Heroes Reborn on NBC

I sometimes wonder if the problem in the HEROES writers room was the lack of leadership. The constant changing and altering of people's powers. The inability to give Sylar a consistent character arc that wasn't abandoned for something else entirely. The inability to write Eve as the same character. The inexplicable declaration that the heroes and villains' powers came from the eclipse when they'd plainly established that the powers were from genetic factors unrelated to the sun. This strikes me as many different voices with contrary wishes and no one leading them towards a common goal.

Which makes me think that Tim Kring should hire someone to be the story editor and focus on the more practical aspects of production.

I hear Tracy Torme is available.

http://www.blastr.com/2015-6-25/first-t … -be-heroes

A synopsis of what HEROES REBORN will cover. I have to say, the marketing is making all the right statements. Ordinary people. Crazy situations. The focus on new characters is very wise. The idea that Noah, Angela, Matt, Mohinder, René, Micah, and Hiro will be supporting characters in the new characters' stories sounds effective and fitting. Maybe Peter, Sylar, Claire, Tracy and others are doing other things in this world and the focus is on a different set of people -- which is what Seasons 2 - 4 of HEROES should have done anyway.

SPOILER

One of the things that drove me crazy about HEROES: glimpses of the future in Season 1 revealed that Hiro, in half a decade's time, would become a capable, skillful superhero. But Seasons 2 - 3 muddled his character so much that by Season 4, Hiro was still the clumsy incompetent he'd been in Season 1. It was something of a relief to see Hiro in this trailer as the future Hiro who appeared in Season 1, suggesting the hiatus has been good for Tim Kring to think things through properly.

Agreed. Which makes what was in the trailer so intriguing -- because somebody actually grew up, if that visual is anything to go on.

Unless it's a fake out?

Hmm. It could be a tease. I was watching "Collision," where Future Hiro first appeared -- the footage of the older Hiro in the REBORN trailer actually looks like it was lifted from that episode.

Or they refilmed it for some reason.

http://www.comicbookresources.com/artic … g-and-cast

A lot of spoilers in this entry. Some news that will be saddening for some and a relief for others?

SPOILERS

I have some issue with people with powers being hunted. This storyline was done in the very strong Volume 4 ("Fugitives"). Well. I thought it was strong. The plotting wasn't any more sensible than Volume 3, I'll admit. But Bryan Fuller was back. Fuller refocused the plot developments on characterization. The individual episodes were very focused on the characters' internal conflicts and relationships even as they moved through the plot points. Volume 5, sadly, lost this focus and became all about the plot points with characterization awkwardly grafted on top (resulting in characters talking about seeking redemption rather than pursuing it).

I think HEROES REBORN has an interesting new take in that this isn't a shadow war. The evolved humans, Evos, have been exposed to the public as of the Season 4 finale and are experiencing persecution and prejudice. This is a new way of merging the extraordinary with the mundane and hopefully, the writers can explore this new world for HEROES.

I'm also intrigued by certain decisions: Hayden Panettiere was never approached to reprise Claire Bennet. The character has been killed offscreen. It's kind of abrupt in that she was the last thing ever onscreen for HEROES and then the next installment will indicate that she's dead. I think we've seen too many HEROES episodes where a character got a death scene and then it was undone. (Peter, Nathan, Noah, Claire, Sylar.) But given the unavailability of the actress, this death seems certain. Leads dying offscreen is never ideal. But the truth is that Claire was pretty played out as a character despite Fuller's best efforts.

It could be argued that Tim Kring was *never* able to do the show he wanted after the Season 1 finale. Now he has that opportunity. TOUCH did not reflect well on his talents, but I'm cautiously optimistic that he'll do something memorable and moving this time.

I didn't really follow HEROES, but between that and the X-FILES revival, I'm very curious to see how well they'll actually work. If these do well, then maybe Universal (which also owns HEROES) will give SLIDERS another shot. Heck, maybe the revival would even air on Fox, which is bringing X-FILES back.

