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Heroes Reborn - Coming 2015
I loved the first season of Heroes. I never finished watching the second ... I just did everything I hate: resurrect a character that should've stayed death, making a mess of the story with confusing time travel plots, having inconsistent characterization with them waving back and fort between being good and bad guys for no logical reason, ... It was a mess.The original plan for the series was to have a new story and cast every season. IMO that would've been awesome and if this new series is something like that, I'll give it a shot. As long as you don't have to have seen the complete original series for it to make sense.
I'm going to give it a miss. I really enjoyed the first season but it just got worse and worse. I didn't even bother with the last season or two.It was just ridiculous how they kept the whole cast around when so many of them should have died like Syler.
Heroes to me will also be an example of how to take a great show and then ruin it.
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I think we have a consensus of opinion. Season one was awesome and then nosedived into awfulness. Maybe they can pull it back, but I live in hope rather than expectation.
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It lost it's way in season 2 because of the writer's strike which left a lot of the plot lines unresolved.
I would be prepared to give it a go.
If Sylar comes back again, I'm going to be very upset.
I doubt that Zachary Quinto will come back if they do make a Sylar character. He's stated several times in panels and interviews that if they do reboot Heroes, he won't be coming back to it. Not that he's ungrateful for everything the series has done for him. He's very grateful for that. It's just that he'd rather focus his energy on new challenges which as a creative myself, it's something that I can totally understand.
In fact, now that I remember one such Zachary Quinto panel here in Chicago, he stated that as bad as it is for him to say it, he believed that the character Sylar should have died and stayed dead in season one so there you go. The actor himself agrees with you all. ^_^;
I really liked the first season and watched the second and thought it was meh. Haven't watched past 2 so I don't think I'll check this out.
The writers' strike really messed them up (ditto Lost). If you watch the deleted scenes on S2, it looks like they were originally planning on taking things in a very different, possibly much darker, direction before they had to scramble to come up with an early conclusion to the season.Having said that, yeah, not terribly interested in this unless it gets some stunning reviews. (I'm reminded of all of those attempts to continue Babylon 5 that never really went anywhere.)
I'll give it a go. But only very trepidatiously.
I'll definitely give this a try. I, like everyone else, loved the first season. The 2nd season went way off the rails but then the 3rd season actually wasn't that bad - at least it was mostly coherent and the main plot went somewhere.
I think a reboot COULD be a good thing, since the main guy behind the first one is involved. Of course it may also go horribly wrong. I guess we'll have to wait and see.
From the very beginning, this show could not become anything other than avery bad retelling of all the classic X-Men storylines. And after the first season, it even sucked at that. By the middle of Season 3, they tried to turn things around by bringing in Bryan Fuller as a writer but even he could not save the unsaveable. In the end, this series was nothing but a waste of a talented cast.I wish they brought back "4400" instead. That show had everything that "Heroes" lacked.
I actually think season II was better than season one which was too meandering at times. After that though the show lost all focus as it kept copying X-men stories and coming up with ridiculous ways to keep Claire Bore and Hiro nerd sterotype in the plot.
Rasnac wrote: "I wish they brought back "4400" instead"Thanks for ripping off the scab. LOL
I knew of the show but never watched it during its initial run. So recently I binge watched the whole thing on Netflix not knowing the series would end on a cliffhanger. Uggh, I never would have started if I'd known that. I want resolution. Doing my best Arya Stark impersonation about shows that have wronged me this way: Angel, Sarah Connor Chronicles, Journeyman, The 4400.
Rik wrote: "Rasnac wrote: "I wish they brought back "4400" instead"Doing my best Arya Stark impersonation about shows that have wronged me this way: Angel, Sarah Connor Chronicles, Journeyman, The 4400. "
You need to take ANGEL off your list. Whedon and company knew they were cancelled and chose to end it that way. The scene in the alley is a metaphor for the entire series. The battle for redemption is never over. It's actually my favorite series finale ever. "Let's go to work."
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Now about HEROES, I think that show felt novel when it premiered because we weren't being bombarded by quite as many comic book movies and TV shows back then. It felt new...ish (less new to frequent comic book readers). I think a reboot, relaunch, or whatever you want to call it is going to need to be significantly better than the original series to compete in the age of THE AVENGERS and ARROW.
