Heroes not on itunes? NBC blows

Note: Click here for my review of the Heroes pilot.

So, as part of an advertising campaign, NBC claimed that beginning September 1, they would air (for free) the pilot of the upcoming show Heroes via iTunes. Free has once again gotten lost in the marketing translation, and NBC, attempting to be the first network to actually test the new Internet marketing campaign waters, fails miserably in trying to invent yet another new definition of the word.

My instant speculation is that unless you can download it via a torrent file or some other method, you're just going to have to wait to see it whenever it airs. As a former "television authority," this implies that the pilot that actually airs will probably be different than whatever you get online, perhaps due to last minute director changes or contractual issues, and also that the test market hasn't been as positive as NBC had hoped. Spreading some hearsay and to make the counterpoint to this rather bleak blanket statement, one of my friends who has seen the pilot says that it's okay and has potential. I asked him if it sort of was like X-Men or thereabouts and he said that X-Men is more of the end result of where this show seems to be headed and this show (now taking extreme liberties of what he told me), is sort of a parallel precursor to how the X-Men all came together. Obviously none of the comic book characters are in it, and the show has nothing to do with the X-Men or X-gene concept.

Darwinism (in the Heroes planet) has led to a person who can walk through fire and another who can slow down time. Another can fly but not quite like Superman. Supposedly there is a bad mutant hero who is trying to be good, and the general premise of the show is that the mutant heroes are struggling with trying to find their place in this world. Aren't we all.

I will say that the none of these mutant ideas are anything new, including the idea that the collective human consciousness is somehow connected. I'm sure that you were already aware that this latter idea of a shared semi-telepathic ability was first explained in Coville's novella, My Teacher Flunked the Planet. It's on every 5th grader's reader's list, check it out. For a penny plus shipping, it's almost as cheap as the purported Heroes itunes download.

I can only imagine that this marketing snafu indicates that NBC continues to flounder post-Seinfeld and Deal or No Deal Season 2 is still filming. Likely, this same marketing department had hoped that the press would be favorable for Heroes and it will be touted as the best new show since Lost. In fact, it may well be the most promising new show on television, but backing out of their marketing campaign is a pretty poor way of drawing a widespread interest, in my humble opinion.

(I'm not going to pay any lip service to the actual movie theater hoop NBC's marketing department ultimately decided on, other than to say that the gripe is better explained by this fellow blogger's Heroes NOT on iTunes description, which I found in trying to figure out why I couldn't find the show as originally advertised.) I would also speculate that NBC may, as a knee-jerk reaction to posts like this, put it on iTunes as originally advertised, and iTunes would be able to give them a more accurate rating than the Neilson estimate, but really, what's the point? I'm sure it will do great against the ESPN monday night game.

Tags: heroes, nbc, itunes