Notable between all three series is that they were loved by fans at first, then eventually went off the rails. If these returning shows are not only successful but actually good, that could be the most positive signs toward the possibility of a revival yet. If they're neither of these things, SLIDERS will likely stay gone.

SPOiLERS

I really enjoyed it! I thought it would be *very* awkward for what's essentially Season 5 to open when Peter and Claire, central to the last time we saw the show, are nowhere to be seen. But Kring handled it deftly with the EVO/human gathering four years after the last series finale. It was an effective way of building on Volume 5 before starting Volume 6. All the characters were intriguing, the pacing and dialogue were effective and stirring and I enjoyed Kring's mystical take on the superhero genre. As with Volumes 1 - 4, everything was beautifully produced, staged, filmed, edited and scored and the actors all do a great job of suggesting extensive character beyond their limited scenes.

In the SLIDERS rewatch thread, I raged a bit about Season 3 of SLIDERS being unprofessional. HEROES REBORN is professional. That said, I don't think it really recaptures Season 1's theme of ordinary people in extraordinary situations. This is more HEROES Volume 4 (yes, the one where the superhumans were *also* being hunted down). It's gripping, compelling, exciting, and at times just plain weird, but it depends on your existing investment in the HEROES universe. Season 1 of HEROES made the superhero concept palatable to people who watched LOST and crime procedurals. HEROES REBORN is clearly something for the fans who already know the show and are willing to accept the absence of Claire and Peter and Sylar and others.

I don't think it's going to revolutionize the superhero genre like Season 1, but I think this is a good product and I'd be pleased for HEROES to have a better final note than the Season 4 finale. That said, it is inevitably an *awkward* note. Thankfully, Jack Coleman's Noah is present and the show is doing a good job of recapturing the production style of the old series, or this wouldn't really be anything like the previous HEROES at all.

I didn't see anything to indicate that Noah had forgotten about Lyle? Bringing back Molly was quite pleasing. I thought Zachary Levi was terrifying and I was amazed at how he eliminated *all* of Chuck's characteristics; he was nearly unrecognizable.

Where can I watch DARK MATTERS outside of iOS? I really hate the app.

So, Volume Five, Week Two. It was okay.

I guess the problem I'm having right now is that only some of the character arcs are really compelling in themselves and much of the story is still being driven by vagueness without concrete information. This drove me *crazy* with the original Season 1 of HEROES, but it also kept me coming back because I was invested in the characters. How would Claire deal with learning about her powers? What was Peter's secret as he ventured forward and learned more about his true nature? How was Nikki going to cope with her identity crisis? How could Hiro become a hero?

With HEROES REBORN, I'm not as invested in the characters. The Noah Bennett arc is strong, but the lack of solid information, even with clues, is keeping me from getting into it. The Luke character arc wasn't as well handled as I'd hoped; his lack of enthusiasm for continuing his murder spree actually reduces the impact of the reveal that he's an EVO. It would have worked better if he'd continued to genuinely hate EVOs right up to discovering he's what he's been hunting; the way they did it is instead rather muted.

The Ren and Katana Girl arcs suffer from the same problem as Molly Walker and Taylor. There is really no clear sense of who these people are. Why does Ren have so much time and enthusiasm for the Katana Girl mystery? Miko herself is largely devoid of personality. Molly is vulnerable and in danger, but there's no sense of who she is either or what she cares about or what she wants. Taylor is defined by being an agent and Francis' girlfriend. This absence of individuality is also matched by an absence of information. It's not fun to watch these characters onscreen.

The girl in the Arctic Circle has no personality and she's fighting a vague sense of vagueness.

The Carlos as El Vengador arc is strong. The Tommy teleportation arc is strong. Mostly because these characters are well-defined and have interesting dilemmas. Carlos is a burnout who suddenly finds direction from his need for vengeance and answers; Tommy is seeking peace but at the center of an EVO plot. There's mystery, but there's also concrete information. I know who these people are and what they want even if I don't fully understand what's going on around them. Same with Noah Bennett. But that means with 50 per cent of the show, I don't know who these people are and I also don't know what's going on.

So, basically, it's a Tim Kring show without Bryan Fuller to help.

