Tag: Television

It would probably be fair to say that a lot of people were snickering a bit when it was announced that Jazan Wild (real name Jason Barnes) was suing Heroes for similarities between his carnival plot and theirs:

The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, lists similarities including a carnival that can magically appear and disappear to collect protagonists, a young boy who develops special abilities, a carney or hero running through the woods chased by a mob, a circle of mirrors tied to the key plot, similarities in dialogue, and more.

As anyone who has been reading comics or watching tv for more than, oh, five minutes can attest, none of those elements are particularly novel or special. Fact: we edited a carnival story once ourselves and at least one of those elements was in it.

With Lost sailing off to TV Valhalla, ABC is left the task of filling the hole on their schedule, and their choice is a live action remake of The Incredibles called No Ordinary Family, about a family that has their superpowers thrust upon them.

While Heroes is floating into that great TVLand in the broadcast spectrum -- and become the target of a lawsuit by Jazan Wild over who thought of a carnival first -- NBC is not abandoning the world of superheroes, as we reported yesterday. In keeping up with the times, they are swapping out a complicated, sci-fi tinged multi-character soap opera in the Lost manner, with a single character drama about a dad who wants to make things right. The synopsis sounds pretty lame:

You fine readers of Heidi's blog can't tell, but this column is being written on vacation in Western Canada. So, for once, the helper monkey is watching hours after everyone on the net (including the Beat) has been posting and tweeting about tonight's episode. After the jump... Meet The Candidates (and I don't mean Robert Redford or Phil Mickelson).