Vague/Minor Spoilers
The original season has been a show that I can remember so clearly it must have had some kind of effect on me as a child. The pilot episode, especially, remembering Claire Bennet jumping off a refinery platform, "attempt number 6", trying to purposely hurt herself. It really set the tone for, at least, the first season that the show was going to be somewhat realistic whenever showing when physical harm would befall one of the main characters.
As the seasons went on the show deteriorated in quality and was soon cancelled after four seasons. What came as a huge surprise to me was five years later it would be returning and the hype I had for it begun instantly.
Finally, after a long wait of almost a year the first two episodes aired in a 2 hour block and I was hooked for almost all of it. The returning series takes place one year after a terrorist attack at the Evo Summit on June 13th in Odessa, Texas. The attack demolished the city and the 'Heroes' or 'Evos' (evolved humans) as they are known in the show, are blamed for it. One nice detail that I really like that came directly from the Series creator Tim Kring is the show made it as if the series had carried on off screen and it takes place 5 years after Claire Bennet jumped off the Ferris wheel and told the world that there were people out there with special abilities.
To start off with the positives, as soon as the main theme hit I had goosebumps and it immediately brought me back to the pilot. It fit the tone of the original series perfectly and even though "Reborn" has a slightly different feel to it, it still holds up extremely well.
Another positive was with most of the new cast. Zachary Levi portraying Luke Collins was, in my opinion, the best of the newcomers. Ever since I had seen him in "Chuck" he brings something different to this series as he is no longer playing the awkward nerd. Him and his wife Joanne, portrayed by Judith Shekoni, were at the Evo Summit and had to witness their son die in the explosion and now they want revenge against people with powers because they believe they took their son away from them.
Gatlin Green plays Emily Duval who is a secret keeper and ally/love interest of sorts to Robbie A. Kay's character Tommy Clarke who has the ability to teleport both objects and people. These two I thought were serviceable enough, however, were not as good as Levi. Their "high school storyline", one nerdy guy who has a crush on a girl going out with the popular bully, starts off pretty much like you would expect it and seems to be a predictable, paint-by-numbers storyline. Something happens in the back half of the episode that tweaks it just a little bit which at least gives it some kind of life and interest that otherwise wouldn't be there. Otherwise, if it weren't for the involvement of Levi and Shekoni then it could potentially be some tough scenes to get through. Another character that gives this storyline some intrigue is a mysterious unnamed man, portrayed by Pruitt Taylor Vince who is watching Tommy and seems to be protecting him through the use of his ability to seemingly erase people's memory, but for what reason we do not know yet.
There are many moving parts in the first two episodes and it would be interesting to see how they all intersect, especially, Miko Otomo, played by Kiki Sukezane and Ren Shimosawa, played by Toru Uchikado. As their storyline so far takes place in Japan and of course it is extremely likely that they'll somehow find their way to the U.S., either through teleportation or space-time travel, like Hiro Nakamura in the original series. I did think this storyline was quite odd and so far out there, even in the world of Heroes that it felt out of place whenever they jumped into the video game it really took me out of the show. Although I do like the concept, the execution felt like it missed the mark but I am still intrigued as to where it could be going.
The next storyline that we are shown involves Carlos Gutierrez, portrayed by Ryan Guzman, returning home from war and finds his little brother Jose, played by Lucius Hoyos, looks up to a vigilante who is known as El Vengador. This storyline was mildly entertaining
The storyline that we saw most of involving Jack Coleman who returns from the original series as Noah Bennet A.K.A "HRG" who was in the middle of the explosion in Odessa and he believes his daughter, Claire, was killed in the incident. He teams up with Quentin, portrayed by Henry Zebrowski, who is convinced that there is more to the story with what happened on June 13th. Their storyline is very intriguing and is no doubt driving the series. It does however not feel entirely different from what we have seen before.
All in all, I felt like this was a nice starting point for "Heroes Reborn" and it was definitely better than anything seasons 3 and 4 could throw at us. I think there is still a lot of room for improvement over its 13 episode run while at the same time it brought me back into the series and reminded me of why I loved the first season so much.
