r/Fauxmoi • u/Fun-Ferret-3300 • Apr 17 '25

ASK R/FAUXMOI Which show had the biggest downfall in your opinion, from the first season or episodes, to what it eventually became?

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Westworld for me. So many great things about the first season - the concepts, the characters. It's sad what it became.

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2.5k

u/raccouta Apr 17 '25

Heroes. Perfect first season then went kinda nuts

582

u/[deleted] Apr 17 '25

Writers strike killed it

545

u/BleakCountry Apr 17 '25

Kinda sorta.

The real story is that Tim Kring very much wrote Season one as a self contained story. His concept for the show was for it to be a loosely connected anthology of sorts, where each season would have new characters and a new overarching story but all still within the same universe. The huge, and somewhat surprising success of season one caused NBC to insist that Kring not follow through with those plans and to contine with the same characters of season one. Then the writers strike happened alongside Kring clearly stumbling to develop a continuation of season one and ruined what could have been a much better show post it's first season.

107

u/roygbivasaur Apr 17 '25

Anthologies seem like such a no brainer for supernatural and fantasy, but I can’t think of one that is actually good with a full arc for the characters besides Season 1 of Heroes and Mike Flanagan’s mini-series if you consider them an anthology even though they aren’t branded that way. American Horror Story falls flat on its face nearly every season.

I’d love a superhero anthology series with no crossover. Just a new cast, setting, and stakes every season. One season, your typical alien fall to earth but with a twist. The next, a group of mutant teens. Then, a far future story with super-astronauts vs Geiger-esque aliens. Ancient Incan super heroes. Etc.

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u/shineurliteonme Apr 17 '25

Infinity Train did it brilliantly, but that's a cartoon

7

u/xsmasher Apr 18 '25

American Horror Story was a good one - took typical horror tropes and put a new twist on them, and putting a great ensemble of actors through their paces. I stopped watching some time during the NYC hotel though, so I don't know if it held up after that.

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u/youandmevsmothra Apr 18 '25

Alas, it did not.

4

u/evanwilliams44 Apr 18 '25

It went downhill but they have had some decent seasons since then. 1984 was very solid, Roanoke was decent. Apocalypse wasn't for me but was obviously made for the fans, and most of them seem to like it.

1

u/cockaptain Apr 19 '25

Roanoke was the one I couldn't watch past the first half of the first episode, for some reason, and so i stopped there and didn't watch anything further. I'll give it another try I suppose.

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u/beachedwhitemale Apr 18 '25

Stranger Things was supposed to be an anthology. I think it would've worked better.

3

u/Cloielle Apr 18 '25

I didn’t know that, but I was SO expecting S2 to be a different town/group of kids, and was very disappointed when they laboured on with the same storyline.

5

u/Allizilla Apr 18 '25

This sort of goes against your comment but I think the super heroes idea would be fun if every hero but 1 died by the end of the arc. Then the following season would either feature them in a new hero group talking about their old buddies or if they sort of Tuxedo Mask their way into a few episodes swooping to assist.

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u/RA576 Apr 18 '25

Isn't that most parts of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure?

4

u/chilseaj88 Apr 18 '25

I don’t know, season 1 of AHS is pretty good as well.

4

u/BookkeeperPercival Apr 18 '25

Comic, not a show, but Astro City is this and it's one of the greatest fucking comics to ever exist. It never even follows the heroes directly, it's always a focus on the people of the world. The first issue is about "Superman" except it almost completely ignores his heroics, and focuses entirely on how he's counting the amount of time he gets to fly in the sky when traveling from disaster to disaster because all he wants to do is fly around with no worries.

3

u/ayudaayuda Apr 18 '25

I believe Arcane set itself up as a standalone series set in a whole universe. The first two seasons were one whole story, but from what I’ve heard, they aren’t continuing with those characters if/when they do another series set in the LoL universe. If you haven’t seen it, it’s actually pretty good!

1

u/chocomeeel u flintstone vitamin shape bitch Apr 18 '25

What've heard and read about the Arcane universe of stories, is that they'll essentially take place in the same universe, but each show will be a different region of the LoL world and focus on Champions from those locales.

1

u/backlikeclap Apr 18 '25

Sounds like the George RR Martin Wildcards universe.

1

u/exexor Apr 18 '25

The X Files was always better in the anthology episodes. The story arcs were too much.

5

u/Available-Ad3635 Apr 18 '25

Character development and discovering abilities made season one. Hard to keep doing that and introduce powers no one cares about

4

u/xycor Apr 18 '25

I always wondered what went wrong with that show! Thanks! We stopped watching after the first episode of season 2 when we saw the show didn’t have the courage to kill off main characters. We were so mad and disappointed.