Erik wrote: "You need to take ANGEL off your list. Whedon and company knew they were cancelled and chose to end it that way. The scene in the alley is a metaphor for the entire series. The battle for redemption is never over. It's actually my favorite series finale ever. "Let's go to work.""Oh I know it was a planned ending but it was still as frustrating to me as the non endings of the other books.
BTW, did you ever read the follow up seasons in comics? They were done with Joss Whedon and other show runners blessing and they were in fact at times involved in the writing of them. Basically Angel goes after the dragon who it turns out is being forced to fight. Angel frees it and it turns and helps Angel and company fight and beat the bad guys. Gunn however succumbs to his wounds only to come back as a vampire. This is all told via expository narrative flashback. The powers that be are so angry they suck the entirety of Los Angeles into hell which is where we find the cast. Ghost Wesley shows up and helps guide them for a while. The series ran for about 40 issues at which point they then merged back with the ongoing Buffy comics (which were also done with Whedon's input and blessing). I believe Buffy season ten and Angel season 8 are going to start in the coming months.
I always loved Angel it was one of my favorite series. So sad that they killed off Fred and Cordy. Season 5 just felt out of place compared to the previous seasons I don't think anyone knew where to take it after the gang prevent world peace in season 4. Season 5 had some good moments but it was too my like starting over from square one but with baggage that I'm not surprised it was canceled.I tried reading the season 6 comic which takes place after the wolf,ram and hart sent all of LA to hell but couldn't get into it. It just didn't feel like angel.
Alexander wrote: "I tried reading the season 6 comic which takes place after the wolf,ram and hart sent all of LA to hell but couldn't get into it. It just didn't feel like angel. "Maybe try the Angel & Faith series that just wrapped up last year. It basically served as Angel season VII and is more straightforward than the Angel in hell season was. Of course you pretty much have to have read Buffy Season 8 for it to make sense as A&F is all about dealing the aftermath of it. In A&F, the duo goes to England for reasons I can't give without spoiling major events near the end of Buffy season VIII and have adventures there. They are at times joined by characters from the Buffyverse that you will know.
Was Buffy season 8 about a big international conspiracy with seemingly unlimited resources versus the slayer army? That ended with(view spoiler)
I'll give it a try, but if they go back to leaning on time travel and the threat of Syler in every scenario, I'll just stop watching.
Alexander wrote: "It was just ridiculous how they kept the whole cast around when so many of them should have died like Syler."According to what I've heard, the original plan for Heroes was to have each season be a self-contained story featuring a different cast of characters.
That's why the first season ended differently than it seemed it was going to: the suits at NBC wanted to maintain the status quo with their sudden cash cow and told them not to change anything. Which is why S1 ends with Sylar crawling away miraculously and also why S2 feels odd: the original characters were added into the mix of new characters and they apparently just crossed out "New Bad Guy" and wrote in "Sylar" and substituted "Peter with amnesia" for "New Irish Hero".
It really seemed to me they were going in a bold direction and were going to actually kill off many of the characters at the end of S1, as well as strand Hiro in the past so he could turn into the ancient hero he grew up admiring.
As we've seen now, audiences are willing to go with radical changes in cast when they kill major characters off (The Walking Dead) or use the same core actors in entirely new roles (American Horror Story). Admittedly, it is harder to be one of the first shows to do so, but if they had followed that plan, I think Heroes would've been hailed as one of the all-time great genre shows instead of being lamented as one of the all-time worst misfires.
Getting networks to take risks on new ways of working sound like a tall order. I can only imagine the conversation during planning Game of Thrones when they said they wanted to kill off the main character at the end of the first season.Then again you have something like supernatural which managed to execute a fantastic 5 season story arch but due to its popularity has carried on for 4 more seasons that have been fairly hit or miss. And now they are making a spin off Supernatural Tribes...
Alexander wrote: "Getting networks to take risks on new ways of working sound like a tall order. I can only imagine the conversation during planning Game of Thrones when they said they wanted to kill off the main character at the end of the first season."I don't think that HBO can really be clumped in with the regular networks here. They are an exclusive cable channel that takes risks all the time. The NBC/CBS/ABC/FOX's of the world tend toward playing it safe for ratings continuity and that is why so many shows either get killed early or apparently get pressured into playing it extra safe.
I believe that is also the reason why other cable channels, like AMC and FX, have been able to gain audiences for their shows. They don't need the massive viewership numbers the way the basic 4 broadcasters do and can afford to give their shows more leeway in how they tell stories.
