NBC’s announcement that it was bringing back its seminal superhero drama Heroes back for a 2015 miniseries called Heroes: Reborn caused quite a surge of excitement. The show was a milestone – a serious network drama about people with super powers – but decreases in quality with each subsequent season resulted in a waning fanbase, even amongst the most loyal viewers.
Now with Super Bowl XLIX we are getting our first Heroes: Reborn trailer, helping us get our first inkling about what the miniseries will be about.
What we get in this initial teaser is something reminiscent of the first teasers for Heroes leading up to its series premiere in 2006. By that I mean a commercial framing a major shift (the emergence of super powers in this case) by way of an individual who teases us with exhibition of some extraordinary ability. Fans of the show will remember just how repetitive those promos featuring “The Cheerleader” (Hayden Panettiere) or the flying man (Adrian Pasdar) were leading up to the show’s premiere.
This time we get a young kid in the Arctic lands who has the apparent ability to create a spectacular Aurora in the night sky. Of course Heroes: Reborn can’t escape its obligation to wink back at the previous run of the series; this time, the mysterious super powered individual is being observed by the all too familiar H.R.G. (Jack Coleman) – as well as new cast member Zachary Levi (Chuck), whose character details have yet to be revealed. From this promo, it doesn’t look like he’s the new “Big Bad” to replace Zachary Quinto’s Sylar; more like he’s H.R.G.’s latest partner.
The Heroes: Reborn 13-episode miniseries (and its online prequel) will debut sometime in 2015. We’ll keep you posted.