I was thinking back on the original series and Season 1. And it wasn't really *that* different from what HEROES REBORN is doing as far as multiple characters in spread out locations dealing with separate stories. I think the *main* difference was the scripting style. The overall plot might have been all about the myth-arc of evolved humans. But the individual scenes, as scripted, were not about the mythology, but rather the characters.

HEROES REBORN done Season 1 style would be subtly different. Noah's scenes would be less about finding out what the Evil Company and more about him and Quentin bonding over their respective losses and recovering from their grief. Ren's storyline would be about how he's an obsessive gamer who keeps treating Real Life like a game only to be hit with consequence and danger and loss. Luke's storyline would be about his bloodlust for EVOs only to realize he's one of them. I think Carlos' plot has been pretty Season 1-esque -- every scene is about his trauma and his rage. Tommy's plot has been about his loneliness and isolation.

I really have no issue with the *plots* themselves, but rather the scripting style. And I think that this is what Bryan Fuller brought to the table. In Volume 4, Sylar's father was going to be the satanic villain of the volume. Fuller took that plot and just made it Sylar and John Glover talking for 3 - 4 scenes. The hunt for metahumans was part of the story, but it was ultimately about Sylar recognizing that his killing spree would simply leave him empty, isolated and alone. That emphasis on characterization is missing from HEROES REBORN.

I thought Episode 4 of HEROES REBORN was awful. One of the most unsatisfying and empty episodes of HEROES ever made.

It drove me crazy that there was no real progress most of the plots, just delaying and stalling. Carlos makes some noise about committing to the vigilante life and puts together some equipment, but the episode ends before it goes anywhere. Katana Girl and Ren make it to the States but don't learn anything new. Noah and Quintin make it to Molly Walker but learn nothing new. And then there's Malina and Farah -- the show explains nothing of who they are or what they're doing.

I felt like nothing really happened aside from Tommy and Luke getting exposed as EVOs. But there was no weight to any of it. Tommy's plot was too short and quick to sell his desperation and grief. And Luke. His plot is very badly handled.

For Luke, there was no sense of how he went from eagerly murdering EVOs to becoming disenchanted with it. In his first scene, he kills EVOs because they're dangerous and he sees no alternative. But then, it's established that he wants to be selective in his targets; he doesn't want to pursue Tommy. In which case -- what is he trying to accomplish? Is he trying to rid the world of EVOs one by one? If so, why does he want to let Tommy go? Is he trying to salve his grief by taking out his rage on a race he's dehumanized? Then again, why does he want to spare Tommy?

Without a clear sense of where Luke started, there's no sense of where he's gone or how he's changed. And Joanne. Her character is played as a goofy, comedic, cartoonish serial killer. It's completely at odds with Luke's anger and hatred; it's like the two actors are in completely different productions and it undermines Luke's arc completely.

There were two scenes in Episode Four that were just a train wreck of Tim Kring's poorly considered writing. The first scene was Erica, the head of Renautas, dealing with her daughter, Taylor. Taylor asks about the whereabouts of Francis, her EVO lover, and she asks her mother why Renautas wants with EVOs. Erica dodges every question, refuses to offer a single concrete response to Taylor's queries -- and then she acts astonished and hurt when Taylor betrays her! Incredulous that leaders who are vague and evasive don't inspire trust.

To me, this scene exemplifies everything wrong with Tim Kring's writing. Characters inexplicably acting against their own interests because the writer has decided where the story will go -- Taylor betraying her mother -- rather than letting the characters and situations decide. Scripts and scenes that offer meaningless dialogue with no clear information and no sense of what is happening or why the viewer should be emotionally invested.

And then there's the scene where Noah confronts Taylor. For the first time ever, actor Jack Coleman is completely defeated by the script. It starts with Noah holding Taylor at gunpoint, demanding Molly Walker's location. Threatening her. But within a few lines of dialogue, Noah is suddenly trying to convince Taylor to switch sides! With no previous relationship between the two characters having been established, the entire scene becomes incoherent, jumping between hostility to emotional appeals. And Coleman completely fails to sell the transition or find any way to play this scene convincingly. After four years of HEROES, Tim Kring finally broke Jack Coleman with Season 5.

