Dominic Piacentini
A&E Editor
This week NBC announced that the station would air a miniseries in 2015 titled Heroes Reborn, a continuation of the four season series Heroes, which first aired in 2006. The show featured actors such as Zachary Quinto and Hayden Panettiere, who have now become common names in media. The first season of this innovative show attracted much critical acclaim, and 17 million viewers tuned in to the season two premier; however, this number would continue to decline throughout seasons two, three and four until only 4.4 million viewers tuned in to watch the show’s final episode.
“How long can they dwell in the shadows before either fate or their own flawed humanity draws them out into the light again? And how will they know what awaits them when it does?” says Heroes’s Mohinder Suresh (Sendhil Ramamurthy) in the season two premiere. Given recent entertainment news, this quote takes on an ironic parallelism. The show did have flaws, and maybe this is an effort for Heroes to redeem itself. Another possibility is that this is simply a better time for its story to be told than in 2006, when the prominence of superheroes in TV medium had not yet boomed.
Prior to the pilot of Heroes Reborn, a digital series will be available, which will introduce the new characters. NBC Entertainment President Jennifer Salke explained that although the series will be considered stand-alone, they are very excited about “original cast members popping back in.”
Salke went on to say that, “The enormous impact Heroes had on the television landscape when it first launched in 2006 was eye-opening. Shows with that kind of resonance don’t come around often and we thought it was time for another installment.”
This show will be another example of the exponentially growing monopoly of superhero drama in visual media. NBC’s other superhero series, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., premiered its first season this past fall, and the well-received CW show, Arrow, has been renewed for its third season. FOX will also be joining the fray with Gotham, a new live-action series depicting the life of a young Jim Gordon. The show will include a variety of rogues from the DC universe, such as The Penguin, and will star Jada Pinkett Smith (The Matrix Reloaded), Ben McKenzie (The O.C.) and Donal Logue (Sons of Anarchy).
Tim Kring, who created and produced the original series, will be back to supervise this new installment. Between these two superpowered bookends, Kring created and worked with two other TV shows, Touch, featuring Kiefer Sutherland and the five-episode mini-series Daybreak.
Salke explained that NBC is excited to see “all the new textures and layers [Kring] plans to add to his original concept.” Heroes began as the heroes in film industry began to explode, and it will be returning amidst this chaos and frenzy. Kring and the producers will have to find a distinct, original story in order it to get its voice heard amongst the “Pows” and “Whams” of every other superhero franchise.