Rebirth Of ‘Heroes Reborn’ Takes Fans On Rollercoaster Ride
From the archive: published Sep 25, 2015, 11 years ago. Details may have changed since.
The long wait is over. Fans of the groundbreaking sci-fi series Heroes were treated to the reboot Thursday night. NBC rolled out Heroes Reborn in primetime. The result was a rollercoaster ride of action, layered storylines, and familiar and new faces.
The Heroes Reborn predecessor, Heroes, enjoyed incredible popularity nine years ago. It was a surprise hit for NBC and pulled in more than decent ratings for a show of its caliber. The drama was told through excellent writing with cliffhanger endings. Tim Kring was executive producer and was in charge of a wealth of talented wordsmiths. Some of the creative minds went on to produce other shows. But the Writer’s Guild of America strike helped seal the fate of the series. Disjointed and incredibly wild plots couldn’t be saved, once the strike was over.
Tim Kring felt he needed to resurrect the series because of unfinished business. Kring appeared August 13 at the Television Critics Association press tour in Beverly Hills for the Heroes Reborn panel. The Los Angeles Times reported his statement.
“The truth is when we went off the air, we didn’t know we were going off the air, so we left at an absolutely fantastic moment that set everything into motion for what we’re doing here. It was almost an obligatory sort of hand-off, you know, baton pass to where we needed to go from there. And because we didn’t get to have that fifth season, I did always have that in my mind, that there was an unfinished nature to all of this.”
The Heroes Reborn reboot picks up in real time, five years after Claire exposed her powers. An attack has happened a year earlier and Claire has died. This gives Kring and the writers the freedom to continue with an elastic storyline. It doesn’t pay to fall in love with a character or feel that you know the direction of the show. It is a series that can repopulate itself with the natural flow of what Kring conceives.
The great thing about Heroes Reborn is the fact that it combines cool effects with a fast paced storyline. Fans and new viewers will be taken in by Miko (Kiki Sukezane), a young Japanese woman with the power to enter video games. Miko’s scenes are eye-popping CGI renderings and elevate the story to another level.
Overall, Heroes Reborn is an exciting slice of sci-fi and adventure, to be told in 13 episodes. If the writers can keep from striking, this edition will be one heck of a ride.