And then Molly Walker dies. We never got to know this adult Molly on HEROES REBORN. We had no sense of what she wanted, what she was looking for her, what she loved, hated or feared or what she stood for or believed. She may as well have been a cardboard cutout. At the very least, she should have been used to give a clear example of how this 'digitizing EVO powers' concept works and how it could be used -- but Episode 4 is vague and unclear about how the tech works or will be applied outside of the Renautas compound, and then it's taken off the board anyway.

Digitizing powers seems to be HEROES REBORN's new concept and it has been almost totally unexplored.

HEROES in Season 1 wasn't perfect and almost all of the above flaws were present. But Season 1 had Bryan Fuller smoothing out awkward character actions and decisions in the dialogue, making sure every scene was about the relationship between the people in the scene as opposed to the plot devices. There was also a sense of incremental progress. There was one episode where Hiro and Ando spent the whole episode wandering around a parking lot -- but it ended with Hiro confronting his father and realizing his dad was part of the metahuman plot. Every episode ended with some sense of what was coming. Episode 4 doesn't even try for that.

... I think it's time Tim Kring reconsidered his day job. He's not a good writer. He can't execute character arcs. He can't build mysteries. He can't create a sense of advancement. He can't write plots where characters act in accordance with their goals or natures. He can't exploit his assets for maximum impact. He can't communicate information clearly. This is evident in Seasons 2 - 4 of HEROES, shockingly present in nearly every episode of TOUCH.

He's a great producer. Every Tim Kring production has lavish location shooting, beautiful photography, stirring music and amazing actors. Maybe he should stick to budgets and logistics and let somebody else lead his writers' rooms. Megan Ganz. Tim Minear. Michael Taylor. Ronald D. Moore. Somebody else.

But of course I'll watch the rest of REBORN. I'm a superhero fan; I'm always eager to see how the genre turns out even if it's a catastrophe.

Here's hoping Episode 5 makes me eat my words!

Sad, but not surprising.

Um. I have pretty much the same opinion of the sixth episode. Well. I'll say this for HEROES REBORN; it's certainly efficient to review! All you need is an initial review and to set it up like a form letter.

Well, they explained how Claire died. Aside from that...

Ugh, this show. I thought it was supposed to be about superheroes. I thought it was supposed to be fun. Instead, it's so laboured, slow, self-important and the sweet, earnest, good-hearted Matt Parkman is a villain? What the hell is that?

This is one of those areas where it's such a drastic 180 from before that some detailed explanation for how and why Matt's turned from good to evil is absolutely required. The vagaries of Tim Kring's characterization are not acceptable in most circumstances; with Matt, it is absolutely impossible to believe his cruelty or willingness to use his powers to murder when the only motivation offered is *money* and a seat of on the lifeboat he doesn't even believe in.

Disgusted.

Well. HEROES REBORN is cancelled. Honestly, I can't believe Tim Kring had so many years to bring his series back and so much opportunity to do something great and instead produced this tedious mess. No relatable characters. A clumsy, nonsensical plot that's stretched out with stalling methods and delaying tactics that would make Bill Dial balk. Random characterization with people making onscreen decisions so baffling it's impossible to take it seriously -- like Hiro telling his TELEPORTING, TIME TRAVELING son to ABANDON him to fight clone soldiers alone for no adequately explained reason.

With Season 1, all these flaws were present -- but Bryan Fuller was helping rewrite all the scripts. Shifting it so that the delaying tactics came off as opportunities to have actors interact and reveal their characters. The plot would be slow, but we would become close to the characters. The characters, when doing nonsensical things, would see their behaviour rationalized through Fuller's in-depth characterization revealing their flaws and errors in judgement. Without Fuller, the scripts are simply exposition and the exposition is incoherent.

