Last I wrote about venerable TV scribe Bryan Fuller, he was rejoining Heroes after the death of Pushing Daisies. In June, he left Heroes to pursue two other projects for NBC, and today we’ve finally caught wind of what he’s been working on. Variety reports that he’s adapting the Augusten Burroughs book Sellevision together with Bryan Singer as an hourlong dramedy. The series will follow the behind the scenes adventures of a home shopping network (could this be Fuller’s Sports Night?). The second project is a half-hour sitcom, No Kill, set inside a no-kill animal shelter.
Read More »
ABC have a number of unaired Pushing Daisies episodes in the can, with no indication when or if they’ll even air them. Like several beloved shows before it, Daisies was snipped off in it’s prime. Between the first season (abbreviated by the writer’s strike) and the second (axed early) the show’s makers managed to bag only 22 epsisodes, I believe - a typical run for one, uninterrupted season but, on the other hand, the makings of a nice little bargain-price box set. Premature evacuation has struck to the show’s creator Bryan Fuller before, with Dead Like Me being snuffed out long before the fans were sick of it. That show, however, has been spun off into a movie, Life After Death, due on DVD shelves in February, and now, according to star Kristen Chenoweth, Daisies might be about to follow suit.
Read More »
It looks like television mastermind Bryan Fuller is following through with his previously-rumored return to Heroes now that Pushing Daisies has been canceled. And judging from this awesome interview with Michael Ausiello, something tells me we can expect Heroes to get a lot better come the second half of season three. While he has to build off a plotline begun by certain former producers, it’s clear that Fuller has a good sense of Heroes’ current narrative failures and what it takes to remedy them.
On the problems that arose in seasons two and three:
It became too dense and fell into certain sci-fi trappings. For instance, in the “Villains” arc, when you talk about formulas and catalysts, it takes the face off the drama. And I think the goal for everybody is to put a face back on the drama. You have to save something with a face; otherwise you don’t understand what you’re caring about. I thought the “Villains” arc started out very interestingly, and then became sort of muddy and dense and I couldn’t get my hooks into the characters to understand their motivations.
I also started to feel confused about what people’s abilities were. One of the great things about the first season is that the metaphor for their abilities was very clear. Those metaphors seem to have gotten complicated in the past two seasons. I share that concern with everybody on the writing staff. It’s not like I’m coming in and saying, “This is what you need to do to fix it!” Everybody knows what needs to be fixed and everybody is sort of rowing in that direction.
As someone who loved Heroes up until the sucktastic season one finale, I’m glad to hear that somebody on its staff is finally admitting to the show’s problems, and that he has the full support of the other writers to change course. Something also tells me he couldn’t speak as freely about these issues if former producers Jeph Loeb and Jesse Alexander were still involved. I’m fairly certain that their departure, coupled with Fuller’s return, could bring Heroes back to greatness—or at least make it watchable again.
Fuller’s first episode is 3×19, which is the sixth episode of the Fugitives arc set to begin airing early next year. He goes on to mention in the interview that the main characters will finally return to normal, non-super-powered, lives (Peter Patrelli is a paramedic! Claire is college-bound!). Given that I don’t even recognize the characters anymore from their season one counterparts, this is change for the better. We can also expect the show’s narrative to become more focused, with fewer plotlines per-episode.
Fuller plans to stick around for season four, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he jumps ship to work on another series of his own that will ultimately die because it’s “too good for TV”. Until then, Heroes fans should strap in for a treat. I just hope they remember what good Heroes is like.
Discuss: Are you a Heroes apologist or hater? Do you think Fuller could help bring the show back from the brink of suck? What sort of God cancels Pushing Daisies anyway? Sigh.
Source: EW via Aint It Cool News
When Heroes writers/producers Jeph Loeb and Jesse Alexander were ousted from the show, it was clear that series creator Tim Kring was looking to change things up. I personally stopped watching Heroes because it became needlessly confusing and overstuffed—a far cry from what it was throughout most of its first season.
Now Kristin dos Santos is reporting that Kring may be aiming to repeat the golden days of that first season by bringing back Bryan Fuller, an acclaimed television writer who has made a habit of creating cult shows. Fuller created Dead Like Me (though he left due to disagreements with the show’s drection), Wonderfalls (unjustifiably cancelled by Fox), and most recently, the sweetly morbid Pushing Daisies. He was a producer throughout most of season one of Heroes, wrote two of the best episodes of the series (most notably, “Company Man”), and was also responsible for much of Claire’s plotline.
While still unconfirmed, Fuller’s return could be exactly what the show needs right now. It may be difficult to recall today, but season one of Heroes was a refreshingly tight narrative experience (until the finale at least). At the time Lost was muddled in its own convoluted plot machinations, and Heroes served as a sort of anti-Lost for genre television. It’s ironic that today the situation is almost exactly reversed now that Lost is back to kicking ass.
The only issue with Fuller’s return is that he’ll have to spend less time with his current baby, Pushing Daisies. He could balance his time between both shows—it’s certainly not unheard of—but his potential availability may also hint that Pushing Daisies may not return next season, which is something I’m not quite prepared to think about just yet.
Discuss: How do you feel about the state of Heroes? Do you think firing Loeb and Alexander was wise? Do you think Bryan Fuller could restore the show’s former greatness?
