"Heroes Reborn" may have found a second lease on life, despite a critical drubbing and the plunging ratings, which happened long before what many fans felt was a half-baked conclusion. "Gemini: Heroes Reborn" is the latest incarnation: an interactive video game birthed on the series. It may prove to be a temporary stopgap or an escape for fans who love the show, as NBC and showrunner Tim Kring go down to the wire, arguing about the show's final fate on mainstream television.
One thing that the show does have going for it is the cast of characters. Both the original "Heroes" and "Heroes Reborn" were peopled by sympathetic characters, who struggle with the impact of their emerging powers on their daily life, which struck a resonant chord in a captivated audience.The characters remain huge fan favoites with an enthusiastic fan base. The storyline itself, the ordinary man or woman on the street discovering they have superhuman powers, will always remain appealing. All these elements can create the foundation for a rerun.
However, in Crossmap's latest report, NBC Chairman Robert Greenblatt said that the network has no plans of renewing the show for a second season. He added that it's the "end of the world" for "Heroes Reborn." Any attempts at revival would start with creator Tim Kring. While Greenblatt also claimed that Kring wrote the arc for just one season, Kring himself may have had a change of heart. Kring believes that there is enough elasticity in the band, as well as enough unexplored material in the premise that can make the show go forward.
Some fans have been moving forward with the show's incarnation, an interactive video game called "Gemini: Heroes Reborn." A game reviewer from Metro says that "Heroes Reborn" fans can get a temporary fix of their favorite show by playing Dahlia, Cassandra's younger sister. In the 6-hour game made by an indie company, Dahilia discovers her powers as she jumps from 2006 to the present year. She can stop time and move objects, just to begin with. To add to the fun, military-looking men with dangerous weapons are hunting her down.
Steve Bowler, lead designer of Imperative Entertainment, which created the game, said that they based the gameplay on what made "Heroes Reborn" attractive to its fans. In an interview with Gamingbolt, Bowler says, "So much of what made Heroes a powerful TV series was witnessing how characters discovered they had powers for the first time. We wanted to capture that sensation as much as possible for the player, so putting you not just in first person, but in "full body awareness" first person seemed the way to do it most effectively."
Until Kring relaunches his show in another network or another platform, "Gemini" is the nearest thing that fans can have and enjoy to reliving their favorite program. It means not watching their heroes, but being one in a cybergame.
