Posted: Wed Aug 22, 2007 2:15 am Post subject: Too many characters on "Heroes"?
I was going to post this in the "General" Forum discussion, but seeing as how this can possibly lead down the path of spoilers, I chose to put it here. A recent post by .Vault and some comments I saw others post elsewhere (including E!'s "Watch With Kristin") started me thinking that maybe the cast of "Heroes" has grown to be too huge (for its own good) and just maybe this is not a good thing.
First of all, you can find a lot of the casting information right here (we have already posted it, and sometimes discussed it):
Now, obviously, that's been edited to remove those we think are dead, etc., per the spoilers. By my count, that still leaves about 26 people. Now we add to this the following people:
[1] Claire's new BFF West (Nick d'Agosto) at the high school in California
[2] The two (2) new cheerleaders at that high school in California (one of who is "gay".
BTW, the spoiler is that the "gay" cheerleader (Lyndsey Fonseca?) dies in episode # 2.
The other cheerleader is Dianna Agron, the mean Debbie.)
[3] Maya and Alejandro coming up through Mexico.
[4] Jessica Collins, Sophie, the Francophone.
[5] David Anders (aka Kensei)
[6] Kane (if it's not Kensei)
[7] Eriko Tamura (Hiro's love interest Japanese princess)
[8] Dominic Keating (from Star Trek) who plays the Irish mobster dude.
[9] Barry Shabaka Henley (Detective Fuller)
[10] Holt McCallany (the ringleader of a group of Irish thugs)
[11] Nichelle Nicholls (Star Trek's Lt.Uhura) -- will play Micah's grandmother Nana in New Orleans
[12] Dana Davis (Monica) -- A relative of Micah, and grandaughter of Nana
[13] Kristen Bell (from Veronica Mars) -- Elle; Possibly a new villain
So, by my count (because I had two characters in slot # 2 -- though one of them dies, and two characters in slot # 3) that is 15 new characters. On a show that has possibly 26 returning or recurring characters!
Is this cast too large? Does Tim Kring and the other producers risk losing or alienating viewers with so many cast members? I mean, isn't it possible that people who are new to the show will say: "you know, I can't keep up with what's going on on this show, there are too many characters, it is impossible to tell who A or B is or how they connected". Do you see where I am going with this? IS this a legitimate problem?
Could this possibly kill our favorite show? Could this early success be its own undoing? PLEASE participate in this debate! Thank you!
well its cool but i am kinda hoping that the new characters bloom as the old ones fade... i think they had their story time and its time for some new faces... after all, this is a show about what would happen if people ALL AROUND THE WORLD, found out that they had extraordinary abilities. we found a few in America and i look forward to seeing others... but i don''t think there will be enough time screen time for everyone.
so out with the old, in with the new....
and of course, some older characters can pop their faces in...
overall i think that the count we are at now will be hard to keep track of. too many at once
If this show plans on relating more to evolution though, then we might just see the surviving of the fittest (or luckiest)... That said, Kring did initially plan on killing off a bunch of characters then starting with a bunch of new ones for season 2. Maybe instead of having a bomb wipe them out, he figured to have them continue into season 2 before they are killed. I won't be surprised if this happens once people start getting confused.
Especially if Sylar gets the Candice/Betty power right away... If Zach Quinto will be busy playing Spock in Star Trek... then why not let the character kill on without him for awhile using the Candice/Betty power--- letting some of the other actors do some of the brain munching for him.
Just imagine...
Heroes... survivor style... whoever the audience isn't interested in has a good chance of getting axed sooner rather than later. And this case, it's believable...
If the show is introducing more bad-ass characters early on and Peter is locked up then I don't expect there to be a whole lot of saving going on... The first 5-6 episodes will probably include the introductions of the villains while showing everyone else running for their lives (or in some cases- Hiding out)... Meanwhile... we'll be waiting for our heroes (Peter and Hiro) to return and save the day.
I'll post the same things here that I posted on 9thwonders.
