out for Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip having had my appetite whetted by 3 series of Entourage and am seriously bummed (ooh, does that translate in the right way?) - depressed - that Studio 60 is so sucky and un-smart.
February 7th, 2007 at 1:29 am
Watch, Faux Daddy’s power is going to be the ability to ignore Newtonian physics by allows the bullets he shoots from any gun to have enough force to knock a grown man off his feet while having no recoil effect. That was such a stupid effect when he shot Sylar.
February 7th, 2007 at 2:33 am
Haven’t seen Heroes yet, doesn’t air in Germany. But I the story telling technique John refers to is very interesting, indeed. And I thank John for reminding me of it, should really be used more often. I was teached to call this technique of omitting scenes “Ellipsis”. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellipsis) It always creates two possibilities (both being mentioned before, indirectly): A) it was exactly the way the audience supposes (Haitian Guy frees Daddy) - but our story has been told in a more economic, more compact way (compared to showing the redundant/boring scene). Viewer pats himself on the back for guessing right. B) it was NOT the way the audience supposes (e.g. Daddy has super powers himself) - which creates extra suspense! Viewer is astounded, because he has been “fooled”, and is even more enchained to the story. Either way, it’s a gain. Thanks to the Ellipsis…
February 7th, 2007 at 8:23 am
The Haitain is an intriguing character. I wish he’d memory wipe Faux Daddy, too, and then we could forget about that whole boring family. (Where was Faux Brother while Sylar was tossing his Mom around? I guess he had soccer practice or something.)
Now that we know the actor who plays Claire’s friend Zach is leaving to play John Connor in Fox’s new Terminator series, Heroes has kind of become like Final Destination — I know Zach’s going to eat it, I just don’t know how. That’s about the most interesting thing about this show now.
February 7th, 2007 at 8:50 am
I don’t think they’re hinting that the Father used special powers to escape. Here’s why.
If he did have powers, a good time to use them probably would have been when Sylar was locking him up in the cell. Given that Sylar was at his house for a while before Bennett showed up, it seems clear that Bennett was locked up for at least some time.
Also, Bennett isn’t on “the list.” While that doesn’t preclude him from having powers (maybe Papa Suresh missed somebody), it does suggest that he’s not “special.”
February 7th, 2007 at 2:51 pm
Tell me the story is not 10 times better if Hiro has huge fight with his Dad and totally alienates him? Tell me Hiro isn’t more heroic by making that sacrifice?
Hey, no, I can’t tell you that! Thanks — it’s a much, much better point that the thought that kept going through my head while I was enduring the Sulu sequence: “Remind me again why can’t Hiro use his time-warp powers all of a sudden?” Oh yeah, because it conveniently forces him to stay in one spot through all this. And he needs an ancient sword to get his powers back again. Explain that one.
February 8th, 2007 at 11:56 am
Much like Lost or X-Files not everything is easilly explainable in Heros. But unlike those shows I get the sense that the writers charted everything out in advance and aren’t just willy-nilly coming up w/ mind-f**ks to screw w/ the audience. One touch I liked was when they showed Nathan and the Ali Larter character hooking up in Vegas. It seemed to be borrowing from that awful show six degrees the notion that we are all connected (also a motif of heroes) while establishing the Larter character as a “PRO” and giving Nathan a reason to use his powers (to fly away). But now (like six episodes later) it helps us to believe that Nathan has a thing for blondes and makes his affair with the cheerleaders real mom all the more realistic (while reinforcing the theme that we are all connected). That sort of intricate plotting and characterization is what makes this show special. I can only hope they planned out season 2.
February 10th, 2007 at 2:31 am
Yea a scene of Mr. Bennett getting free would have slowed things down and been way less surprising when he busted into save his wife. Thanks for making me think about it
Also, sorry if I missed anyone mentioning this:
The Haitian was there to stop Syler’s powers as well. That’s why Syler just didn’t slice Mr. Bennett in half.
February 12th, 2007 at 12:05 pm
Hey Scott, how about slapping a “Spoiler Alert” up there before you announce a character will have to be written off the show.
February 15th, 2007 at 10:51 pm
I’ve read through the replies here and can’t see if anyone has brought up another possibility, though I may have missed it.
Given that Heroes is being treated as more than just a TV series - with the online comics, character blogs and the ARG-style websites - leaving out a scene like that does give them the opportunity to tell that story in one of these other places. Whether that would be a motive for working this way, or just a happy coincidence, is anyones guess.
It’s a situation that arose a lot in the new Star Wars films. So many things were referred to in passing, but the savvy (read: slightly cynical) fan knew it would be elaborated upon in the Expanded Universe.
February 19th, 2007 at 8:33 pm
Can’t believe I’m getting into this but -
I couldn’t see Hiro getting in a big blowup with his father at all. To me, the Hiro character’s always been a touch (if not a lot) non-confrontational. I could be wrong but it would have seemed somewhat out of character if that had happened.
And what sacrifice would it have been? The scene shows us he doesn’t want to run the company and we have no basis to even tell us he gets on well with his dad. What this sub-plot was about was Hiro’s quest to regain his confidence - I mean powers.
Hiro was given an easy out. Go home, live the high life. Nobody would have blamed him. He had to choose to go on. To undertake a dangerous quest to regain his powers so he could undertake a more dangerous quest to save New York. Chance of success, minimal. Probability of death, high.
And about his power loss (and Karen 22’s comment), I don’t think it’s accurate to say he needs the sword as much as it is to say that he thinks he needs the sword. Boy’s problems are mental, not physical.