Sometimes the Pudding Just Sucks

"I got soul but I'm not a soldier..."
-The Killers, All These Things I've Done

So I watched the season premiere of Heroes last night, and while I eventually got into it (I love what they've done with Sylar, and the transformation of Nathan is interesting as well, as is whatever is going on with Claire), it took a long time to get off the ground.

Most notably, the first five minutes were among the worst five minutes of TV I've ever watched. I mean seriously, the acting, the dialogue, the scenery, the whole shebang, made Sci-Fi original movies look like The Godfather.

Which got me thinking about how entirely unfair it is that once a show (author, book series, director...plug-in whatever noun you want here) has achieved enough success it gets an automatic pass on being good at the beginning. If an unknown show had started off that badly I would have gone back to watching Monday Night Football. I almost did that anyway.

Same applies to publishing, and it's a damn shame. Especially when people get credit that, in my eyes, is entirely undeserved. In my poetry class yesterday a student began his discussion of a book of poetry we were reading with the statement, "I just want to say that even though it seems really dense and doesn't make much sense sometimes, he knows what he's doing. I mean, he's got degrees from Duke and Harvard, so he knows what he's up to."

The sad reality is that this is how a lot of people think. A PhD from Duke in history and an MFA from Harvard in creative writing don't make you a good poet. They don't even necessarily prove you're smart, in my eyes. The proof is in the pudding, but sometimes people change their tastes in order to like pudding they think should be good rather than just saying "This pudding sucks."

I don't know what the solution is, but it's a damn shame.