NBC’s Heroes is returning to the small screen almost two decades after the first episode aired in 2006. Heroes only aired for four seasons before it was canceled in 2010. While fans of other shows might be thrilled with the news of a reboot, this isn’t the first reboot Heroes fans have had to get excited and disappointed about. In 2015, a continuation of this beloved series titled Heroes Reborn was released 2015 but didn’t garner as much love from fans.
The reboot treatment is all the rage in Hollywood at the moment. Everything from Disney classics like The Little Mermaid and Snow White to animated series and iconic movies like Blade are being reimagined and sold to a new audience. Although Heroes suffered a decline in storyline and production after the first season, it was still one of the best sci-fi shows of its time. However, this could be the reboot fans have been waiting for because out of all shows, Heroes is the one that deserves the reboot treatment the most; here’s why!
Heroes Season 1 was Iconic
Heroes fans know that while the show started great, it didn’t end well. The first season features fantastic writing and visually pleasing cinematography, but seasons 2 to 4 falter regarding creative direction. According to insiders, this change in tone is because the writers created the first season, knowing that if they got a second season, it would feature an all-new mystery that would require a different cast, like an anthology TV series. However, the show became widely successful in its first season, so NBC executives decided to keep everything as it was, which made it more challenging to tell a story that was never meant to continue.
As an anthology series, Heroes would have been more interesting and exciting for viewers. Characters like Sylar, who died in season 1, were brought back to life in Heroes Season 2, and he felt out of place ever since. The fact that the writers didn’t want to kill off their main characters lessened the high stakes of this TV show. Characters died and came back, which made the show feel utterly different from Heroes Season 1, where death seemed final. An anthology format after Heroes Season 1 probably would have ensured the show retained its loyal fan base beyond Heroes Season 3.
Heroes Has The Perfect Villain
One of the reasons Heroes was so good is it had a near-perfect villain. Zachary Quinto played Skylar, a villain who could steal other people’s powers by cutting into their brains. While these superpowered humans struggled to keep their abilities a secret, they had to worry about a superpowered serial killer with shapeshifting and telekinetic abilities. It gave the show an intense and urgent momentum missing from other sci-fi shows of its time. Quinto’s character managed to connect with viewers, and his impressive acting made it easy to believe that the world was on the brink of doom if his character was allowed to keep killing and amassing all that power.
The Writing on the Show Was Impressive
With such a talented ensemble cast, ensuring every character gets their moment to shine can be challenging, but the writers do a great job of building each character’s storyline. The first season follows a young cheerleader who discovers she is practically immortal because she can heal from almost any wound. This epic storyline led to the famous tagline, ‘save the cheerleader, save the world‘. While at its core, it’s still a story of good versus evil, the writers still manage to create solid and compelling storylines of super-powered humans that keep fans hooked throughout the first season.
Unfortunately, the show’s writing started to decline in the second season. Although many speculate that the show’s decline in Season 2 was majorly due to the writer’s strike in 2007 that caused several TV shows to go downhill, others assume it was the fact that it didn’t change into an anthology series as was earlier planned. The strike, however, worsened the situation because, after episode 11, no writers were on board to help work on the remaining episodes of Heroes Season 2. The declining writing is one of the reasons why the show’s viewership tanked, and fans were left wondering what had happened to the show they loved so much.
Heroes Was Ahead of Its Time
This NBC series came out in 2009 when sci-fi series were few and far between. Most of the sci-fi TV shows were relegated to the comic book genre, while others that had unexplained scenarios, like 4400 and Lost, didn’t have the dark and gory feel that Heroes managed with just its first season. If Heroes came out now, it would probably fit right in with other superhero projects currently dominating entertainment, such as Marvel and DC TV shows and movies. The bloody scenes when Sylar was cutting into other super-powered people would sometimes be too much to stomach, but that made it feel realistic and threatening.
Considering shows like The Boys, Dexter, and Stranger Things are succeeding with scenes that are more horrific than this, if Heroes were to be released today, it would probably be one of the more normal shows. NBC executives quickly shot down the idea of an anthology series, but an anthology format would work perfectly if the series were to be released today. Series like American Horror Story works well in the anthology format, so Heroes would probably fit right in. With the show currently getting a reboot, it would be the perfect opportunity to tell this story how it should have been from the beginning. Read on about the top case and characters of the Heroes series.
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