NBC should have refused to resurrect HEROES unless Tim Kring were restricted to a non-creative position. He's great at casting. He's great at production. He's great at finding amazing directors and making sure they have first-rate locations and effects and cinematography and the actual writing should have been led by someone else. Fuller would not have been available, so somebody else -- Jane Espenson and David Fury (BUFFY, ANGEL), Doris Egan (HOUSE, SMALLVILLE), Bryan Q. Miller (SMALLVILLE, BATGIRL), Chris Black (SLIDERS, UGLY BETTY), Michael Taylor (BATTLESTAR GALACTICA) -- someone with wit, a sense of myth and legend and with some experience writing superheroes. Fuller understood what Kring clearly doesn't: superheroes are a mythic representation of idealized human potential, something Kring understands but doesn't know how to evoke or portray. Volumes 2, 3 and 5 made it very clear: Kring needed someone to help him out with that, and any one of the above writers would have been able to rewrite his scenes the way Fuller did.

HEROES REBORN is a disgraceful abomination to the franchise.

The thing is, HEROES has no more plot holes than any other fantasy series I enjoy. I loved SMALLVILLE and read all the comic books, for God's sake. But HEROES REBORN has no emotion, no heart, no depth, no meaning, no joy, no wonder, no imagination. It's just plot, and it's not a particularly rewarding or engaging plot and what REBORN did to Matt Parkman is a crime against humanity.

Well. I did steal the title from this series for SLIDERS REBORN. Originally, SLIDERS REBORN was going to be SLIDERS: QUANTUM QUINTOLOGY and I think we can agree that REBORN is a much more striking banner.

At one point, Taylor snaps at Erica Kravid: "Enough STALLING!" And then Matt Parkman's character arc ends in a literal car crash. There comes a point when writers, having lost their way and knowing it, end up handing this sort of thing to their critics.

I actually like Volumes 1 and 4 a lot. Volume 2 was interesting but an awkward abortion. Volume 3 started well but got convoluted. Volume 5 was boring.

In my view, HEROES REBORN could have been excellent. The problem wasn't the ideas. Kring is always full of ideas. The problem is that he executes brilliant ideas without the imagination, skill, care or cleverness needed to make them funny, dramatic, compelling and exciting. There were perfectly worthwhile character arcs here.

The first thing I'd have done: I'd have trimmed down the characters. There were too many people spread across the globe, especially for 13 episodes. So, I'd stick to three pairings: Noah Bennett and Quintin, Tommy and Miko, Erica and Taylor -- with characters like serial killers Luke & Joanne and Farah & Malina allowed to rotate in the slot for the fourth pairing.

I'd have made Tommy the fanboy of Katana Girl who can't remember how he ended up in Tokyo and ending up in an international spy movie, Noah and Quintin a buddy cop film, and Erica and Taylor as the antagonists of the story.

The second thing I'd have done: I'd just have used Bryan Fuller's technique for handling Tim Kring's stuff. Erica's character arc is a mess because the efforts to make her a nuanced antagonist consisted of her spouting vagaries and dodging questions while claiming it was all for a good cause. Noah and Quintin's scenes were purely expository; there was no in-depth focus on how they deal with regret and loss; Noah's regret makes him angry and dangerous while Quintin's regret makes him desperate and fearful, and both help each other heal and move forward. Erica is a crusader whose daughter, Taylor the knight errant, is losing faith in the cause but afraid to think her mother would be wrong.

I genuinely think that Tim Kring comes up with good stories -- he just doesn't tell them well.

Whenever Bryan Fuller was present on Volumes 1 and 4, the above-approach alleviated all of Kring's problems. The slow-moving plots were treated as an opportunity to go all character oriented. The nonsensical characterization in Kring's plots would, from Fuller, be depictions of troubled and conflicted characters. Subtract the Fuller-influence and presentation and you end up with HEROES REBORN.

I would argue that Kring is a genius at conception who simply needs another genius to help him (re)write all the scripts. But outside of Fuller, he has never sought that collaborator, and as a result, TOUCH and HEROES REBORN are just embarrassments. Imagine if Josh Friedman (SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES) had been asked to take Kring's REBORN ideas but shepherd the stories from outlines to shooting scripts and rewrite every scene.

