Heroes strike

Now that Hollywood writers are officially on strike, "Heroes" is shooting an
alternate ending to its December 3rd episode. The episode was suppose to wrap up
the current "Generations" story arc, but the new ending could serve instead as a
season finale in case the strike cancels the remainder of the season.

(above courtesy of Atomic Comics newsletter)


Doesn't this just piss you off? I keep thinking to myself: then what good is it to even bother if this isn't what was originally intended? To fans, it will always be known as the episode that was supposed to do something else.

From my English studies background, I wonder what this does to criticism about a piece. How do you rate something that was intended to be one way but went another way because of a writer's strike?

For instance, if The Prisoner went through this, those particular episodes would be almost discarded by fans as they were not what was originally intended by Patrick McGoohan. There area already some fans who only perceive the original core seven episodes as the ones true to McGoohan's vision. They think the compromise with the network, who originally wanted 26 episodes and they compromised on 17, stretced some of The Prisoner too thin, sort of like people thinking Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager may have been too many trips to the well.