Kiki Sukezane stars as Miko Otomo in the the two-hour series premiere of Heroes Reborn.
Kiki Sukezane stars as Miko Otomo in the the two-hour series premiere of Heroes Reborn.
The first season of the original Heroes series was really something. When it came out in 2006 it was fresh and clever - showing a world of ordinary people discovering they possessed extraordinary powers.
Then the Hollywood writers' strike happened around the time of Heroes' second season and the show never quite recovered.
Now the Heroes universe is back in a reboot, Heroes: Reborn - the first episode screened last night on TV3, a few days after its US debut - and a slew of bad reviews (Vox.com called it a "story telling disaster" ... ouch).
Already, it's hard to say if Reborn will be the Heroes revival we've been hoping for.
Judith Shekoni and Zachary Levi in a scene from the two-hour series premiere of Heroes Reborn.
Although this series is not a "season five" it takes place five years after the end of Heroes' fourth season, which many didn't watch - it suffered greatly from a bad storyline, didn't have any of the mystery or excitement of the first season and had a weird circus thing going on.
That was the season when Claire Bennet (Hayden Panettiere), a cheerleader with self-regenerative healing powers revealed to the world that people with powers exist and that they're not going anywhere.
Reborn deals with the fall out that decision created around the world.
And this first episode really is a matter of trying to pick up the pieces. Hardcore fans will be reveling, however, first time viewers may struggle to keep up with all this superpower business.
The multiple storylines of the first episode would be hugely confusing if you haven't seen the original Heroes series.
It would be like trying to get into Game of Thrones fifth season without having the back story of the previous four.
Not saying that people have to backtrack to enjoy it - but there would definitely a lot of "wait, who is that person talking about?" for the uninitiated.
The episode starts with a flashback to June 13 a year before the present where there is an attack on a summit hoping to unite humans and 'evos' - genetically evolved people with powers.
Robbie Kay in a scene from the two-hour series premiere of Heroes Reborn.
The tension since Claire's revelation is high - this is touched on in a Chronicle style Heroes: Reborn prequel Dark Matters a web series of six 5-10 minute long episodes (available on the TV3 website) - with evos finding themselves needing to be registered by the government and being discriminated against by regular people, or worse.
After the attack on the summit, the whole world is thrown into high-alert against Evos - the show then picks up a year on from the attack, where Evos are being hunted down and forced into hiding.
In the same vein as the original series, Reborn introduces several new characters in parallel plots lines - that will no doubt overlap and intertwine as the season continues.
Some of the new players are Tommy Clarke (Robbie Kay) a boy who can make things disappear, a girl in Japan, Miko Otomo (Kiki Sukezane) who has the ability to enter into a video game.
Chuck star Zachary Levi plays Luke Collins, he and his wife Joanne (Judith Shekoni) are set on killing as many evos as they can.
Quentin Frady (Henry Zebrownski) is set on uncovering the conspiracies surrounding the June 13 attack. And there are a few others who don't seem important enough to mention just yet.
Jack Coleman appears in a scene from Heroes Reborn.
They are joined by Noah Bennet played by Jack Coleman, Claire's adoptive father from the original Heroes, who helps to centre the story and will no doubt be the first of other original characters to reappear in Reborn.
Aside from the potentially confusing plotlines, there were some awesome action scenes and superpower revelations that fans will enjoy.
Many strings are being picked up, but it's really too early to tell if the following episodes will tie them together into something amazing - or end up in a knotted mess. As a huge fan of the original series, Reborn's first two-hour episode managed to fill the Heroes-shaped hole in my heart. I'll be watching to see where Reborn takes us.
• Did you watch Heroes: Reborn? Tell us what you thought in the comments below.
