Heroes (American TV series)

Heroes
File:Heroes title card.png Heroes title card
Created by	Tim Kring
Starring	Santiago Cabrera Tawny Cypress Noah Gray-Cabey Greg Grunberg Ali Larter Masi Oka Hayden Panettiere Adrian Pasdar Sendhil Ramamurthy Leonard Roberts Milo Ventimiglia
Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	7 (list of episodes)
Production
Running time	44 minutes approx.
Original release
Network	NBC
Release	September 25, 2006 – present

Heroes is an American drama television series, created by Tim Kring, premiered on NBC on September 25, 2006. It follows eleven otherwise-ordinary people who suddenly discover that they have superhuman abilities such as telepathy, time travel, and flight. The first four episodes were dubbed "Ordinary people discovering extraordinary abilities," and at the end of the fourth episode an event occurred which kicked off the current arc, "Save the cheerleader, save the world," which is a reference to the character Claire Bennet, a Texas high school cheerleader with the ability to rapidly heal from any injury, and the apocalyptic visions of New York artist Isaac Mendez. As the large ensemble cast slowly discovers their abilities and existence of others like them, they begin to realize the need to come together to prevent catastrophe.

The series loosely follows the same writing style as American comics by doing short multi-episode story arcs that build upon a larger, more encompassing arc. Even with the small story arcs that move the story forward, creator Tim Kring has said that he's mapped out where he intends the show to go for five years.

A special 72-minute version of the pilot was first screened to a large audience at the 2006 Comic Con in San Diego. When the series premiered nationally in the United States, it was the most-watched program that night among adults 18-49, attracting 14.3 million viewers overall and receiving the highest rating for any NBC drama premiere in five years. On October 6, 2006, NBC President Kevin Reilly announced that Heroes had been picked up for a full season. The series is filmed in Los Angeles and Santa Clarita, California. New episodes air on Mondays at 9 p.m. EST on American NBC affiliates.

Plot overview

Main articles: List of Heroes episodes and List of Heroes graphic novels

The series tells the story of several people who "thought they were like everyone else ... until they woke with incredible abilities." The premise is that these people have a role in saving mankind.

According to the official NBC website, not only do the characters discover what having superpowers means to them, but also uncover a larger picture concerning the origin of their superpowers. The characters eventually become involved in each other's lives as they attempt to evade the series antagonist, who wishes to harness their "super DNA" for his own ends.

Characters

File:Heroes.png

Promotional photograph of the main cast.

Main articles: Characters of Heroes and Minor characters in Heroes

• Claire Bennet (Hayden Panettiere) is a cheerleader living in Odessa, Texas, with the ability to rapidly heal from any injury.
• Mr. Bennet (Jack Coleman) is the adoptive father of Claire Bennet. Unbeknownst to Claire, he is aware of her superhuman abilities as well as those of several other characters, and has been attempting to kidnap them for unknown reasons.
• Simone Deveaux (Tawny Cypress) is an art dealer who sells the paintings created by her former boyfriend, Isaac.
• D.L. Hawkins (Leonard Roberts) is Niki's estranged husband with the power to phase through solid objects, including people.
• Isaac Mendez (Santiago Cabrera) is a heroin-addicted artist living in New York who can paint future events during precognitive trances induced by his heroin use. Many of his works involve the other characters in the series.
• Hiro Nakamura (Masi Oka) is a programmer from Tokyo with the ability to manipulate the space-time continuum.
• Nathan Petrelli (Adrian Pasdar) is a New York congressional candidate with the ability to fly.
• Peter Petrelli (Milo Ventimiglia) is a former nurse and Nathan's younger brother. He has the ability to mimic the powers of others.
• Matt Parkman (Greg Grunberg) is a Los Angeles police officer with the power of telepathy.
• Micah Sanders (Noah Gray-Cabey) is the son of D.L. Hawkins and Niki Sanders. He is a child prodigy who appears to have the power to fix payphones when they're out of order.
• Niki Sanders (Ali Larter) is a webcam stripper living in Las Vegas with an unrestrained alternate personality. When this other personality, whom Niki calls Jessica, takes over, she exhibits superhuman strength.
• Mohinder Suresh (Sendhil Ramamurthy) is a genetics professor from India who has travelled to New York to investigate his father's death. As part of his investigation, he follows up on his father's research into people with superhuman abilities.

