here's the article

I agree, this show is this year's Lost contender.

Every year there was a surprise hit for me (and every time I walked into it with no expectations or the thought, "this will suck"):

2004 - Lost

2005 - Prison Break

2006 - Heroes

Heroes is way better than Lost. Heroes actually engages the viewer with very well written story arcs for each character while Lost takes the stale formula of being lost on a deserted island (ala Gilligan's Island sans the comedy) and interjects a bunch of Twilight Zone events and pirates into the mix with an invisible monster to boot. Lost is just a tangled mess that I just can't get into.

I don't think it's a spoiler to say that Claire is eventually going to change outfits. That is, unless they kill her

I've seen the next two episodes, and I have to say, with the characters coming together the show just gets BETTER and BETTER. At first I ran into the problem of some characters not interesting me as much as others - but when they all interact together, the characters become stronger. They all really do collide and come together in ways that probably write themselves.

A show like Lost (which I admit, I never got into, even though it has some actors that I really like)... it seemed to get nowhere and just became frustrating. Heroes seems to build on itself, and if anything, improves over time. The show rewards you for watching, if anything. I like it.

Ya, I see what that article is saying.

But, I will argue that this story line "coming together" won't last forever. The first season of a show like this is awesome because TPTB have thought this all through. They know what they want to convey in a clear manner.

I love both shows, Lost and Heroes. They seem similiar to me, but really, I can find enough differences to keep them both entertaining.

I simply think that once Heroes gets as many episodes under thier belt, as Lost does, you will see the same type of complaints coming from both sides. Where is the story going? What is going on here?

Thats kind of the whole point to the shows. Answer some questions, raise a few new ones, keep the audience guessing a bit. I can't say that I enjoy either one more than the other, they are both well written and definately a clear step above average television.

I totally disagree with your opinion. Lost is well written and is very exciting. Some of the charactures on Heroes are kind of boring. While Hiro is my favorite characture, Nikki on the other hand is boring but she is hot.

Heroes also has this "evolution" agenda that the writers are throwing at us along with the "interracial relationship" agenda and I would love the little cheerleader to CHANGE OUTFITS for Pete's sake!

I think his point was that Lost's first season was already like that. One mystery after the other, no answers.

I love Lost. I'm watching it because of the above-average acting and direction. And of course, because of the flashback concept. It was a fascinating idea in the beginning (and it's still my favorite element of the show).

Granted, some scripts fall apart and the answers get too many for some - not me, though, because I actually don't want any answers since they might turn out to be disappointing.
I liked the X-Files-like duality of the events in the first season. You could pick a camp (Magic or Science?) and find arguments for both, it was quite beautiful for a while.

Today it might be a mess in some places which will never work out. Especially the last few episodes of s2 went deep into the magic realm. But I still see some hope for science in those aspects.

Heroes can't compete in the acting department, I think. But it could come together very well for at least the first season.

Well lets hope that they don't kill of Clair. She is my 2nd favorite and character and she's cute as can be.

Off topic, are you the same Craig from K-site? If so we have chatted before.

I disagree with the fact that the "Heroes" plot will quit coming together. There is endless oppurtunities here to explore. You wrap up one thing, another one starts. Its like a comic book, only not as winding and out-there I hope. Lost however is built on one huge idea. Stuck on an island. I don't get what so mysterouis about that. I know they have added extra things, but before even aire we knew they would never get off the island. Thats the whole point. They get off the island the name of the show is going to have to change.

In Heroes, NYC could blow up or be saved, and keep going. Actually blowing up NYC would really take things down an interesting path. Its really an unending concept. Like when Gilligians Island aired they never did make it off the island. So the whole premise is never really in doubt. Do they get off the island? No, then what's the show going do.

Hmm, I can't tell you the name of the show, but there is at least one for which this isn't true.

I don't understand your point about Lost. So, even if they don't get off the island, how is the show limited because of that? Is your only reason to watch this to see how they get off the island? Because it sure isn't the reason why I watch it. And they could still go beyond that. I doubt they ever will, but it's possible, for instance, there is a passage to another world on Craphole Island.
Yeah, I know, that's silly. And I hope it's never something like that.

There's an agenda?

I never watched Lost (though I mean to, someday), but it seems to me what the guy in the original article is saying about Lost's story never coming together isn't just about a lack of answers for the mysteries in the show.

It seems like it's actually the "we make it up as we go along" syndrome that made me stop watching X-Files in the series' third year and that also harmed Twin Peaks a lot. I've heard some fans of Lost complaining about that.