The original season has been a show that I can remember so clearly it must have had some kind of effect on me as a child. The pilot episode, especially, remembering Claire Bennet jumping off a refinery platform, "attempt number 6", trying to purposely hurt herself. It really set the tone for, at least, the first season that the show was going to be somewhat realistic whenever showing when physical harm would befall one of the main characters.
As the seasons went on the show deteriorated in quality and was soon cancelled after four seasons. What came as a huge surprise to me was five years later it would be returning and the hype I had for it begun instantly.
Finally, after a long wait of almost a year the first two episodes aired in a 2 hour block and I was hooked for almost all of it. The returning series takes place one year after a terrorist attack at the Evo Summit on June 13th in Odessa, Texas. The attack demolished the city and the 'Heroes' or 'Evos' (evolved humans) as they are known in the show, are blamed for it. One nice detail that I really like that came directly from the Series creator Tim Kring is the show made it as if the series had carried on off screen and it takes place 5 years after Claire Bennet jumped off the Ferris wheel and told the world that there were people out there with special abilities.
To start off with the positives, as soon as the main theme hit I had goosebumps and it immediately brought me back to the pilot. It fit the tone of the original series perfectly and even though "Reborn" has a slightly different feel to it, it still holds up extremely well.
Another positive was with most of the new cast. Zachary Levi portraying Luke Collins was, in my opinion, the best of the newcomers. Ever since I had seen him in "Chuck" he brings something different to this series as he is no longer playing the awkward nerd. Him and his wife Joanne, portrayed by Judith Shekoni, were at the Evo Summit and had to witness their son die in the explosion and now they want revenge against people with powers because they believe they took their son away from them.
Gatlin Green plays Emily Duval who is a secret keeper and ally/love interest of sorts to Robbie A. Kay's character Tommy Clarke who has the ability to teleport both objects and people. These two I thought were serviceable enough, however, were not as good as Levi. Their "high school storyline", one nerdy guy who has a crush on a girl going out with the popular bully, starts off pretty much like you would expect it and seems to be a predictable, paint-by-numbers storyline. Something happens in the back half of the episode that tweaks it just a little bit which at least gives it some kind of life and interest that otherwise wouldn't be there. Otherwise, if it weren't for the involvement of Levi and Shekoni then it could potentially be some tough scenes to get through. Another character that gives this storyline some intrigue is a mysterious unnamed man, portrayed by Pruitt Taylor Vince who is watching Tommy and seems to be protecting him through the use of his ability to seemingly erase people's memory, but for what reason we do not know yet.
There are many moving parts in the first two episodes and it would be interesting to see how they all intersect, especially, Miko Otomo, played by Kiki Sukezane and Ren Shimosawa, played by Toru Uchikado. As their storyline so far takes place in Japan and of course it is extremely likely that they'll somehow find their way to the U.S., either through teleportation or space-time travel, like Hiro Nakamura in the original series. I did think this storyline was quite odd and so far out there, even in the world of Heroes that it felt out of place whenever they jumped into the video game it really took me out of the show. Although I do like the concept, the execution felt like it missed the mark but I am still intrigued as to where it could be going.
The next storyline that we are shown involves Carlos Gutierrez, portrayed by Ryan Guzman, returning home from war and finds his little brother Jose, played by Lucius Hoyos, looks up to a vigilante who is known as El Vengador. This storyline was mildly entertaining
The storyline that we saw most of involving Jack Coleman who returns from the original series as Noah Bennet A.K.A "HRG" who was in the middle of the explosion in Odessa and he believes his daughter, Claire, was killed in the incident. He teams up with Quentin, portrayed by Henry Zebrowski, who is convinced that there is more to the story with what happened on June 13th. Their storyline is very intriguing and is no doubt driving the series. It does however not feel entirely different from what we have seen before.
All in all, I felt like this was a nice starting point for "Heroes Reborn" and it was definitely better than anything seasons 3 and 4 could throw at us. I think there is still a lot of room for improvement over its 13 episode run while at the same time it brought me back into the series and reminded me of why I loved the first season so much.