The last episode of “Heroes” saw Claire “The Cheerleader” Bennet outing her superpower in a very public fashion.
“Heroes Reborn,” the miniseries sequel that will take on NFL football, “Grey’s Anatomy” and (eventually) “The Big Bang Theory,” will address what happened next.
Tim Kring (“Crossing Jordan,” “Touch”), who created the original “Heroes,” is back as showrunner for the mini.
Sendhil Ramamurthy, Greg Grunberg, Masi Oka, Jimmy Jean-Louis, Cristine Rose and Jack Coleman reprise the roles of Mohinder Suresh, Matt Parkman, Hiro Nakamura, "The Haitian," Angela Petrelli and Noah Bennet respectively.
All six returning actors appeared in all four seasons of the 2006-2010 series.
Gatlin Green (“Finding Cody”), Rya Kihlstedt (“Nashville”), Dylan Bruce (“Orphan Black”), Ryan Guzman (“Pretty Little Liars”) and Henry Zebrowski (“A To Z”) have all joined Zachary Levi (“Chuck”) as “Heroes Reborn” players who weren’t in “Heroes.”
… the new characters were dishwater dull, and the premiere was two long hours of set-up with very little in the way of enjoyable short-term payoff within the pilot itself. Like its predecessor, “Heroes Reborn” is good at supplying portentous statements (“Something big’s coming,” “You have a destiny,” “It’s happening faster than we thought”) without necessarily supplying dramatic moments that end up justifying them. …
... with Kring back behind the controls of a ship he ran aground the last time, and with HRG surrounded by a bunch of new characters (plus the promise of future appearances of folks nobody missed like Greg Grunberg's telepathic ex-cop Matt Parkman), "Heroes Reborn" (I've seen the first three hours) seems like a show designed only to appease the die-hards who watched the original to the bitter end. … if you're someone who fell out of love with "Heroes" before it ended and are hoping the time away has fixed what ailed it, get used to disappointment. …
... “Heroes” was all about surprise and the big moment — the twists and reveals that kept you interested, despite the show’s mundane writing, helter-skelter plotting, uneven performances and painfully cosmic narration. The “Heroes Reborn” opener had its share of potentially showstopping moments, but they land awkwardly and without much force. … none of the [new] characters provide the sheer fun of Mr. Oka’s Hiro Nakamura or the menace of Mr. Quinto’s Sylar. …
... the first three episodes (including the two-hour Sept. 24 premiere) demonstrate that “Heroes” is/was an often stylish way to tell tales of the super-abled. …
The San Francisco Chronicle says:
... engaging if you never much cared about the original show or can’t really remember it. If you were one of the loyalists, you’ll find seeds of some of the same problems that eventually eighty-sixed “Heroes.” …
... It strikes me as simply more of the same overwrought drama that we left by the side of the road in 2010, with a few returning characters — most notably Jack Coleman’s Noah Bennet — and a bunch of newcomers, none of whom is quite as charming as the young evos (evolved humans) from the first series, such as Hiro. …
... chaotic and inconsistent …
... despite how liberally “Heroes” borrowed from comic books, the show’s tone and style felt relatively novel at the time. Today, with a more ambitious roster of Marvel and DC properties currently available — as well as sci-fi projects like Netflix’s “Sense8” — the freshness label has long since expired. …
... If any of the new faces are going to acquire the ambiguities or the delicious villainy of Heroes alums like Sylar, Elle Bishop or Nathan and Angela Petrelli, there's little evidence of it so far. … Right now, it's big and busy and slickly packaged but dramatically diffuse and a little soapy in its portentousness. That probably makes it unsuitable for grownups.
8 p.m. Thursday. NBC.
