I hate to say this, but I think that Heroes would have been better served as a single season run. The first run through was perfect, but by its own nature it seems difficult to keep going with any coherence. The powers of the Heroes seem prone to create confusion and the entire timeline thing seems impossible to ever truly reconcile now. Its kind of like, well we all had this destiny to fulfill, which we did... and uh... now what?

I'm not saying I didn't really enjoy this season and I won't enjoy season, but rather that I think this particular story ran its course already and works better as a single great season than an good couple of seasons.

They do that sort of thing on British TV all the time. They broadcast when they think they have a story to tell, not simply to meet the demands of another season. There might be years in between 'seasons'. I'd like to see more of that here in the States.

One example, The League of Gentlemen is the most original, entertaining, surreal and surprising show I've ever seen. It is hard to describe.

Coupling was another British show that, while not a drama or something with a great big storyline, ended right when it needed to. Awesomely funny show...I would've liked it to have run forever, but they stopped it before it could get too repetitive, and that has actually increased its value (in my eyes).

Anyway...I don't know. To me, Volume Two is the Majora's Mask of Heroes (if anyone knows what I'm talking about, here's a rupee). But the show still has a quite a few stories to tell.

The League of Gentlemen had 2 series and a movie, not to mention the radio show which preceded it though.

I would argue that it was waning towards the end of the second series. The cast/writers knew when it had run its course and went on to other things.

You're my wife now!

The Prisoner was a great example of knowing when to stop. McGoohan didn't even give us a coherent conclusion." Like it or lump it, suckers" was his general demeanour and I love him for it.

I like the idea of a set number for episodes, but they needed to be set up front, so everything has a purpose and conclusion. Heroes season 1 left me with a bad taste, so I needed more and so far I have been happy I got more.

I'll take my rupee

I actually prefer MM to OoT and Generations to Genesis.. I'm an odd person

I'm actually totally with you on MM...very dark and quirky and awesome.

See, my take is that they need to lessen the number of writers. Too many writers write over previous storylines, causing gaping plotholes. If there were less cooks in the kitchen, the soup would be delectable.

But as of right now, there are none..so we'll see

And pretty creepy as well

Coupling is the single funniest tv-show ever. I am referring to the british original of course.

PS: Coupling also rocks

One of the reasons I was hoping the bomb would go off in season 1 is because it gave the series a clear direction. The bomb going off would have been great to set up drama and plot development. Certainly, Five Years Gone revealed to an extent the endpoint of that storyline but that doesn't mean that everything building up to it and its true conclusion couldn't still be impressive.

This season almost seemed like it didn't know what it wanted to be about and more or less copied the formula of season 1. Travel through time to discover a huge catastrophe, spend the rest of the season preventing it. It just didn't seem as powerful as season 1, though.

I remember the first time Hiro witnessed the city exploding, how surprising, convincing, stunning, and mysterious that was. Peter traveling to the future and seeing the city intact but vacant just didn't do it for me. For some reason it didn't connect, I wasn't worried. I said to myself, meh.

One of the main reasons that it wasn't so frightening is because they'd already established that the future wasn't set in stone, which was sort of a philosophical question presented in season 1: can they stop this, or is that future inevitable? This season we already knew: yes, they can, so a major element of suspense is removed. We expect a happy ending. Not only they can change the future but that they will change the future, because if the writers aren't going to have NYC blow up, they damn sure aren't going to kill off 97% of the world's population.

The problem is what was at stake in season 1 was so impressive that it's hard to try to duplicate that or even exceed it. It's like the writers asked themselves, "what's worse than a bomb blowing up a major city?" and answered it with, "a virus wiping out most of the population!" Well great, what they gonna use in season 3, "a supernova destroying the entire solar system"? That's why in some ways I wonder if any season can ever match season 1.

Also, Coupling is basically the funniest show I've ever watched.

I love this thread! And I am now sorry I haven't watched Couplings. Going to Netflix... now.

Make sure you get the British version. Dunno if the American version was ever released on DVD but if it is make sure you don't get it. It was bad, and canceled.

And, that was 11 episodes more than McGoohan wanted to do anyway - but the only way he could get it done was a compromise with the studio. That is why some of the episodes, while still superb, seem a little bit like "filler" - but even the "filler" episodes are heads and shoulders above most other episodes from other series.
But he definitely did it right, by NOT turning it into some corporate cash cow. Heroes is not really in the same category, though, because the Prisoner was about a single individual and a social/political statement. Heroes is about multiple people, multiple stories, ideas, etc - hence the idea for Origins, showing yet more heroes that don't have to do with the "main" storylines, but still relevant to the world and a good way of exploring new and potentially interesting storylines.
Plus, we are still really in the "setup" phase of the show - Last season was introducing, who are these people and what can they do? And now, first half of second season is "What happened to lead up to this?" and, if they do it right, Volume 3 will show us exactly what the battleground is and how it will take place.
There are tons of ideas to pursue still, so i disagree that a single season or even two or three would be enough to really exhaust the material.

For a perfect show that didnt unstay its welcome, (British too). Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Spaced.

Oh, Spaced. That one is awesome, too. And I've never seen the American version of Coupling (I'm American myself, though), but I've heard it's horrible.

Anyway...as long as they can think up an over-arching storyline, Heroes should be able to last a good long while without becoming stale. I mean, we've still got a lot of unanswered questions: Who was Papa Petrelli? What are all of the Company founders powers? What's the deal with the godsend symbol, if any? Etc, etc.

Just so long as it doesn't become repetitive which, as mentioned before, is really hard to achieve given all of the possibilities.

Quite right.

I agree that Heroes shouldn't have ended with season 1. It has much more potential and it would be a shame to dissolve so much of the hard work that went into creating these permeable characters. I don't think it was ever conceived as limited the way The Prisoner was.

Though, there have been plenty of comics/novels which extended the Prisoner canon. I believe that the Hollywood machine is clunking as we speak. Here's hoping that it won't be too atrocious.

I preferred Majora's Mask over Ocarina because it had better story, but same gameplay. There were emotions involved in playing that game and experiancing the story. Not so with Generations. I did not feel for any of the characters outside of Nathan. I'm going to call Generations the Zelda II: The Adventure of Link of Heroes. No rupees at stake if you disagree with me.

Well, in truth, my point wasn't that Majora's Mask was bad, but rather that it deviated from the storyline and was overall different. Like you, I liked Majora's Mask a lot.