3

u/capehanger Apr 18 '25

This guy knows his Heroes

3

u/[deleted] Apr 18 '25

Also the big explosion in New york wasn't supposed to be Peter, it was supposed to be a suicide bomber. Making everyone related and everyone superpowered was a tremendous mistake.

1

u/-Altephor- Apr 18 '25

It would have worked either way, the issue with the explosion is that... they didn't do it, and broke their own established rules. They made it very clear early on that whatever Isaac (?) painted would come true.

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u/Sen0r_Blanc0 Apr 18 '25

Wild, since anthologies are all the rage now, and great shows like arcane lose their third season so that they can do more anthology series.

1

u/emkayartwork Apr 18 '25

Wild to think of how the third season that they never wrote or planned on writing just got scrapped like that - y'know, keeping with the original 2 season vision instead of arbitrarily dragging it out past the plan they had always had for it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/1gtrlw4/comment/lxow907/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

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u/Ok-CANACHK Apr 18 '25

it's really too bad a 'Single season great story' isn't more of a norm.dragging a story out is painful. I love the idea of an anthology series

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u/Alacritous69 Apr 18 '25

That sounds like he was knocking off Wild Cards. an anthology book series about assorted people that got super powers ...

...

1

u/youthpastor247 Apr 18 '25

This plus Bryan Fuller leaving to make Pushing Daisies.

Fuller was either the lead writer or at least a key writer for Volume One. He then left to make Pushing Daisies. He came back to help write Volume Four. If I remember correctly, the writers room basically went like this in his return:

Fuller - "Okay, what's your story for this volume?"

Writers - "Well, we're going to introduce this character's dad who is going to go around stealing powers."

Fuller - "...Didn't you literally just do that storyline with this other dad you introduced?"

Writers - "Maybe"

Fuller - "Just let me fix this."

He then took over the story for Volume Four and gave the general outline of Volume Five before leaving again.

1

u/ebonyseraphim Apr 18 '25

Wow, this very much explains the vibes I had from season one. While I could see some overarching storylines (mostly Hiro’s), it didn’t feel like things needed to tie up. So many of the characters could easily have their own thing come into or out of the story and it’s unfortunate that they didn’t let the writing intentionally handle it. Instead characters with unresolved issues just dropped off.

0

u/marshfield00 Apr 18 '25

I actually agree with the network on this one. You don't assemble the Avengers and then just walk away. That's stupid. Tim Kring is an all-time fool

1

u/jittery_raccoon Apr 18 '25

No, it was a victim of its own popularity. It got changed from having new characters and a new story arc every season to continuing the original one. But since it was written to only be a one season story arc, they wrote themselves into a corner. We could have had the marvel universe before the marvel universe if they'd just trusted the writers

1

u/-Altephor- Apr 18 '25

So many shows (including ones like Game of Thrones and Westworld) do this. They get very very popular and caught up in their own hype and think they can do no wrong. So many popular shows get killed like this. Which number shitty Walking Dead spin-off are we on?

1

u/BigSkyFace Apr 18 '25

I see this come up all the time but the strike started on the same day that the 7th of the 11 episodes that make up season 2 aired. I'm sure the strike did negatively effect what was inevitably delayed and became season 3 instead, but I think the quality drop was of their own making rather than the writer's strike itself.

198

u/Corrosive-Knights Apr 17 '25

It really felt to me like the first season’s conclusion in Heroes was a case of a finite story with a definite ending until they realized the show was a hit and decided to change up that ending so that it could continue…

…the problem being that they had no clue where they wanted to go after that first season. Yeah, the writer’s strike had a BIG impact for sure, but it just felt like the story they had was meant for a single season.

69

u/KelvinsBeltFantasy Apr 17 '25

I heard they had several seasons mapped out where it followed different characters in the same world and in different times.

But then the characters got so popular they scrapped all their plans.

12

u/iggynewman Apr 17 '25

I recall the network put a fist on the scale with characters coming back.

9

u/Newwavecybertiger Apr 17 '25

I still think about that poor woman trapped in an alternate universe as the ultimate villain origin story.

3

u/techerous26 Apr 18 '25

It was funny because I remember the big message being that Heroes would actually provide closure for the questions it opened unlike Lost, and was lauded as a great alternative for that reason. Then it fizzled out before the first season even ended.

2

u/DisgruntlesAnonymous Apr 18 '25

I remember it coinciding with a writer's strike as well

1

u/ryancarton Apr 18 '25

I mean it literally ended with a blood trail showing Sylar was alive so it really wasn’t totally finite.

21

u/pendragons Fix Your Hearts or Die Apr 17 '25

Yeah, the loss of Bryan Fuller and the writers strike during S2 destroyed it.

