5 New Characters We'd Like To See When Heroes Returns

For those who haven't yet heard, last night NBC Universal announced that Heroes- the show about ordinary people whom discover they have extraordinary abilities- will return to our screens next year as a 12-episode stand-alone series, entitled Heroes Reborn. Following on from the successful promotion of 24's comeback series 24: Live Another Day, set to return to our screens this May, NBC has taken the initiative in striking whilst the iron is hot by bringing back one of it's most heralded shows of recent years. Heroes exploded into public consciousness in 2006 with an extremely successful debut season built around the idea of a diverse group of people all in the discovery of supernatural abilities- Telekinesis, Rapid Cellular Regeneration (Healing), Teleporting and Time Travel some of the most prominent- and soon became a powerhouse of a staple of Monday-Night television in the United States. Resembling Twin Peaks in the way it consolidated public opinion around the marketing mantra of "Save the Cheerleader, Save the world", Peter Petrelli's efforts to save sympathetic hero Claire Bennet from the attentions of super-powered serial killer Sylar took Heroes to the summit of the Nielsen ratings, becoming an overnight success. However, as it is written that a star which burns twice as bright will burn for half as long, Heroes, again much alike Twin Peaks, saw its whirlwind rise to the top of the TV world followed by an equally rapid fall from grace. The 2007 US Writers' strike's decimation of the 2nd season's story-lines, coupled with an increasingly convoluted effort in focusing the show on the "powers rather than the people" in the 3rd led to viewers quickly turning away from the once must-see anthology of abilities. The show was, eventually, cancelled after its 4th season, in 2010. Many articles and blogs have been written since then about why Heroes fell so suddenly from it's lofty perch of television dominance; the most often quoted opinion being that of the humanity of the show being lost, amongst more action-packed story-lines in the later seasons. The cast of characters we came to know and love in Heroes freshman year, slowly diluted and dispersed amidst a group of poorly-planned sub-sequence. Arthur Petrelli showing up out of the blue, killing people for seemingly no reason; Samuel Sullivan, equally, deciding to destroy buildings because his girlfriend gave him the cold shoulder, whilst these visuals looked impressive, they lacked substance in reason and character, the true bread and butter of what made the show's first season a success. With that in mind, I hope Tim Kring and whomever he brings on board will have learned from their mistakes when scripting their second bite at the cherry. No longer is it good enough for someone to have a flashy ability, what the audience would like to see are strong characters and abilities which provide a unique showcase to their personalities. As such, I have come up with a list of 5 possible characters, all with powers, that would fulfill this demand. The abilities are a means to an end in plotting a character, Heroes at its best always was more about the people than the powers.