The writers keep introducing mysteries, questions, and cool concepts, but since there is little or no detailed overall plan worked out beforehand, this big edifice starts to collapse upon himself as you add more and more episodes that make it seem like there will never be answers that will make sense of all of it.

What the guy in the article is saying is that in Heroes there is a sense that there IS some overall plan to all of it. It seems like the writers have mapped it all beforehand, so the story will grow and develop naturally, and not become some bloated, confused, contraditory mess like happened to X-Files.

Yeah yeah, sure...in season 1. And then? I assure you they have no plan further than that, right now. Same with Lost. Every show is made up as they go along.
It's just a matter of how good you are at covering it up. And how limited your premise is in the first place. Lost is pretty limited. I think they are still doing a very good job and when I read stuff about it on Lostpedia (which I didn't do for a long time, but recently I did, a bit) I realise how open some things are and how other things came together without myself really noticing it.

In season 2 Heroes will have to come up with a new plot. I'm not saying it falls apart by then, but they don't have something planned as we speak, I'm fairly certain about that. I guess I'm not sure that Heroes cracked the Lost formula.

I'm a huge lost fan, I do have some gripes and complaints about it, but I'm so obsessed with it, it's not even funny, even so, I think Heroes ranks equally, which is why I'm here at this board, I only go to message boards for things that I love... and I love heroes[color=10FF00][/color]

With the exception of Babylon 5. Long live J. Michael! He had that show pretty well mapped out ahead of time.. the only problem there was that it got dropped after four seasons of a planned five season arc so they worked in what was supposed to be the finale of the fifth season and put it in at the end of the fourth. THEN the show got picked back up by another network (I think UPN, can't remember) and they basically had to jury rig a fifth season since they had cashed in the chips at the end of the fourth... so the fifth season kinda sucked, but the first four were very well planned out.

I can't speak for Lost, I don't watch it. I'm more confident to compare it to X-Files. Not all shows are "made up as they go along", at least not to the same degree. In X-Files you had lots of mysteries being added with the increasing sensation that the writers didn't know the answers to any particular mystery when they introduced it. And this sensation was later vindicated. They really didn't know what they were doing.

I don't think they have Heroes all mapped out to Episode 100 or whatever. Series are very fluid by nature. But there are some things about Heroes that seem to indicate that the writers at least know the answers to the main mysteries introduced so far. For instance, there is a nuclear explosion to happen in early November, so there is no way they can take 3 seasons to reveal to us what that bomb thing is about, it's just 5 weeks in the future.

Likewise with Isaac's paintings showing the danger to Claire. "Save the cheerleader, save the world," seems to indicate Claire is tied to the nuclear bomb thing, so it's likely we will discover what that is about before 5 weeks have passed in the story.

There is Nathan's election that also depends on a certain timeline, it's another event that is precisely located in time, so the writers just can't take forever to resolve this particular plot.

So, I don't think the writers have everything planned, but I feel confident that the main mysteries and their solutions are already planned out.

Probably true. Although I think they had a plan and just changed it about thousand times. Still, I love(d) this show and - like with Lost - I didn't in the first place care for the main plot after a season or two, because there were good "normal" episodes


Yes. But 5 weeks are 35 days and so far they go one day at a time which puts this at 35 episodes. Which is about 1.5 seasons .
I think this will be wrapped up in season 1, though. Or it will tie into the next season. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.


And I agree. I think they already planned the full season before they got the official order, because they were certain it will become a hit. I really do think that. I had an argument to back this up, but I forgot what it was. Seriously. Sorry. Maybe later it will come back to me.

Yeah, X-Files was a good show. Acting, writing, production, all good. It's just that the "mythology" episodes became increasingly confusing, and the normal episodes... they were good, but I suppose even back then I was a bit tired of the episodic format. Even the best series get repetitive this way.

Heroes is the first TV series I'm really following since Babylon 5 ended. I much prefer serial stories. I should really start watching Lost one of these days, but it's been two sessions already to catch up...

Good point about 1 episode = 1 day thing, but I just hope they will not take 1.5 seasons to resolve the bomb plot.

I WOULD SAY THAT HEROES AND LOST TO GREAT SHOW BUT LOST CAN LITTLE FRUSTRATING SOMETIMES BUT KEEPS ON YOUR SEAT HEROES CAN BE A LITTLE ANNOYING BECAUSE IT STAY ON THE SAME SUBJECT TO LONG

Nah, it's a weird nano-bot thingy.

