Earlier today, NBC made the surprise announcement that “Heroes” will return in 2015 as a new 13 episode miniseries, “Heroes Reborn.”
10 Things That Killed Heroes
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Broken Promises
Almost everyone agrees that the first season of “Heroes” was the best. And throughout the first season, the story set everyone up for an epic confrontation between Peter (Milo Ventimiglia) and the superpowered serial killer, Sylar (Zachary Quinto), with the fate of the Heroes and New York City at stake.
However, instead of delivering a memorable ending to the first season, “Heroes” broke the promise it made to its audience with a half-hearted confrontation between Sylar and the Heroes that completely lacked dramatic tension.
"Heroes” never lived up to the expectations it created, and that set the tone for the three seasons that followed.
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Maya & Alejandro
During “Heroes” Season 1, some fans favorably called “Heroes” the new “Lost.” Using that analogy, meet the Nikki and Paulo of “Heroes!”
Immediately after their first appearance, fans turned against Maya (Dania Ramirez) and her brother, Alejandro Herrera (Shalim Ortiz) in part because their new storyline took valuable screentime away from the returning characters. And also because Maya and Alejandro’s story wasn’t very compelling nor were Ramirez and Ortiz particularly strong performers.
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Sylar Go Round
The creative team of “Heroes” loved Zach Quinto as Sylar. The problem is that they loved him too much.
While Quinto displayed a lot of charisma as season one’s big bad, the “Heroes” creative team kept bending over backwards to find ways to keep Sylar on the show. This led to a seemingly neverending cycle of Sylar becoming more heroic before backsliding into villainy.
Look, he’s a serial killer. You can’t redeem him! Yet that never stopped “Heroes” from trying. By the end of season 4, Sylar was once again in hero mode... but who cared at that point?
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Nathan Becomes Sylar
One of the more ill-conceived attempts to keep Sylar on the show involved the death of Nathan (Adrian Pasdar) at the end of season 3.
Rather than accept the loss of her son, Nathan’s mom convinced Matt Parkman (Greg Grunberg) to wipe Sylar’s mind and make him believe that he was Nathan!
In season 4, this led to a largely pointless Jekyll and Hyde dynamic between Sylar and Nathan, and even between Sylar and Matt. But it was all for nothing as Nathan’s mind was burned out of Sylar’s body shortly before he became a hero again.
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Peter Abandons His Girlfriend In The Future
Did you forget the time that Peter left his girlfriend, Caitlin (Katie Carr) in the Shanti virus ravaged future of 2008? The creative team of “Heroes” certainly hoped that you had.
This was part of the ill-conceived amnesia storyline that left Peter in Ireland without his memory, before he hooked up with Caitlin, as he became connected to her small time crime family. Using his time travel powers, Peter and Caitlin found themselves in the future... and Peter accidentally left without her. Whoops.
In of itself, that could have worked if it was ever addressed again. Or if Peter had at least made the attempt to go back and save Caitlin. But nope, it was completely dropped and it was never addressed again. That’s just another example of how little regard “Heroes” had for its viewers and its characters.
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Hiro Pocalypse
Masi Oka almost singlehandedly won over “Heroes” fans during the first season thanks to his charismatic performance as Hiro. Out of all of the initial characters, Hiro was the one who was actually on a heroic journey. And thanks to his time travel powers, we caught a glimpse of the hero that Hiro would one day become.
Of course, the “Heroes” creative team screwed everything up from that point on. Rather than continue Hiro’s progression, he was often backsliding into ineptitude. At one point, Hiro even opens up his father’s most secure vault (immediately after being told not) just because he was bored; which led to the theft of the formula that could give normal humans superpowers. That’s right, Hiro basically caused all of the problems in season 3 out of boredom.
We were robbed of the opportunity to see Hiro complete his heroic journey because of the poor choices made by the writers. If Oka reprises his role as Hiro, hopefully that mistake won’t be made again.
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The War on Heroes
The second half of “Heroes” Season 3 recast most of our heroes as a persecuted minority who were thrust into a clumsily constructed analogy for the war on terror. Although, this could technically have also been a “Heroes” riff on the persecution of mutants in “X-Men.”
But by 2009, that story was far past its expiration date. Aside from one brilliant episode by Bryan Fuller, the “Fugitives” arc was dead on arrival.
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The Evil Carnival
“Heroes” completed its journey into cliche with season 4’s Sullivan Bros. Carnival; which was made up of superpowered freaks who just happened to be that year’s adversaries. Leading the way was Samuel, as played by TV's go-to psycho, Robert Knepper.
By the time that the carnival storyline played out, “Heroes” had finally driven itself into the ground.
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Spider Mohinder
Another late series misstep for “Heroes” involved the ill-conceived notion that the previously ordinary characters like Ando (James Kyson Lee) should also get powers!
But nothing was worse than Mohinder (Sendhil Ramamurthy) gaining Spider-Man-like powers. Mohinder’s new powers also made him more inhuman as the story divebombed into a ripoff of The Fly.
This was “Heroes” at the height of its stupidity.
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Tim Kring
“Heroes” fans, behold the face of your true enemy.
Tim Kring is the “creator” of “Heroes,” but his real talent appears to be the ability to cobble together aspects of various comic books into one storyline. And that only worked in the first season when he was surrounded by people who actually understood that world.
Where should I begin with Kring? His tin-ear dialogue? His characters that don’t even have a single dimension? His stories that go nowhere? His complete lack of creativity? Take your pick.
Kring’s last TV series, “Touch,” had a lot of the same creative issues that “Heroes” went through. So I don’t have any confidence that things will change with “Heroes Reborn” as long as Kring is running the show. There were some great episodes of “Heroes,” but that seems to have been in spite of Kring.
