The 2000s welcomed a bold new age in television, a golden era of shiny production and high-concept storylines, and Lost was at the vanguard. The tale of Oceanic 815 became a global phenomenon, its ensemble cast burrowing their way into viewers’ hearts. Nothing quite like Lost has appeared on the small screen since.
Despite Lost‘s immense success, another 2000s series carried even greater potential. It should have been as big as ABC’s island of mystery, and for a single season, came devilishly close. Despite running for another four seasons, however, it never recovered from that initial burst of glory.
Heroes Had Just As Much Potential As Lost (& Should’ve Been Just As Big)
Premiering in 2006, just two years after Lost‘s debut, Heroes applied the same grandiose vision, sense of mystery, and massive ensemble cast to the superhero genre, which was, at that time, in a state of limbo.
Spider-Man and X-Men were entering their “tricky third movie” phases, while the MCU was still two years away. Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins and its intense dedication to urban realism had given a first glimpse of where the superhero genre would be heading over the next decade, but the well remained largely untapped.
Then along came Heroes, with its grounded take on superpowers and its smart blend of comic book tropes with real human drama. The result was revolutionary. Heroes had all the thrills of a Marvel or DC movie: the hero realizing his destiny, the promise of a team-up in the grand finale, the creepy villain with a steadily-decaying moral compass.
But Heroes passed these familiar concepts through the prism of real life, meaning viewers were also treated to parent-teenager struggles, Peter Petrelli’s quarter-life crisis, the strength of being a single parent, and a scientist’s determination to avenge his greatest loss. As these two worlds collided, Heroes transcended into something truly special.
In addition to the keen character work undertaken through scripts and performances, Tim Kring injected Heroes with a layer of intrigue to satisfy the theorists: shady organizations who know more they let on, a dystopian timeline 5 years into the future, and a young child’s promise of a villain worse than Sylar. Had Heroes maintained this level of quality, its place alongside Lost in TV history would have been assured, and its status as a crucial point in the evolution of modern television remembered for decades to come.
Heroes Never Recovered From A Stunning First Season
Events conspired against Heroes in the wake of season 1’s explosive finale. Small seeds had been sown for upcoming storylines, but Heroes season 1 was largely a self-contained affair, with characters undergoing complete arcs from the first episode to the last. Heroes season 2 was left with the uphill battle of trying to take those characters back to something vaguely resembling “square one” and finding different paths for each of them to walk.
This proved particularly tricky with Milo Ventimiglia’s character. Peter Petrelli spent the entirety of Heroes season 1 honing the powers he absorbed from others and thus becoming strong enough to stop Sylar. Come season 2, it was painfully clear that a hero who possessed all the powers simply wasn’t going to work long-term. What followed was an awkward retcon that, at various times, involved Peter forgetting about his powers, losing his powers, and regaining his powers but only being able to use one at a time.
Ultimately, a large part of Heroes‘ appeal in season 1 was watching ordinary people come to terms with having superpowers. From season 2 onward, these characters were no longer ordinary, and no longer coming to terms with their powers. As an inevitable result, Heroes lost its early charm.
That wasn’t entirely its own fault, as Heroes season 2 also had the misfortune of coinciding with the 2007 writers’ strike. Lost suffered a similar dip in quality at this point, and Heroes was among those most negatively impacted. All narrative direction was abandoned, with the big “boogeyman” tease from season 1 never developing into the major new villain everyone expected, and Peter’s random trip to Ireland feeling like a fever dream.
Heroes recovered to a point, with highlights in season 3, a decent season 4, and an entertaining enough revival in Heroes Reborn, but the magic of that epic first run was never rediscovered. The superhero genre is a very different beast today, and the likes of Heroes will never be seen again. It’s tempting to look at the series as the biggest missed opportunity of 2000s TV. At the same time, it’s also hard to find a better box set to binge than that spectacular first season of Heroes.
- Release Date
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2006 – 2010-00-00
- Showrunner
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Tim Kring
- Directors
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Allan Arkush, Jeannot Szwarc, Adam Kane, Greg Yaitanes, Sergio Mimica-Gezzan, Roxann Dawson, Paul A. Edwards, John Badham, Donna Deitch, Kevin Dowling, Seith Mann, Ron Underwood, Paul Shapiro, Lesli Linka Glatter, S.J. Clarkson, Daniel Attias, David Straiton, Kevin Bray, David Semel, Holly Dale, Ed Bianchi, Nathaniel Goodman, Christopher Misiano, Ernest R. Dickerson
- Writers
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Tim Kring
