Heroes Reborn: Five Questions Raised

With today’s annnouncement that the cancelled NBC drama Heroes will return next year as a 13-episode event series titled Heroes Reborn, fans are already asking a lot of questions about the project.Rightly so–when Heroes was reportedly in development as a Microsoft Network original series last year, nobody involved with the show from NBC was commenting on it, except for a few actors who ruled out appearing in the reboot. Now, though, the show is back at NBC and according to NBC Entertainment President Jennifer Salke, “we won’t rule out the possibility of some of the show’s original cast members popping back in.”So far, very little is known. But what did we wonder?

And he’s pretty well established as a big fan of Heroes in general (and superheroes, and comics, which he’s stayed involved with since) already.”You know, I think both the shows were pretty anticipated, I think they were things – subject maters that people wanted to explore and be a part of and watch, so there was that – that anticipation,” the actor told reporters on a conference call back when his last event miniseries, Mob City, launched. “But also, you know, just the major difference was, you know, thematic. I think Heroes was a show that was huge, huge and it reached such a vast audience, whereas, you know, Mob City may feel like kind of, you know, anybody that’s been to an noir-esque or a 40s-esque drama, you know, it’s only going to them, but you see the cast assembled and everybody knows Frank’s work and it like, well, s***, that’s just going to be interesting and awesome and dynamic and exciting and nothing short of brilliant, hopefully – you know, there two different, you know, fruits in the market, Heroes and Mob City but they’re the same thing. It’s like – it’s good television, good programming, good stories and great characters.”How much appeal does the brand still have?This, of course, is the big question for NBC. So much of the appeal of the original series was wrapped up in the cast–it launched the careers of Quinto and Panettiere, both of whom are extremely compelling screen presences, and relied heavily on the appeal of Masi Oka’s Hiro, too.Everybody knows that the original plan was to roll out a bunch of new heroes every year, and that it got waylaid by the popularity of the existing characters. The real question, then, is whether there’s a way to make this show without those characters playing a central role, and still have the same appeal as the first season or two.