Save the cheerleader, save the world. But it didn’t stop there…
Like FOX is doing with 24, NBC is bringing back one its most popular and lucrative series back to the air with Heroes: Reborn. And just like 24: Live Another Day, Heroes: Reborn is being labeled as an “event series” that will produce 13 episodes for a shorter-than-normal broadcast season. Mostly everything is being kept under wraps for now; all we know is that the new season of Heroes will be shepherded by series creator and executive producer Tim Kring and it will tell a brand-new standalone story-arc with new characters. NBC Entertainment President Jennifer Salke shares that existing characters introduced during the show’s original four season run may show up in the revival; her statement in full:
“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. We’re thrilled that visionary creator Tim Kring was as excited about jumping back into this show as we were and we look forward to all the new textures and layers Tim plans to add to his original concept. Until we get closer to air in 2015, the show will be appropriately shrouded in secrecy, but we won’t rule out the possibility of some of the show’s original cast members popping back in.”
Heroes, an imaginative series about ordinary people who discover they have superhuman abilities, premiered to much fan-fare in 2006. Viewership was high and so was critical acclaim. Watching ordinary people like Peter Petrelli, Mohinder Suresh, Hiro Nakamura, Niki Sanders, and Claire Bennet discover their respective abilities and eventually all coming together to work towards a common goal of destroying the compelling villain Sylar was more than entertaining to watch. While many shows suffer from growing pains in their first seasons on air, Heroes managed to shine creatively from the get-go; in my opinion Heroes season 1 is one of the best premiere seasons of any show out there. Unfortunately, things went quickly downhill from there; though season 2 is manageable the plot and the characters get seriously bogged down in season 3 and if I’m being honest I’ve never even felt compelled to watch the fourth and (then) final season. Without getting into the nitty gritty details of it all the show simply lost itself creatively and the Heroes introduced in season 1 started to feel tired and without the same purpose they shared across the brilliant first 23 episodes. The original idea behind Heroes was to intro a new crop of characters to follow each season, but following Sylar’s quick getaway at the end of season 1 it was decided that our Heroes were here to stay. Though fans of the series may be divided on the return of the show, perhaps we can all have some faith that a new series reborn featuring all-new Heroes might finally inject some excitement and fresh storylines into a show that once carried incredible potential.
NBC aired a brief 21-second promo announcing Heroes Reborn during the Olympics on Saturday and you can watch it after the break. It teases a 2015 launch, and fans can also look forward to a digital web series that plans to introduce the new characters before the show premieres in earnest.