I was talking about Monday's season premiere of Heroes with my friend Peter at work today. We both agreed that the addition of Maya and Alejandro as the newest "Heroes" is yet another Nikki and Paulo just waiting to happen. Interestingly enough, a recent article by Matthew Gilbert in Slate talks about The Plague of Cast Overpopulation, specifically using Heroes as an example, saying about the ever-growing cast, "You almost want to write up name tags: "Hello! I Am _____ and My Power Is ______."
Gilbert traces this practice back to the diverse "casting" of reality shows:
"Survivor showed producers and networks that cramming a series with actors of various ages, colors, personalities, and body types could increase the odds of attracting a broader, bigger, and potentially even international audience."The pros of a large, diverse cast are not only the large, diverse audience it may attract, but also the security it gives the networks come contract negotiation. If Hugh Laurie holds out for more money, most likely he's going to get it as there wouldn't be a House--uh, well, without House. But if one of the cast members on heavily populated shows decides to be a squeaky wheel, chances are they might not be getting any grease.
Another benefit to mass casting comes during those harvest periods (aka "sweeps") when writers have license to do a bit of pruning or weeding (hear that, Ellen Pompeo?) says Gilbert:
But shows with massive casts can give their writers license to kill—or, as they say so poetically on reality TV, "eliminate"—characters without damaging the show's DNA. In the last few seasons, Lost, 24, The Sopranos, Desperate Housewives, and Heroes have all goosed their ratings and left fans buzzing by rubbing out a character or two.Heroes is upping the ante this session with a midseason, six-episode miniseries, Heroes: Origins in which one new hero will be introduced in each hour and viewers will vote, American Idol-style, to put one of them in the cast of the regular series. I have a better idea--let's have a viewer vote on which character to KILL OFF during sweeps! You could have a results show ala Dancing with the Stars (which is on in less than an hour!) and Tom Bergeron could tell each Hero or Grey's Anatomy doctor or Brother or Sister or Desperate Housewife, husband or son or daughter who was safe--or who was in the bottom two.
I'm not sure all this can be blamed on Survivor. Richard Hatch, Elisabeth Hasselbeck--yeah that's Mark Burnett's fault. But large ensemble casts in dramas can be traced back to--soap operas. And aren't all these serialized dramas really just soaps when it comes down to it? So, if there's any sweeps-induced "eliminating" coming up, my money's on Maya and Alejandro to buy the farm. Of course, as we all know, no-one ever really dies on a soap opera...
