The Trouble with Heroes

And by this, I mean comics as well as the TV series I was watching last night, because I realized they seem to have the same problem, and probably for the same reason.

The trouble with the TV series is that things don't ever really seem to change. The writers try to re-frame the characters somehow each season, and yet it always feels as though I'm watching the same conflicts I saw the season before. And I think it's because I am.

I think the writers are defining the characters almost entirely in terms of one particular conflict or problem, and each season they come up with a modified take on the same thing, rather than moving the character on to something else. And since they do this with every character, it leaves the viewer with the sense that they're watching the same season over and over again.

Comic book super heroes often do this as well. The writers can change some things, and in fact have to in order to try to keep the book fresh, but sooner or later the changes have the potential to redefine the character and risk losing what appealed to readers in the first place. And so sooner or later, someone hits the reset button.

It's true that human beings commonly repeat their mistakes to some degree. Eventually we learn a few things and try a different approach to avoid the repetition, but sometimes the particular mistake involved is so central to our nature or to how we define ourselves that it takes time to find a solution that works. On the other hand, we're not entirely stupid, and once in a while we finally figure it out and successfully change something after a few tries.

A potential problem with successful change is that inevitably there are people who like us just the way we were and aren't very happy about that change, which leads to new problems we then have to solve, and so life continues. Good stories come from that, too.

If I could try to fix "Heroes", I'd let a couple of the characters actually learn from their mistakes once in a while and move on to some other issues, and keep some of them the way they are to change the overall dynamic. Life is change, and stories that don't involve some amount of change in somebody usually aren't good stories. I think I'm going to have to give up on this show, even though the dark carnival intrigues me. Maybe I'll watch some Carnivale on DVD instead.