I suspect a lot of the casting choices were due to budget. The HEROES REBORN actors are all excellent. I wouldn't blame them for any of the material aside from their agreeing to perform it. All the ideas here -- digitizing superpowers! Picking up years after the Season 4 cliffhanger! Creating distance from Sylar and Peter! The twins! The villains are actually trying to save humanity! There's neat stuff here -- but it would have been best if Kring had written brief summaries of the 13-episodes -- and then had a collaborator taking over fleshing out each episode and making sure each installment and each arc were focused, tight and meaningful and that every character's line and action informed and revealed.

A lot of the developments are just artless. For example, the idea that Tommy is actually suffering from amnesia is not built to -- there aren't clues and hints that mislead but fit. The memory wipe, as a blanket explanation, doesn't explain why Tommy doesn't notice all the gaps in his memory. There's a lot of blatant filler in these episodes like the videogame segments. None of the scenes for Luke actually address his hatred for superhumans and discovering he's one of them. These are all problems that, I think, are present in any first draft; it's important to then refine, rewrite and revise.

Instead, I often get the sense that Kring is just not going through the process of developing and reworking his material. This was something Bryan Fuller did for him and, for whatever reason, Kring has failed to find someone else to perform that role. I don't know why. When Fuller returned to HEROES for Volume 4 ("Fugitives," where the government is hunting superhumans), Kring readily deferred to Fuller, so it's not like Kring was dismissive of collaboration at a later date.

Not a popular opinion here: I thought Volume 4 was excellent. I'm not saying it wasn't filled with logical errors, but with Fuller back, everything made *emotional* sense. And then, with Volume 5, the circus, -- I know you guys liked it, but to me, it was much like HEROES REBORN -- slow, bland, vague and boring.

When HEROES REBORN was finding writers, there were plenty of available veterans writers from BUFFY, ANGEL, SMALLVILLE, THE DEAD ZONE, LIE TO ME out there, all with experience writing superhero shows filled with stirring visuals and punchy dialogue and striking characters. Kring is good at conception, he needs a partner to help him write the scripts.

It's a real shame he didn't do this and it's a really sad way for HEROES to go out.

Weird. You could swap out Chris Carter for Tim Kring and post this in the X-Files thread.

I agree, of course.

Catching up on REWATCH PODCAST with Tom and Cory reviewing Season 2 of HEROES. https://therewatchpodcast.libsyn.com/

It's funny -- Season 2 of HEROES was in 2007. It was 17 years ago. But I still feel really sad about the Caitlin character.

Since it was 17 years ago, I should probably explain: Caitlin was an Irish barmaid with no superpowers, whom Peter Petrelli romanced in Season 2. They accidentally visited a future timeline where Earth was ravaged by a terrible virus. Peter and Caitlin were separated, and when he tried to save her, Peter accidentally travelled back to the present day. Peter couldn't go back for Caitlin until he'd acquired a cure for the virus and regained control of his time travel powers.

Originally, Season 2 was going to have Peter return to the future and Caitlin would re-enter the storyline. Unfortunately, due to the writers strike of 2007, the 24 episode order got cut to 11 episodes. The 11th episode was originally a mid-season cliffhanger with the virus being unleashed.

But when the writers saw that the strike was coming, they realized they had no idea when they'd be back on the air after their 11th episode; they hadn't even started filming the 12th. With the likelihood that it could be as much as a year before HEROES could air another episode, the creators decided to reshoot their 11th episode cliffhanger. They instead made Season 2, Episode 11 a season finale where the virus was contained, averting the future of viral contagion... which also erased the future timeline in which Caitlin was trapped.

Then it became difficult to follow up on Caitlin. Season 2 came to its abbreviated end in December 2007, the airdate for Season 3's premiere was September 2008. Heroes had been off the air for 10 months, as opposed to a usual 2 - 3 month summer break. Ten months was way too long to reopen virus plotline. Which meant the show couldn't revisit Caitlin.

