HEROES-lowest ratings ever, LIPSTICK JUNGLE (2025)

HEROES---ratings hit a new all-time low with this week's episode earning an AC Nielsen 4.6 rating/7 share. This is 25% below Season 3's disappointing premier episode rating. HEROES continues to be clobbered by DANCING WITH THE STARS and SAMANTHA WHO. The only good news is that HEROES is NBC's #1 rated show on Monday.

LIPSTICK JUNGLE---NBC has not canceled the series after the viewing audience increased by 50% when DVR viewers were taken into account.

JONAH HEX---co-writers Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor (CRANK) left the movie due to "creative differences". Josh Brolin is still unsigned to star in the comic book-based movie.

VENUS FIXER---movie underway based on the true story set in Berlin after World War II in which the US Army recruits a Holocaust survivor and his friend, a German policeman, to track a serial killer.

DAYS OF OUR LIVES---NBC has fired long-time soap stars Deidre Hall and Drake Hogestyn in a budget-cutting move. Hall joined the soap in 1976, and Hogestyn joined in 1984. The series is NBC's only soap opera.

HD DVD---Netflix will stop renting the defunct format on December 15.

Season 2 was an unmitigated disaster of bad story arc judgment. The producer promised they got the message and would set things right.

They haven't. I feel "glimmers" of things starting up again, but the enthusiasm the first season created has not returned to me.

What they need to do is drop these big stories involving time travel and go back to telling stories on a much smaller scale. To me, this show is about ordinary people discovering they have extraordinary powers, learning how to cope with them and how having these powers affects their lives. That was where the show seemed to excel in the first season. Every episode does not have to do with saving the WORLD.

I'm just speculating here but I'm sure that what we're seeing here is the producing team's response to the multitude of notes they've received from the network on how to make their show "better" so they can market it more efficiently.

I think they had other plans and had to switch gears after the train had left the station, so to speak.

Still, it's hardly the only show to be slipping in terms of US viewers (its figures for BBC2 and BBC3 aren't appreciably different from the previous seasons - Heroes is the only US show currently airing in a primetime slot on terrestrial BBC TV). And it has yet to make me throw in the towel (unlike the new kid on the block that is Fringe, which I dumped after a few weeks).

I think they had other plans and had to switch gears after the train had left the station, so to speak.

S2 got derailed by two main things:

1. Lack of focus and editing on the Hiro-in-the-past arc...went on way too long; and
2. The addition of heroes from south of the border. Both of them were dull as dirt and there was no POW of any kind in their segments.

There was one GREAT episode: "4 months ago", when they showed what transpired for all the main characters between the last show of the first season and the first show of the second season. It was brilliant. The rest of the season perked up, but that was only a few more episodes thanks to the strike and "somebody's" decision not to film a few more episodes.

I think they had other plans and had to switch gears after the train had left the station, so to speak.

S2 got derailed by two main things:

1. Lack of focus and editing on the Hiro-in-the-past arc...went on way too long; and
2. The addition of heroes from south of the border. Both of them were dull as dirt and there was no POW of any kind in their segments.

I'd say both of those storylines were heavily affected by only having an episode count of 11 in the second season. That's barely half of what most shows usually run. I'm sure those storylines would have been developed better if they had more time. But, as produced, Hiro's storyline was a missed opportunity and, as you said, the other two characters were not very interesting.

And to see what they've done with the girl in this current season... You would hardly know that she had come from a third world country where English is not the first language.

And can ANYONE tell me what happened with Nathan's wife and kids? They were around for the first half of Season One and then conveniently displaced.

I'd say what's clobbering this show is too many notes from the network.