"They can't just cancel a show like Alphas. You know? They have to help the viewers let go. Firefly did a movie to wrap things up. Buffy the Vampire Slayer continued on as a comic book. Heroes gradually lowered the quality season by season till we were grateful it ended." Sheldon (The Big Bang Theory)That being said, and given the network interference with the show other folks here have commented upon, I'll be interested in seeing what they do with the mini-series.
In general agreement with what everyone has said - season 1 great, then fell to the law of lesser returns due to the poor decision to stick with all of the main cast from the 1st season instead of moving things on as they had initially intended. If they can return to that idea of an anthology show where each season (or in this case mini-season) follows different characters dealing with a different problem, then it could be interesting. Otherwise, yawn.
So this is premiering tonight. Anyone plan on watching? I was skeptical at first but I'm cautiously optimistic after reading the AV Club's preview/review of the first 3 episodes (http://www.avclub.com/review/heroes-r...). I think I'll tune in.
Trike wrote: "According to what I've heard, the original plan for Heroes was to have each season be a self-contained story featuring a different cast of characters..."It's easy to say now, after the fact, that what they did was a bad decision, but it's very hard to turn over the cast of a show all at once and have it work. I don't watch TWD but did all of the S1 cast go away in S2? If not, then you have a more natural thing - X dies, later Y dies, Z, a new character, joins the cast. That feels natural.
But think of it this way - you're a business and your first product is a hit. Do you change, after one iteration, everything that makes up that product and keep the name?
A lot of time people bond with characters in TV shows and the chemistry between them can make fairly meh writing work better than it should. I can totally see why they wanted to keep the characters. Sure, NOW we see that that decision and the writing of them wasn't a good one. But hindsight, etc.
On a sort of tangent, I love the concept of single season only shows. If it wasn't that horror wasn't my thing, I think "American Horror Story" concept is great. Some of my favorite visiual story telling is the single season anime of the late 1990's/ early 2000's. I still think "24" should have ended the first season with Jack's death, and "Prison Break" should have ended with the escape. But after investing as much in building an audience for these shows, the production company's don't want to hear it. No matter what would have been better for the story.
This is not really exciting my inner geek. Great first season, the rest went quickly downhill and stayed bad.
John (Nevets) wrote: "On a sort of tangent, I love the concept of single season only shows. If it wasn't that horror wasn't my thing, I think "American Horror Story" concept is great. Some of my favorite visiual story ..."Agreed. Also about why production companies (and networks) don't want to end a show prematurely. Hits are HARD and when you have one it's a poor business decision to just walk away from it. It might be the right creative decision but TV is a business too.
It's also why I look at shows where there's an obvious closing event and pass - I know that after that obvious point they'll continue and the thing that hooked me will devolve into something else.
Considering how the first incarnation fell apart, I'm not overly enthusiastic about this series. I'm going to give it a shot, though, I'm trying to keep my expectations very low.
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Season 2 was supposed to be 24 episodes and ended up being only 11.
They had set up interesting storylines that got completely scrapped.
Others got compressed and/or changed.
It left huge plot holes and inconsistencies that plagued the show until it's cancellation.
If Heroes Reborn can capture Season 1's feel it should do ok.
I just got done watching the 2 hr premiere. I thought it was good overall despite the absurdly stupid Japanese video game plotline and the fact that they aged a child character from the original about ten years even though only five years have passed. The rest is a conspiracy story about a terrorist attack on a humans / powered peace conference that has led to powered people being hunted. Noah Bennett who has lost his memories is the main returning character so far with appearances by two other former characters, though one us the recast aged child character so you won't recognize her.
In this day where we have Daredevil, Flash and Arrow, superhero TV series really need to step up their game. Heroes Reborn didn't do that. It wasn't nearly as good as the first season of Heroes. The writing just isn't there.It also felt a lot like "cross out A, write in B" when it came to the characters. Instead of Hiro we get Katana Girl. Instead of Renee we get Penny For Your Thoughts guy. Instead of Clare and her buddy figuring out how her powers work, we get the boy and his gal pal figuring out his abilities. Instead of Sylar killing Heroes, we get Chuck killing Evos, Punisher style.