When asked about Caitlin in pre-Season 3 publicity and if her character would reappear or even be mentioned, showrunner Tim Kring said, "No, we passed it. We leapfrogged it," explaining the virus plot was just not something they could revisit, and understandably so. A season premiere, especially after 10 month hiatus, needs a clean slate. I understand the decision.

And I know it's ridiculous to still feel sad about it. But it bothers me.

I just want to say: listening to Tom and Cory recap HEROES is vastly preferable to actually rewatching it.

**

I would note that HEROES and FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS in 2007 were dealing with different narrative situations. I'm not super-familiar with sports, but I assume that sports matches and a pandemic are events that take place on pretty different scales. It may work for football games to happen offscreen. That wouldn't work for an end-of-the-world situation (although MILLENNIUM tried to wrap up a global pandemic between Seasons 2 - 3 and to laughable results).

HEROES had planned a 24 episode arc for Season 2: the first 11 episodes were Volume 2, "Generations", and revealed that superhumans, including Sylar, were becoming infected with a debilitating virus. Peter and his girlfriend Caitlin (Katie Carr) accidentally visited the near future in which the virus had begun infecting normal humans, and 93 percent of the human race had died. Peter lost control of his time travel powers and was sent back to the present before he could bring Caitlin back with him. Episode 10 revealed that the legendary samurai Takezo Kensei, also the immortal known as Adam Monroe (David Anders), had created the Shanti Virus as a means of population control and sought to unleash it. Monroe would later goad and taunt Peter that the woman he loved was trapped in a terrible future.

"Generations" was to end with Episode 11 in which Peter would fail to stop the virus from breaking out, heralding the future he saw and in which Caitlin was stranded. The town of Odessa, Texas would be quarantined. Nathan, announcing the situation to the press, would fall ill and collapse.

Then we'd have Volume 3, "Exodus", across Episodes 12 - 24. The heroes would try to contain the virus while Peter would trying to regain control of his time travel powers before changing the future, so that he could save Caitlin before that future timeline was erased.

When the HEROES creators realized that they would have to stop production with Season 2, Episode 11, they were facing a difficult situation. Due to their shooting schedule and contractual agreements, even if the strike were resolved, HEROES would be filming Season 3, not the second half of Season 2. The viral outbreak storyline was not something they could cover with a time gap and references to offscreen events. It needed to be a current and immediate situation if the story were to be told at all. Also critical to the story were Caitlin and Adam Monroe, which was another problem.

With the strike and the hiatus, HEROES had lost full access to David Anders, whose Adam Monroe was intended as the primary villain of Season 2. And HEROES' contract with Katie Carr to play Caitlin expired as well, and my understanding is that once Season 2 shut down, Carr was travelling between the United States, England and Australia, engaged in a modelling career and studying screenwriting in London. The bookings and studio sets HEROES had made for locations to render the viral quarantine of Odessa, Texas were also lost.

They'd lost the ability to use David Anders as the primary villain, they'd lost Katie Carr, they'd lost their preproduction work, they'd lost the immediacy of following up on Episode 11 a week later. With all this, the HEROES creators felt it simply didn't make sense to end Episode 11 on a clifffhanger and do the "Exodus" viral outbreak storyline in Season 3 in 6 - 12 months' time. They had no way of following up on it properly with all their losses.

If they'd done "Exodus" for Season 3, they would have had to write David Anders out with minimal appearances; they would have been unable to feature the Caitlin character significantly or at all. They would be following up on a viral outbreak cliffhanger that had aired 10 months ago, losing the opportunity for Season 3 to offer a clean and clear jumping on point for viewers as is expected for the season premiere of a major network show.

Given the multiple characters and arcs unfolding simultaneously in Season 2, it was a lot to ask a 2007 - 2008 audience to remember. HEROES was only available to stream via NBC Direct for US residents and wouldn't be available on iTunes until 2009.

Even as recently as 2021: I watched THE FLASH where the first three episodes of Season 7 were devoted to the mirror dimension plotline of Season 6, a season that had been cut short due to the pandemic hiatus. Like HEROES, THE FLASH was off the air for 10 months. Unlike HEROES, THE FLASH didn't (and couldn't) wrap up its truncated season and had to devote the first three episodes of Season 7 to resolving Season 6.