Quote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recurring_character
"Recurring characters usually start out as guest stars in one episode but continue to show up in future episodes because of their popularity."
These guys aren't going to be the main focus of the season. Not all of them anyway. Most of those are just flavor characters to add more depth and story to established characters, and are referred to as "recurring characters" simply because their characters re-occur in more than one episode. ohmy.gif Gasp. Shock. Awe.
Examples:
The cheerleading squad members. Do you REALLY think Claire is going to be sticking around with her cheerleading buddies all season long? You saw how quickly Jackie was out, even after her very few appearances, and Jackie was considered a "recurring" character. That alone gets rid of 4 cast members. 5 if the teacher listed is a teacher of Claire's. That's 1/4th of the new cast members gone if ONE story arc leaves ONE locale, which it most likely will because although Claire is trying to lead a normal life, we can see that West probably won't let her.
With that, all that's left are Kensei, the Princess, Sophie, West, Monica, Detective Fuller, "Irish Mobster", Ricky, Nana, Alejandro, Maya, Richard Schiff's character, Stephen Tobolowsky's character, and "Garcia".
You can go ahead and X out the unnamed characters like Stephen Tobolowsky and Richard Schiff's characters. If they don't have names by now, they either got axed or have such short life spans that no one cared enough to mention them.
I'm almost 100% sure Alejandro isn't going to live through the first 10 episodes, if that.
Detective Fuller is just flavor for Matt's character, we see him sitting beside Matt in an interrogation. He'll probably show up VERY rarely, especially considering how little we actually got to see Matt. (Does anyone know how Matt got home from the convenience store yet? They never showed it.)
Kristin Bell can't stick around for long as she's got other obligations elsewhere.
The guy listed as "an Irish mobster", sitting next to Ricky who's described as the ring leader of an Irish mafia? Yeah. He screams "I get killed within my first few episodes."
That's what, 10-11 characters, at least, gone? That half, to more than half of the new cast gone. Most of those shown are MINOR characters, at best. The only ones of any real importance are Kensei, the Princess, Maya, Monica, Nana, West, and MAYBE Elle, but her story's not going to last the whole season, that's for sure. The rest of them are, I can almost assure you, probably going to be gone by midseason. Quote me if you want. Come back and rag on me if I'm wrong. But I'd put money on it that the people whining about adding too many people are taking this far too seriously.
Quote:
Here's something to think about, to reiterate my point. According to the Heroes wiki, the following characters were considered "recurring characters" in Season 1:
The average episode showing for a recurring Heroes character is 4, with a minimum of TWO EPISODES. In a 24 episode season, that's less than 20% of screen time, with as low as 8% screentime in the season. This suddenly seems like it was very worth complaining about, amirite?
I guess that's the price you got to pay. I think viewership would go down if they were to just get rid of everyone or mostly everyone from S1; yet at the same time, no one really wants to just see the same chars over and over again. Therefore new chars have to be added to keep the show new and fresh, but old ones need to stay to add that comfort and familiarity.
I hear what you're saying -- What I am wondering is this though:
There are a lot of people who might not have watched the show in the first season. They might have heard of the hype, and are now willing to give it a try in the second season as it picks-up. Can you imagine their confusion as they sit down and start watching, and are engaged by all these new characters and wildly diverging storylines? What says you to this? For us old viewers who watched 23 episodes last year, no problemo -- but for a new viewer? Doesn't Tim Kring risk alienating the building up of new viewers?
I would assume from your answer that you don't think so. Allow me to disagree with you. Because fortunes in Hollywood on the TV Front are made during the first 2-3 episodes. If he he can build the audience, he needs to build it in the first 2-3 episodes.
Granted, he has scored a couple of casting coupes, by bringing in names like Kristen Bell, Nichelle Nicholls and Dominic Keating. Just the name recognition along will attract viewers. Will that alone be enough to attract viewers to counter-balance the loss of viewership based on the too many storylines? I dunno...
