Heroes Reborn

Starring: Jack Coleman (13 episodes), Zachary Levi (13 episodes), Robbie Kay (13 episodes), Kiki Sukezane (13 episodes), Ryan Guzman (13 episodes), Rya Kihlstedt (13 episodes), Gatlin Green (13 episodes), Henry Zebrowski (13 episodes), Judith Shekoni (13 episodes), Danika Yarosh (13 episodes), Toru Uchikado (10 episodes), Krista Bridges (10 episodes), Aislinn Paul (10 episodes), Cle Bennett (9 episodes), Eve Harlow (9 episodes), Nazneen Contractor (9 episodes), Hiro Kanagawa (8 episodes), Lucius Hoyos (8 episodes), Michael Therriault (7 episodes), Pruitt Taylor Vance (7 episodes), Jimmy Jean-Louis (6 episodes), Sendihl Ramamurthy (6 episodes), Greg Grunberg (5 episodes), Carlos Lacamara (5 episodes), Francesca Eastwood (5 episodes), Dylan Bruce (4 episodes), Noah Gray-Cabey (4 episodes), Nesta Cooper (4 episodes), Masi Oka (4 episodes), Cristine Rose (3 episodes)
Directed by: Larysa Kondracki (2 episodes), Allan Arkush (2 episodes), Greg Beeman (2 episodes), Gideon Raff (2 episodes), Jeff Woolnugh (2 episodes), Jon Jones (2 episodes), Matt Shakman (1 episode)
Rating: TV-14
Genre: Drama, Science Fiction, Thriller
2015-2016

Seasons Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: After a terrorist attack threatens to destroy the fragile bond between humans and Evos, forces battle for the future of the planet, with an impending extinction event on the horizon.

Review:
Tim: "Heroes" could be described easiest as a show that started with immense potential and quickly fell apart. By the third season or so, I was praying for the show to be canceled. So, when they decided to reboot the franchise as "Heroes Reborn", I was pretty excited. This was an opportunity for creator Tim Kring to amend for sins of the past, to leverage lessons learned from the original series and deliver a product that meets the quality we all know this series was capable of achieving. It was with this wide-eyed optimism that I entered this series.

And, once again, we're horribly let down by Kring and those involved. "Heroes Reborn" learns nothing from the mistakes of the original series. It commits the same crimes and adds new ones to the mix. It only took a few episodes for me to realize this show sucked. Like the first time around, I was praying that the series wouldn't get renewed. I was already invested enough so I was committed to finishing the season, but I disliked just about every second of it.

"Heroes" works best when we have characters we can identify with and care about (this is true for every movie or series ever). That doesn't happen here. We have another huge cast. It's way too big. We aren't given enough time to really develop relationships with the characters. We jump around from character to character and none of it matters and none of it is particularly interesting. A great example are the subplot characters- one is a priest, the other is a mechanic. There's something with a Mexican wrestler thing. Honest to God, I couldn't tell you more than this. I don't remember any of the characters' names. I couldn't tell you which ones had powers and which ones didn't. I have no idea how they fit into the bigger picture. We're never given a chance to understand them as characters. Every time their story showed up on screen, I wanted to turn the television off. They aren't the only examples of this- nearly every new character introduced is uninteresting or lackluster. We were promised a blending of old and new characters, but besides Noah Bennett, everyone else had minor roles to play. I loved seeing Hiro Nakamura again, but he was relegated to the sidelines. That was a fatal flaw because none of the new characters are particularly interesting. I cared about not a single one of them. The best characters I was ambivalent about. Quite a few were annoying (like Quentin) or dull (like Joanne). And yes, I had to look up both those characters' names because I cannot remember them.

There was so much going on and most of it was dull. The whole story about the video game world and Katana Girl just seemed so out-of-place with everything else. I'd roll my eyes any time those scenes were on. Zachary Levi was the biggest new member of the cast and his story was mildly interesting at best. I will say there was a somewhat interesting twist involving Tommy's character. That might have been the best part of the series, with his connection to Bennett. Still, that's not much to go on for a series that ran 13 episodes.

I'm so thankful that "Heroes Reborn" was canceled after the first season. Of course, NBC called it an "event series" and tried to make it seem like this was the intention all along. If the show had the ratings and wasn't terrible, they obviously would have continued it. As it is, NBC did the humane thing by pulling the plug on a dismal creative failure. "Heroes" was the series that crumbled under the weight of its potential. "Heroes Reborn" never seemed to have any potential at all. This was a bad show and I'm hoping this is the last we hear of Kring's world.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: N/A



If You Enjoyed This Series, We Recommend: Heroes