Tim Kring: Super-Hack

I’m a strong believer in the notion of the auteur theory. And so, when one looks at the resume of a writer whose body of work includes Crossing Jordan, Teen Wolf Too, and LA Doctors, one makes an immediate assumption: Hack. If said author has nothing but a series of clunkers to their name, its difficult to assume that they have levels of genius they are yet to reveal to the world.

Tim Kring, the creator and show-runner of Heroes, has always struck me as a guy who got lucky. Kring managed to tap into the zeitgeist and produce a show that spoke to the television audience. An audience hungering for superheroes – characters who deal with notions of justice and don’t seek greatness, but rather have greatness thrust upon them.

When you listen to Kring talk about his show, one hears not the voice of a creative master, but rather just the haughty air of entitlement and disinterest that is generally exemplified by Paris Hiltons face. Kring lacks a passion for the genre he is writing. Heck, one would expect that he’s be extolling the strength of the shows conceit when you consider that he’s already created the same show previously in 1985, Misfits of Science. Yet, curiously the show is never brought up by him in interviews.

Within the past week, Kring has earned the ire of the Heroes core fan base by referring to those who don’t watch the show online, or via PVR’s as ‘dipsh!ts’. He has since sought to apologise for his remarks, but it is difficult to come back from having called millions of people ‘dipsh!ts’.

Watching the career of Kring is endlessly entertaining. He’s stumbled arse-backwards into success, doesn’t know what to do with his shows conceit beyond the first season of the show (which in turn was ripped off from a bunch of comic books, Watchmen being the most prominent), and can’t relate to his shows fanbase. It’s entertaining as all heck.

Kring appeared this week on KCRW’s The Treatment. If intrigued by Kring, I strongly recommend you take a listen. He certainly sounds like he thinks he ‘gets it’.