NBC has recently announced that production for the upcoming miniseries, Heroes: Origins, has been placed on hiatus as news of the upcoming strke of the Writer’s Guild of America (WGA) has been planned for this coming Monday. Heroes: Origins was supposed to be a six-episode spinoff of the highly popular Heroes television series, whereby each episode was supposed to be a self-contained storyline and fans would have the opportunity to vote which of the heroes would continue on in the regular Heroes storyline.

Many believe that the impending strike by the WGA is only part of the story because television ratings of the NBC Heroes show has taken a huge hit in ratings as of late. Heroes fell from its series low last week to a new low of a 6.1 rating/9 share according to Fast National Ratings from Nielsen Media Research. Also, last week’s episode averaged about 10.7 million viewers, down 6 percent from the previous week, making it the show’s lowest-rated broadcast ever. Many felt the the problems started with the finale of last season, whereby Tim Kring promised an exciting showdown, which never came to fruition (due to budget constraints).
Then as the new season started, critics complained that the special effects were mediocre, the environments unconvincing, the writing was sloppy and the overall storyline to be boring All these negative reviews have definitely translated into the shows ratings.

It’s a shame that all this is happening to the Heroes franchise because I have followed the series from the beginning and I have always enjoyed it. Granted that the current season hasn’t grabbed my attention like the last one, I still enjoy learning more about the characters and how their stories become intertwined. Hopefully this is only a minor setback to the series and perhaps we may see Heroes: Origins produced at a later time.

-Stephen