Production

When the writing team begins working on an episode script, each writer takes a character and writes the individual scenes surrounding that character. These stories are then combined and given to the episode writer, allowing every writer to contribute to every episode.

Symbols

File:HeroesSymbol.jpg

The RNA-like symbol

Template:Spoiler Appearing frequently throughout the series is a symbol which strongly resembles an RNA molecule. Said appearances include:

• Several flotation devices in the swimming pool at a crime scene float in this shape.
• As a recurring shape shown scrolling across a laptop screen in a genetic profiling program created by Chandra Suresh.
• On a drawing done by Peter Petrelli.
• Frequently painted by Isaac Mendez.
• On a post-it note on the map in Mohinder Suresh's apartment.
• Written on a geometry textbook owned by Claire Bennet.
• Written on pictures in Sylar's apartment.
• As a tattoo on Niki's back whenever her alternate personality surfaces.
• Engraved on the hilt of future Hiro's sword.
• Printed on the front of Chandra Suresh's book, Activating Evolution.
• Printed on the upper-left corner of the 14th issue of 9th Wonders! comic book, written by Isaac Mendez (the 13th issue that Micah was reading did not have the symbol).
• On a necklace around Mr. Bennet's special assistant's neck.
• On a picture of Niki painted by Isaac. The symbol was hidden under an extra layer of paint.

A second symbol, consisting of two parallel lines, has appeared on the necks of two of the superpowered characters in the show:

• Matt Parkman, the telepathic main character.
• Ted Sprague, a minor character who appears to be able to generate and manipulate ionizing radiation.

U.S. television ratings

This is ratings information for the series. "Rating" is the estimated percentage of all televisions tuned to the show, and "share" is the percentage of all televisions in use that are tuned in. "Viewers" is the estimated number of actual people watching, in millions, while "ranking" is the approximate ranking of the show against all prime-time TV shows for the week (Monday to Saturday).

Unless otherwise cited, the overnight rating and share information comes from Zap2It and viewer and ranking information comes from CalendarLive. The following week, the numbers are updated with the final Nielsen numbers from TVWeek.com.

Week	Episode	Air Date	Rating	18-49	Share	Viewers	Rank
1	"Genesis"	September 25, 2006	7.9	5.7	11	14.1	n/a
2	"Don't Look Back"	October 2, 2006	7.1	6	12	n/a	n/a
3	"One Giant Leap"	October 9, 2006	7.8	5.8	12	n/a	n/a
4	"Collision"	October 16, 2006	9	6.2	13	13.0	n/a
5	"Hiros"	October 23, 2006	9.6	6.4	15	n/a	n/a
6	"Better Halves"	October 30, 2006	8.7	6.5	13	14.45	#18
7	"Nothing to Hide"	November 6, 2006	8.9	8.5	13	14.89	#15
8	"Seven Minutes to Midnight"	November 13, 2006
9	"Homecoming"	November 20, 2006
10	"Six Months Ago"	November 27, 2006

Emerson lawsuit

On October 2, 2006, Emerson Electric Company, an appliance market competitor of NBC's owner General Electric, filed suit in federal court against NBC. The suit was regarding a scene that appeared in "Genesis" (the pilot episode) which depicted Claire Bennet reaching into an active garbage disposal unit — apparently Emerson's In-Sink-Erator — to retrieve a ring, and severely injuring her hand in the process. Emerson suit claims the scene "casts the disposer in an unsavory light, irreparably tarnishing the product" by suggesting that serious injuries will result "in the event consumers were to accidentally insert their hand into one."

Emerson is asking for a ruling barring future broadcasts of the pilot, which is available on NBC's website and has already aired on NBC Universal-owned cable networks USA and Sci Fi. It also seeks to block NBC from using any Emerson trademarks in the future.

The episode in question was briefly unavailable on the iTunes store, but an edited version is now available for download.

External links

• Official NBC site
• 9th Wonders - Semi-official site from Heroes creator Tim Kring