I don't think so. I mean, Ali Larter, during the re-airing of Collision, said that new viewers will have no trouble picking up at Season 2, even if they've never seen Season 1. On top of that, I work at a video store, and trust me when I say there is no shortage of people who've never seen the show, but are wanting to grab a copy of the DVD next week. I posted elsewhere that I, myself, already have most of it in my possession.
You're right, there's a lot of new characters. But honestly, there were a lot of characters in the first place and Tim Kring managed to find that balance in there. Most of the characters that we see are linked in one way or another to a SINGLE hero, and will fit into one story, possibly two. But for the most part, we'll be seeing these new characters at the same time as we see most of our old heroes.
The exceptions:
Maya & Alejandro. (though I have a feeling we may see her run into Nathan, what with him going Tarzan jungle man beard growing and all that)
Ricky and the Irish mobsters.
-Debbie, West, April, May, and Martha, possibly the teacher are all a part of Claire's story.
-Kensei and the Princess are going to be a part of Hiro's story.
-Elle is a part of Claire/HRG's story with a possible tie to the Company. Sophie will tie in to the Company as well.
-Garcia is... I have no idea about Garcia, but if he doesn't have something interesting said about him by now, then I imagine him, Stephen Tobolowsky and Richard Schiff's characters are probably all minor as they are the ONLY characters without names and/or descriptions. They may be in for one or two episodes. 5 max. Look at Thompson for this example. He was a fairly major character, but was only seen 5 times.
-Det. Fuller is with Matt.
-Monica/Nana are both with Micah while Niki's out.
There's only two additional storylines, so no, I don't see this as alienating anyone.
In actuality, I agree with you Acidtwister. And I hope you're right. However, I am bit more cautious. Hopefully, my cautiousness will be proven unwarranted....
If nothing else, this thread has proven a good repository for information about all the new cast people in Season 2.
Yeah, I'm being cautious as well, I'm just trying to be open minded about the whole thing at the same time. I mean, Tim Kring seems to know what he's doing here. As disappointed as I was with the ending to last season (I called the ending months beforehand, as soon as Peter had his original dream showing them all in New York) I still thought that, for the most part, the show was a really good one.
I'd like to see a little bit more focus on the company and the past generations of heroes though, and from the sounds of it, I may be getting what I want this year.
The thing I'm most curious about is why Angela is hiding Peter from Nathan. At least that's what I'm getting the impression from other spoilers about her.
In the thread about the "Season 2 General Spoilers" and 3rd part of the "Golden Handshake" GN we discussed Angela's role in the company (OWI).
The consensus seems to be that she is a much stronger force in the company than was presented in the first season, with her quietly pulling a lot of strings behind the scenes. It is possible that manipulating Nathan, she is still trying to achieve some sort of outcome, beneficial to her goals, and/or bring OUT people to the fore that have pawns in play....
I really don't want to say more than that, in the fear that we will turn this thread into a different topic.
I seem to have misplaced some new characters on my list up on top. Can you help me flesh out the list and complete it. It would be nice if we had a running list of characters... or do you think that's better left for "Heroeswiki"?
So, do you participate in "9th Wonders" a lot? I have not "browsed" there in like 3 months.....
Besides, isnt saying, "There are too many characters!" kind of like saying, "My brain cant hold very much information!"?
I mean, really, just wait and see. For all anyone knows the real "cast" could be back down to 4 people what with the possibility of extremely minor roles and deaths.
Exactly AF. I like to take a wait and see approach to the whole thing.
As for keeping a running list, we COULD keep it here. I mean, it wouldn't be difficult. But we might as well just link the image that Heroes wiki has up that shows all the new characters, plus the actors playing those characters.
Exactly AF. I like to take a wait and see approach to the whole thing.
Like I said, I like to be cautious... I'd hate for ratings to go down, and the show to be cancelled after this season.
It turns out, according to NBC and everything I am reading online, this is their # 1 vehicle right NOW. They are placing ALL THEIR EGGS in this basket. So, that's where I am coming from.
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