JimK:  Dear ABC and Bryan Fuller and American TV viewing public:

Fuck you.

Signed,

People who like quality, not 3974875 reality fuck shows and fucking procedurals god-dammit what is wrong with you fucking people?

I’d love to lay this one off at the feet of the viewing public only.  Maybe I’d even start a good rant about how most people are idiots, they don’t know good art when they see it.  Talk about how I’m 46.35 times smarter than the average television viewer…really get my nose up in the air and get a good holier-than-thou thing going.  But I can’t.  because this is a failure on all three key points.

Point 1: The network never knew what to do with the show.  They don’t know how to let a small show breathe, so they over-marketed it to a mainstream audience, who couldn’t handle the weird, ethereal, magical nature of a Fuller joint.  Then they under-marketed it.  Then they pulled some really dumb shit with the writer’s strike and left an under-performing show with a small following to languish in “will they/won’t they” hell until everyone, even the die hard fans, walked away assuming the show was dead in the water.

Point 2: The creator failed us all.  Bryan Fuller never fought for this show in public.  I cannot speak to what he did behind the scenes, but his public declarations were not strong, and he never attempted to save his own creation - perhaps the finest weird little piece of charming magic the man has ever made.  if he can’t be assed to save the god-damned thing why would the fans get up heads of steam and try to get at least the back nine of this season for some closure?  Instead he talked excitedly about returning to Heroes if his “other show” was canceled.  Well, congrats, Bryan.  You did it!  Yes you can!  You killed your creation.  Now you can go do MOTW episodes of heroes until your head explodes.  And no, a comic book will NOT cut it, jackass.  And we all know a movie would never, ever get made.

Point 3; The viewing public.  They simply do not seek quality.  This show was one of those weird, quirky, magical kind of oddball shows that once you commit to the premise, sucks you in and transports you to literally another plane of existence.  You believe in the Piemaker, you feel for Chuck, you identify with Olive and you both admire and pity Emerson Cod.  The show did everything right.  Each week was interesting, but always moved the characters forward in an overall direction.  Guest stars were carefully cast in pitch-perfect roles that played only to their strengths.  The sets?  Pure magic.  Retro-fantasy that felt modern.  Even the voice-over, in both talent and writing, was pitch-perfect each and every time.  This was a rich, layered show that only asked a small leap of faith, that you step just over the line of what is possible and believe, just a little, in magic.

And one more time, the viewing public proved that as a whole, they aren’t interested in good-hearted, grounded tales of love and loss framed in a world where magic is real.  They want to watch someone solve a god-damned murder by examining something in a blue-green darkened room while two characters talk technobabble and bad science at each other…or use math, or whatever fucking hook your favorite procedural has.  I love House too, but god-dammit NO MORE SHERLOCK-HOLMES-BASED PROCEDURALS, GOD-DAMMIT.

I’m out.  No more Bryan Fuller shows ever.  I refuse to get hooked again only to have the rug pulled out with no ending.  The only way I will ever watch a show created by him again is if it is a mini-series of a set number of episodes, like a British TV show.  Six or thirteen and then we’re done.  If he is ever given an open-ended show again?  I’m NOT WATCHING IT.

Man…I knew this show was doomed.  I knew it in my heart, and I said it aloud so many times since Fuller started talking about Heroes again.  I was prepared for it, and yet I’m still pissed and I am just not ready to say goodbye to these characters.  Fuck you, ABC, and fuck you Bryan Fuller and fuck you Tim Kring for needing Fuller to rescue you from your own stupidity and fuck you, America, for not watching one of the best little shows ever made.

You’re all a bunch of dicks.