After the end of last season’s finale, I honestly wondered whether I would watch another episode of Heroes. The series had become a comedy of its own success, with people gaining and losing powers all over the place, and its half resolved storylines had just become too much to really want to be involved with. The ending of the last season really sealed the cake, as we saw Sylar turned into Nathan Petrelli to keep the disguise going for the public.
So it was no surprise that ratings sagged, and the writers of Heroes insisted that the next season would be taking the show back to its roots, almost like a retcon of sorts, with each character really going back to their beginnings. Over the summer, there were rumors of castings and rewrites, and this past Monday, we got to see the fruits of all that labor. Were the writers true to their word, or did it end up just being more of the same? It is a little of both, but thankfully it does lean towards the good side of the pendulum.
Orientation, shows all of our main characters in new surroundings. Matt Parker has moved back in with his wife and is raising his son. Peter Petrelli is working as an EMT, not to far from his beginnings as a hospice nurse. Noah is setting up a new company for Angela, but is conflicted towards doing his duty or reintegrating with his family. Even Claire gets a new beginning as a college student starting out on the first day of class. About the only person that does not get a rewrite is Nathan/Sylar, if only because he is still a sitting US Senator, so it would have been difficult to explain a change for him.
The plot is a bit confusing at first, with a group of carnival workers burying one of their family, and we see the person conducting the sermon move the dirt over the coffin by making motions with his hands. It seems that this is no ordinary circus, and as in the past, it has intertwined itself with the history of our favorite heroes, Hiro Nakamura to be precise. Hiro went to the exact same circus as it visited Japan when he was young and his fortune was given to him, stating he would be a great hero. Ando is also here and with this one night, Hiro’s sister starts her hatred towards him.
We find out later that the man in the coffin might have been killed by Danko, who is still alive and is seeking out the rest of his team to protect them from Tracy Strauss, who is looking for a bit of revenge after all the hell she was put through by the Government rendition program for super beings. After attacking Noah, she decides to see if he can come through with a promise that Danko will never attack her again. Of course, he does make this happen with the nelp of the Haitian.
We also get to see Claire struggle with school. Apparently, all that travelling and being chased by the government seems to have taken its toll on her education, as she has no aspirations or goals for college. Her dorm roommate has all these plans and seems taken back by Claire’s nonchalaunt attitude towards her college education.
By the end of the episode we do see Hiro getting messed up by his powers, and watching him change one small event in the past when he runs into the preacher from the beginning of the show. We get a close up look at a couple of the new characters for the series, including Ray Park taking on a role as a person who can move extremely fast while using a pair of really big knives.
The opening premiere was good, but it just never seemed to catch me at any point at time. There were no moments that really had me catching my breath. It is the beginning of the season, and you do not want to blow your load right at the start of the season, but by the same belief,you want to give the people some reason to come back to the show. As it stands, Heroes – Orientation gets a middle of the road 3 out of 5.