Anyway, I like Heroes more than Lost. Maybe it's just because I also read comics.

"Save_the_world"? The Caps Lock Button is not Cruise Control for Cool. Please switch it off.

Lost turned up to be fridiculous (yes i spelled that as planned). PrisonBreak was too thuggish and based on just about every other movie we saw abotu jail plus drama squared.

Heroes is philosophical and well written. It takes the super hero icon and shows how they aren't born into being a wonderful person who always wins and has great virtues.

The show goes to say that there is somethin wrong with the world today. We all feel it. Life shouldn't be like this. The world is messed up. We need heroes, Hiro, and Heroes.

I gave up on Lost after the second season. it was just more and more questions, with little or no answers. Here's to hoping that Heroes avoids that. I'm even willing to have a show that has a story line set out and have it finish with a set number of seasons, rather than the creation of new story lines based on the popularity of the show at the time. (Does that make sense?)

Just to let some of you know it's reported Kring has this written to the end of the 3rd season, and is working on th 4th. Lost is just writing as it goes.

Greatest comment ever.


That's actually pretty exciting about Kring having plotted that far out. Do you have a reference for that? (if so, is it highly spoiler-ish?)

Okay so what I read may have stretched the truth a bit

However I did find this:

Tim Kring: We have a general idea of where the story is going for a few years. HEROES is the kind of thing that can keep spinning and spinning. There is not an island to get off of or a time frame where the world ends.

We have the entire story-line plotted out for season one. In terms of season two, we have a framework, but nothing specific. The pilot introduced a prophecy which will take the entire season to unravel. At the end of season one, there will be a resolution to the pilot?s prophecy. Season two will deal with an entirely new issue.

http://thetvaddict.com/?p=959

I'll keep looking for the other thing I saw

Those are my three favorite shows on tv! lol

Heh, those are my 3 faves too

... Just wish FireFly would come back

I will look for my reference again, and its not spoilerish.

I am a big fan of Lost and i'd just like to tell you a little something about it. When JJ Abrams and Damon Lindelof got together for the first time to collaborate ideas about Lost, they came up with about 5 Seasons worth of ideas. They do not make it up as they go along, they have a general idea of what is going to happen, and what the overall story of the show is.

Even if they do make it up as they go along, it is the greatest show I have ever seen and may be the greatest show I will ever see. It just saddens me when people moan about such a great show. It's the questions that keep people watching Lost. If we just knew the answers to everything, there would be no fun in watching it.

Lost is my favourite show, followed by Heroes. Heroes is popular because it has something new about it, just like Lost did.

Heroes has classic ability. Lost is a bad recap of Lord of the Flies.

It's not like I haven't tried it. My one history teacher raved like a street preacher about it. It's sometign that was a finite story and was miscontrued to make it last. It's just a giant repeating theme show touching the dysfuntional family and supersticions in all of us.

My history teavher no longer watches the show. Questions are great. Never answering any of them before generating new ones? Badliness. The how has gotten as pointless and easily comprehensive as some cartoons.

I find it hard to believe there is any underlying framweork here whatsoever. It's basically just: Oops. Someone died. Let's make up a story so someone else can join the cast. It's not going anywhere.

And what happens when they get off the island? They fly to a welcome back ceremony and crash in the north to form Lost: Greenland?

Hate to agree, but the deaths are of course governed by casting decisions. But that is the case on any single show. If you don't think so, you just haven't noticed. Believe me, they never kill off a favorite character unless he/she doesn't want to be on the show any more or...well, you know why.

But anyway, it's not about the killing for me. And I don't think they make it all up as they go along. They have some kind of plan. But of course they have NOT written down every script until season 5 just now and they change things along the way, some good, some bad. It's ridiculous to think something else. I don't know about Babylon 5, but that is most definitely an exception.

I don't get what people keep complaining about Lost and no answers...I guess they just don't pay attention. Answers are not served on a platter on this show, you have to look for them and connect the dots, yourself. There is just no other show that has ever done this before and I guess many casual watchers won't be able to deal with it, unless the island interaction is good enough to keep them interested.

I'm not one of the die-hard, repeat-every-frame watchers, either. I watched season 2 without thinking about clues too much. I made some theories up in my mind, but I didn't hunt for proof on screen. But you can do that and people found out a lot about the show before it happened.
If you don't know about that it might just seem that Lost doesn't give any answers...but I really don't think this is true.

