Heroes (American TV series)
Ordinary people discover extraordinary abilities and face catastrophic futures.
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Kristin Dos Santos from Los Angeles, California, United States · CC BY-SA 2.0
Heroes is an American superhero drama television series created by Tim Kring. It aired on NBC for four seasons, from September 25, 2006, to February 8, 2010.
Synopsis
The show follows ordinary people who discover they have superhuman abilities and explores how these powers affect their lives as they join forces to avert catastrophic futures. Its storytelling and visual style mimic American comic books, with multi-episode arcs building a larger narrative. Tailwind Productions produced the series in association with Universal Media Studios, and filming took place mainly in Los Angeles, California.
Awards and nominations
The first season, critically acclaimed, ran for 23 episodes and averaged 14.3 million U.S. viewers, earning the highest rating for an NBC drama premiere in five years. The second season averaged 13.1 million U.S. viewers and was among NBC’s top 20 ranked programs for total viewership in the 2007–2008 season, alongside 'Sunday Night Football' and 'The Office.' The show received numerous awards and nominations, including Primetime Emmy Awards, Golden Globes, People’s Choice Awards, and British Academy Television Awards. An online extension, initially called Heroes 360 Experience and later rebranded Heroes Evolutions, explored the show’s universe and mythology. Other official media included magazines, action figures, tie-in websites, interactive sites, a mobile game, a novel, clothing, and merchandise.
Internet and digital extensions
In fall 2008, NBC Digital Entertainment released online content for the summer, featuring original web content, wireless iTV interactivity, graphic novels for mobile viewing, and webisodes. A 13-episode follow-up miniseries, Heroes Reborn, premiered on NBC on September 24, 2015. In April 2024, Deadline reported a new series in development, reportedly titled Heroes: Eclipsed.
Cast and characters
Creator Tim Kring initially planned an ever-shifting cast but changed course after seeing the original cast’s popularity, bringing most of them back for season two with a few additions. The first season featured an ensemble of twelve main characters, making it the third largest cast in American primetime television at the time, behind Desperate Housewives and Lost. NBC’s first-season cast page listed only ten characters, but Leonard Roberts, who first appeared in the fifth episode as D L Hawkins, was an additional full-time cast member.
Comic Book Storytelling on Television
Tim Kring crafted Heroes as a television drama that deliberately mirrors the pacing and structure of American comic books rather than the conventional one-hour episode format. Rather than resolving conflicts within a single broadcast, the series unfolds through multi-episode arcs that layer atop a broader, encompassing narrative. Each season is organized into one or two "volumes," and within each volume, several principal plotlines advance simultaneously while smaller, more personal stories breathe inside them. Characters begin in separate orbits—their powers surfacing after a solar eclipse—and their trajectories gradually converge, revealing how their fates are interwoven.
Season one, titled "Volume One: Genesis," follows a cluster of everyday people as they grapple with sudden superhuman gifts and the upheaval those gifts bring to their jobs and relationships, culminating in a threat centered on an explosion at Kirby Plaza in New York City. Season two, "Volume Two: Generations," jumps four months forward and introduces the Company's research into a weaponized Shanti virus, with a flashback to 1977 exposing the organization's founding. The series was produced by Tailwind Productions in partnership with Universal Media Studios and filmed primarily in Los Angeles, California.
An Ensemble Built to Shift
Kring originally conceived Heroes with an ever-shifting roster, expecting characters to rotate in and out across seasons. That plan was upended by audience attachment to the first-season ensemble, prompting him to retain most of the original cast for season two with a handful of new additions earning star billing. The debut season featured twelve principal characters, making it the third-largest regular cast in American primetime television at the time, trailing only Desperate Housewives and Lost.
Five performers anchored all four seasons: Milo Ventimiglia as hospice nurse Peter Petrelli, who can copy others' powers; Hayden Panettiere as cheerleader Claire Bennet, a spontaneous regenerator; Masi Oka as office worker Hiro Nakamura, a space-time manipulator; Adrian Pasdar as congressional candidate Nathan Petrelli, who can fly; and Greg Grunberg as LAPD officer Matt Parkman, a mind reader. Jack Coleman's Noah Bennet was elevated from recurring to full-time status in the episode "Fallout." By season three, Cristine Rose's Angela Petrelli joined the main cast while Elle, Adam, and Micah departed, and Ali Larter transitioned from Niki Sanders to her triplet sister Tracy Strauss. Robert Knepper's Samuel Sullivan was added as a starring role in season four.
Ratings, Recognition, and a Four-Season Run
Heroes premiered on NBC on September 25, 2006, and its first season—comprising 23 episodes—drew an average of 14.3 million American viewers, setting the highest rating for an NBC drama premiere in five years. The critically acclaimed debut established the show as a ratings powerhouse, and the second season sustained momentum with an average of 13.1 million viewers per episode. That second year also made Heroes the only NBC series to crack the top twenty in total viewership for the 2007–2008 television season, a distinction that underscored its cultural footprint.
Over its full run, the series accumulated a substantial list of accolades and nominations spanning the Primetime Emmy Awards, Golden Globes, People's Choice Awards, and the British Academy Television Awards. The series concluded its fourth and final season on February 8, 2010, delivering a complete four-season arc that had begun with the Kirby Plaza crisis and expanded into the Company's long history. The blend of strong viewership, critical praise, and industry recognition positioned Heroes as one of the defining superhero dramas of the mid-2000s television landscape.
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Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: Heroes (American TV series) (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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