And speaking of Penny Man, I want to know two things: 1) how the hell does he carry that briefcase full of pennies around, because it has to be arm-numbingly heavy (I used to have an old glass gallon jug full of pennies that was incredibly difficult to pick up) and 2) how does that thing not make a hell of a racket every time it moves? It's hundreds of loose pennies sliding around in there, with plenty of space to bang around in since the briefcase isn't full. It was just such an oddly dumb thing, one that didn't even look good onscreen.
^ True, Trike. When Heroes came out it was obviously meant to be an ersatz X-Men. Now we have the above shows you mentioned plus SHIELD and for those that like retro, Agent Carter. Plus so many X-Men and Wolverine movies that we don't exactly miss them in film/tv.
I thought it was alright. Like Trike, I got annoyed with the "replace A with B" thing. The plot is interesting but I'm not crazy about the characters. I just don't buy Levi as an evil dude. He's too likable.
The writing is TERRIBLE. "How can we create conflict? I know, terrorism by Mohinder! Why? Dunno"
"But that might cause some isolated... NO! USA devolves into full on police state!!!"
"How do Chuck and his sidekick find a secret meeting when they're just two regular folks? DETAILS!!! THEY DO!!!!"
"Why does one of the EVOs run around the room when attacked and not at the attackers? And how does one of the attackers hit an invisible target? DETAILS!!!"
I could go on, but... why? This might get to the end of its 13 ep run, but unless things improve a lot it's just one more stain on the Heroes idea.
Rick wrote: "The writing is TERRIBLE...."But that might cause some isolated... NO! USA devolves into full on police state!!!""
Well, Heinlein did the same in Revolt in 2100, although his writing was substantially better.
Yes, but this what, 60 years on? Using the same old ideas from 60 years ago isn't exactly a positive mark for the show. Note that the examples I gave were from the first 15-20 mins too. Like most reboots, I think this is a bad idea. The first show captured something and was fun. It was also a bit camp (come on, "Save the cheerleader, save the world"??) The time for the show is past and they should let it go.
I thought it was pretty obvious that Mohinder is being set up as the terrorist.
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I just can't get into the Heroes universe. Until someone turns into an Incredible Hulk or the show develops an interesting story line, with visually distinct characters, and actual heroism, I'm always going to pass on watching it.
I think part of the problem as someone upthread mentioned is that we've got a very different landscape on TV now. I mean, if I want to watch a show that's at least in part about regular people getting powers, Agents of SHIELD has developed a couple of years of backstory and this coming season seems focused on the Inhuman storyline. Contrast last night's tropey, overly long pilot with these four minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=1&...
Trike wrote: "In this day where we have Daredevil, Flash and Arrow, superhero TV series really need to step up their game. Heroes Reborn didn't do that. It wasn't nearly as good as the first season of Heroes. Th..."True. The superhero show thing has been done much better since Heroes first aired. However the thing that Heroes does which none of those shows really has done is show the heroes in the real world and how society might actually react to them. Heroes has been hit or miss on how well its portrayed that but it is a different take than the other shows.
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Did anyone else watch the 6 part webisode series (Heroes Reborn:Dark Matters) (about 40 mins total) .
It dealt with Quentin (the bearded guy with Bennett) and his sister Phoebe. It set up Quentin's motivation better than the pilot did. In the pilot he comes off as a conspiracy theory nut job and not the brother who is trying to save his younger sister and only living relative and prove she wasn't one of the suicide terrorists. It also deals with the June 13 terrorist act a bit more than the pilot did.
It also has one of the original cast members. Micah (The kid who could control machines)
Rik wrote: "the fact that they aged a child character from the original about ten years even though only five years have passed."
In a series that has time travel, anything is possible.
The original actress who played Molly was 14 when Heroes was cancelled. The new actress could pass for 19/20 (She is only 22) and is Clint Eastwood's daughter BTW.
I just watched it to see if it's any better then when I left the series behind in season two. I agree with the others, it feels like a rehash of the previous effort. Being a mini-series, I hope the storytelling is tighter, but I don't I'll be around to find out. So, "Chuck" and the bullet happy British-Chic playing his wife, are about the least scary villains, ever. Talking deadpan w/o expression doesn't always equal scary. HRM is still more frightening in his ambiguity then these two were shooting up the place.
A planned 13 episodes, heroes Reborn will feature a new cast, with the possibility of fan favorites returning, and Tim Kring is coming back as an executive producer.
What do you all think? is this good? Bad? I'm on the fence right now...