Heroes set something off for me...I don't know why, but it appealed to me (I'm not that much of a comic book fan, by the way) and I suddenly began looking for clues again, like in the first half of Lost. It was just totally obvious to me that Heroes is supposed to be freeze-framed to catch all those little things.
But the timeline sucks. Plain and simple. It's harder to do than on Lost - to compare them once again - but it's messed up. In a show with connections between all the characters in different time zones, riddled with clues, it's kind of disappointing...but in terms of clues and theories, Heroes might very well have cracked the Lost formula if it turns out that they can provide seasons-worth of mysteries complete with answers...it's just far too early to tell.

I disagree. Lost has lost steam since the first season, but I don't think it can be boiled down to "serious Gilligan's Island". You could easily boil Heroes down to "live action comic book". But I wouldn't, because both shows are well written with interesting characters. The characters in Lost are the #1 reason I kept watching. Some people whine about the flashbacks but IMO they are often the best part of the show.

I would rather see Heroes keep a faster pace than Lost, though. Battlestar Galactica IMO keeps a very good pace, even though they have a lot of hanging plot points like Lost. I would like to see Heroes attempt a pace like that. If BSG stayed at Lost's pace, Roslin would still be worrying about her cancer.

Seeing as both Heroes and Lost are the two shows I look forward to each week i feel I should comment.

First the two shows have totally different formulas so I cannot see one 'cracking' the other.

As one other poster mentioned the main plot of Lost has been figured out long ago but not every episode has been written, that would be silly. There are too many things that could change; casting, fan input, ratings, etc. These are the REAL variables to Lost's Valenzetti Equation.

There are, allegedly, only going to be 5 or 6 seasons of Lost meaning the story has a definitive END. Heroes does not have this, at least it hasn't been stated as such. I'm sure if season 1 were to fail they'd go ahead and let the bomb go.

I'm not going to go further into a Lost Vs. Heroes argument because they are apples and oranges. Just because they are both very popular to many of the same people doesn't mean they are the same. I loved SG1 (until it jumped the shark recently) but I don't care for Battlestar. They are not the same.

Having never been able to get into Lost, I can't comment on that show, but about Heroes I can. This is the ONE new show I've seen this season that could be done for an indefinate amount of time. Sure, each season could be a different "big bad", but new heroes can join as others are killed or just retire to live a quasi-normal life.

Think about in our lifetimes for a second. When I was growing up, evil was the Soviet Union. Then it became terrorism. Those are just TWO "big bads" that have been around for my 33 years of existance. It's not much of a stretch to see the heroes have to do battle with various big bads off and on for years if necessary. There will always be threats, just like in real life. Now, give those threats powers and you've got some great TV for the next 15 years or so.

As long as it's good, I'll keep watching, and I have a feeling I'll be watching this one 10 years or so from now!

Tom

Those are the only two shows that drop clues you can catch by freeze-framing, on a permanent basis. Plus, they both focus on character struggle.
Now, tell me there are no comparisons drawn. Add to this the fact that Lost and Heroes have people working on both shows or people connected who are working on the other show. Maybe that was even in the article the link of which I posted, I can't remember.

I think they are indeed very similar. Of course, not plot-wise or genre-wise. Sure, SG1 is not like BSG. I like both. Or liked. SG1 has been crap for two seasons, now, more or less. Well, that level of similarity...that is not the point. Not even the mood. It's about characters and clues and mythology.
The only other show that sort of tries to do the same is Prison Break, but it goes in a different direction with the clues. It's not mysterious, more realistic, although...it's a series of unlikely events, of course.

It's no coincidence that I'm drawn to all of these shows. But I'm only on the board for this one (checking up on Lost from time to time, though).

I love Lost. I look forward to it every week. I don't think Heroes has "cracked" the Lost formula. Heroes is great and still full of mystery, but I would have to give it a few seasons to see if is better than Lost. A lot of shows have a great 1 season and then fizzle out. Alias. Can this show be interesting for 2, 3, 4 seasons? We will have to see. Hopefully the networks will keep adding shows like Heroes and Lost to TV instead of the next reality contest to win a million dollars show. Stop the reality insanity please!

[cries]

don't say such evil things about lost... I love that show. Better than Heroes, but only by a little bit...

sniff...
[runs away crying]

I was a big Lost fan but they are about to lose me. I want some damn answers and I want them NOW. We really dont know that much more than when the darn show started. I hate that.

Hereos has been out for only a few episodes and already they have tackled some of the questions that most of us had and even offered a few new question in the process.

I like answers. I hate lame drawn out mysteries. Serioiusly, if I dont know what that smoke monster thing is by the end of the next episode, I am done.