I was a devoted fan of THE FLASH, and I watched Season 7's first three episodes with great confusion. It had been 10 months since Season 6 and I had largely forgotten all the details of the storyline. I couldn't remember who Eva McCulloch was or what she wanted or how the artificial speed force tied into it or how mirror duplicates were involved. I couldn't remember. And I was too busy to rewatch Season 6. Due to limited recall, THE FLASH's sixth season opening was baffling to me.

And THE FLASH in Season 6 had a lot less going on than HEROES of Season 2, so I would posit that the average viewer would have found Season 3 of HEROES even more confusing than Season 6 of THE FLASH had HEROES attempted to do the "Exodus" storyline 10 months delayed.

I think the HEROES team saw that the virus plot was not something they would be able to follow up on effectively, so they reshot Episode 11 slightly so that Peter would stop the virus, and the replacement cliffhanger wouldn't require the audience to remember the Shanti Virus storyline when Season 3 premiered.

And on the whole, the creators' predictions seem to have been pretty accurate. David Anders was tied up with an independent movie when Season 3 started and had to be written out fast; Katie Carr was, I believe, in Australia. Ignoring Caitlin was a bad option, but there were no good (or available) options to bring her back.

From a writing standpoint, it was also difficult to address the emotional fallout of Caitlin's lack of fate. But the strike made it impossible to film anything new with Katie Carr for Episode 11; even if they attempted to save her with dialogue referring to her being offscreen, how could they save her from a timeline that was gone? Given that Peter couldn't control his time travel powers and was fighting Hiro at the end of Season 2, what options had there been to resolve Caitlin's storyline before the virus future was revented? Addressing Caitlin was a problem; ignoring Caitlin was a problem. HEROES is about ordinary people in extraordinary situations. Peter Petrelli's character is defined by his empathy and how he connects with people, reflected in his power of empathetic ability replication. Caitlin is an ordinary person, so leaving her in a horrific future undermines HEROES' entire mission statement.

Caitlin is an innocent person whom Peter loved, so Peter not saving her undermines Peter's characterization. Peter would either seem callous for dismissing her situation or be shattered by his inability to return to that future to save her, which would tie his character up in a distant storyline. As a result, the writers made the displeasing -- but understandable -- decision to simply never refer to it again: to bring it up would either undermine Peter or overcomplicate Peter. Their expectation was that when Season 3 premiered in September 2008, the majority of the audience would have forgotten about Caitlin, a character who had not been seen onscreen since November 2007, almost 11 months.

So, there were really no good options here: ignore Caitlin and move on from the virus plot and seem callous to anyone who remembered the character. Focus on Caitlin and the virus plot and Season 3's first impression would be that it was still mired in a storyline that, without immediacy and recent memory, was now difficult to follow and remember and also difficult to film due to losing the guest actors.

They chose to ignore Caitlin and hoped the audience would too... and I can't say the alternative would been any better. So I forgive the writers for choosing the simplest bad option over the complicated and confusing bad option. And I think they forgave themselves.

What HEROES should have done, however, which they never did -- they should have devoted one of their many webcomics to resolving Caitlin's story so that fans who did remember and care about Caitlin wouldn't think poorly of Peter for never mentioning her again.

I would note that the Charlie character (Jayma Mays) in Season 1 was really beloved as Hiro's love interest. She even inspired a tie-in novel, SAVING CHARLIE. But Charlie's character was unsustainable for the show as a regular, and she died a terrible fate. She wasn't mentioned in Seasons 2 or 3.

And yet, the HEROES creators brought the character back in Season 4 to give her a (somewhat) happy ending. I think they would have liked to do something similar for Caitlin... but how?

I imagine the reason the creators didn't at least produce a comic book is because with the viral outbreak timeline having been erased, the writers were at a loss for how to even find Caitlin. Even in a comic book: how were they supposed to get Peter back to that future timeline that was no longer available, even to a time traveller?

I myself have needed 17 years to come up with a solution...