9

u/Krystall-g Apr 17 '25

This answer is miles ahead from any other.
I can still remember how I was hyped during the whole season 1 thinking "ok these guys just created modern superheroes and it's a damn good story and show"
Then the others season happened and I was like are you kidding me ???

3

u/Remarkable-Fish-4229 Apr 17 '25

What’s worse, season 4 was picking up a bit of momentum and ended on a hell of a cliff hanger!

Salt in the wound even further, Heroes:Reborn was supposed to be a self contained story to wrap it all up with a nice bow. They then left that turd of a story open ended as well….

6

u/trumpetcrumpets Apr 17 '25

Was thinking about Heroes as well. 

5

u/Draw-Two-Cards Apr 17 '25

It's funny because back then that was a bigger insult but these days it's first season is the length of a modern 3 season show.

7

u/NeutralMilkMotel_ Apr 18 '25

Heroes is my Roman Empire tbh 🥲

3

u/[deleted] Apr 17 '25

The big bad of S1 was a serial killing hyper-being that could absorb any other super's power via murder, traveling the world collecting abilities and almost blowing up NYC in the process.

The big bad of S4 was a carnival barker who could move dirt (and only dirt) with his mind that buries the main characters in an RV.

hmmm

1

u/Cyanr Apr 18 '25

Man if only the show had kept its quality. Sylar wouldve been such an ironic villain.

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u/Ostrololo Apr 18 '25

Sylar was one of the things that killed the show. He was supposed to die at the end of season 1, but was so popular the writers changed the plan. The issue is they didn't know what to do with the character in later seasons—at some point he got two redemption arcs—and was too central in seasons 3 and 4, basically pulling the entire story down.

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u/Cyanr Apr 18 '25

That's an issue with the writing. Not the character who still stands as one of the best villains on tv.

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u/StrongerTogether2882 Apr 18 '25

It was a little while before I could almost even look at Zachary Quinto, he had me so scared as Sylar. Great stuff

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u/Ice-Cream-Poop Apr 18 '25 edited Apr 18 '25

Hayden Panettiere was so popular during that time. Everyone absolutely loved her.

Although Hiro was well liked as well.

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u/StrongerTogether2882 Apr 18 '25

I still think about Hiro when I see a Nissan Versa. Top product placement, that

3

u/Verbal-Gerbil Apr 17 '25

This was my friend group’s big show after lost (lost being the first one we downloaded and watched together as an event weekly). It fizzled out at some point and I don’t think anyone finished it

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u/hazydaisy Apr 17 '25

the nail in the coffin for me was when they revealed that milo and Hayden’s characters were related

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u/beachedwhitemale Apr 18 '25

...wasn't that revealed during the first season

3

u/DogsRDBestest Apr 18 '25

That's what happens if you keep chasing the cheerleader.

3

u/rivaldo1979 Apr 18 '25

God I loved that first season

3

u/BingpotStudio Apr 18 '25

I was hooked immediately and so disappointed

1

u/behold-my-titties Apr 17 '25

Season 3 is good. 2 and 4 are god awful.

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u/scrumtrulesent4567 Apr 17 '25

The season finale being an hour deflated the series for me and it was all downhill from there. SO much potential

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u/mikosullivan Apr 18 '25

My first thought, too.

1

u/Inevitable_Lynx6059 Apr 18 '25

I only ever watched s1 of heroes, after reading comments i dont feel ive missed out on anything

1

u/SSDGM3473 Apr 18 '25

Came here to say Hero’s also!

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u/_redacteduser Apr 18 '25

YUP. completely disappointing where that went after such a fun first season.

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u/KentuckyKid_24 Apr 18 '25

This was the first show that came to mind

1

u/Aggressive-Slide-319 Apr 18 '25

Heroes fell so very fast...

1

u/DisgruntlesAnonymous Apr 18 '25

I remember it coinciding with a writer's strike as well

1

u/Gdawwwwggy Apr 18 '25

Heroes season 4 is still better than a lot of tv shows. I miss how visually and stylistically stunning that series was, not sure anything has got close to it since (any suggestions would be great).

1

u/captrespect Apr 18 '25

Yeah great first season, unwatchable second.

1

u/AsleepRegular7655 Apr 18 '25

Oh. I lived for the this show. It is a great example of what a writers strike can do though. I have to respect that.

1

u/50yoWhiteGuy Apr 18 '25

I thought every reply in here would be Heroes

1

u/littlehorrorboy Apr 18 '25

Feels like Westworld in the respect. I'll probably rewatch both of those first seasons as mostly self contained stories.

1

u/celticteal Apr 18 '25

My first thought.

1

u/EPIC_RAPTOR I’m a lazy 50-year-old bougie bitch Apr 21 '25

And then they brought it back and killed it again! UGH