Heroes
From TeeVeePedia, the Internet TV Encyclopedia.
Heroes is a one-hour musical variety show. It began airing during the fall of 2006 on NBC.
Contents |
Plot
Jeffrey Zucker Reacts To Heroes
When asked about the unusual format of Heroes, NBC head honcho Jeffrey Zucker said "Why don't you try watching 500 failed pilots, trying to find the next Lost!"
Heroes Becomes A Hit
Despite Zucker's animated reaction, Heroes became one of NBC's top hits, reaching the top slot in the key demographic groups of cheerleaders, time travelers and starving artists. Upon hearing the news, Zucker responded with the cryptic message "All your base are belong to us!" He then went off to meet with some line producer about developing even more fine programming for NBC.
"Save The Cheerleader, Save The World"
This famous catch phrase, which serves as the unofficial motto of Heroes, was invented by fanboys who accidentally stumbled onto the show while channel surfing and noticed that one of the "heroes" was a girl. Within hours, tributes to "Our Heroes" were posted all over the Internet, several fictitious MySpace accounts were set up in the names of the various "heroes", and videos of Heroes were illegally downloaded onto YouTube. Realizing that prosecuting the fanboys would be a waste of time (since most of them had no assets and lived in their parents' basements), the NBC legal department told the producers and writers of Heroes to "go with it, it's not like you're gonna come up with anything better".
...But What If They Didn't Actually Save The Cheerleader Or The World?
This wise guy question, posted on plenty of Internet bulletin boards, was accidentally answered by one of the show's episodes. The episode was supposed to have been part of a Heroes sequel that NBC would have made available on Ipod had the show been quickly cancelled. Due to a complex situation involving the FCC, the future episode was accidentally aired instead of the scheduled "Tribute to summer replacement shows".
- Note: Spoilers ahead.
In the episode, titled "Don't Wake Up Jeff Zucker", the Heroes cast falls through a plot hole and is shifted 3 years ahead in time to a dystopic future world. They find that, because they ignored their own catch phrase, the world has been overrun by pirates. Using the imaginary number "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0", the pirates have decrypted every movie, CD, DVD, game and computer operating system on Earth. As a result, both New York City and Hollywood are abandoned wastelands, and Canada has become the entertainment capital of the universe. The only shows left on television are Hockey Night in Canada, old reruns from the BBC, and children's television shows last broadcast on Nickelodeon sometime around 1991. A large TV screen shows Dave Coulier dumping green slime on the head of Alanis Morissette for the millionth time, as the "Heroes" yell and scream at the top of their lungs. The noise opens up a portal in the space-time continuum, returning them to the present day. The Heroes cast agrees to follow the catch phrase, although none of them have any idea what it means.
- Spoilers end here.
More Catch Phrases
Following the success of "Save the cheerleader, save the world", Heroes writers decided to create one new catch phrase per week in the hopes that something would stick. So far, phrases such as "Eat My Shorts", "Aaaaayyy" and "Simon Cowell Sucks" have yet to be accepted, but producers insist that they will keep trying.
Heroes Assemble!
Below is a partial list of characters from the NBC series Heroes. (Because of the continual addition of more "heroes" as dictated by the plot, this list is likely to remain partial for quite a while.)
The Main "Heroes"
- Mary Sue (Claire Bennet): A 17-year old who lives in a trailer park in Texas, she always wears a cheerleading outfit despite the fact that she dropped out of high school to support Daddy (Kevin Federline) and his ever growing brood of trailer-trash young-uns. Her main power is the ability to quickly heal from the many injuries caused by Daddy's "spare the rod" philosophy.
- Nathan Petrelli (Rudolph W. Giuliani): After winning third prize (representation of New York City in Congress) in 2006 Midterm Elections, Petrelli is convinced that he can fly after being hypnotized by the mysterious Senator from New York State (Hillary Duff). He continually demonstrates his newfound "powers" by tying a bedsheet to his back, screaming "Who's Your Real Daddy" and jumping off a roof, usually landing on the cheerleader.
- Peter (Skippy) Petrelli (Michael R. Bloomberg): Nathan's annoying little brother, Peter doesn't have enough creativity to develop into a distinct "hero". Instead, he follows the others around, pretending to be whichever "hero" he happens to be closest to. Currently unemployed, for good reason.
- Isaac Mendez (Bob Ross): Following the cancellation of his popular PBS show Happy Trees and Stuff, starving artist Mendez went on a drug binge, painting hundreds of pictures while high on VJ-1. During his recovery as a local clinic, he realized that, in one of his paintings, he had correctly predicted the winning numbers in the lottery. Convinced of his "psychic abilities", Mendez has attempted to repeat his feat at every opportunity, as well as predict (incorrectly) the fates of the other Heroes characters.
- D.L. Hawkins (one of the Wayans Brothers): A small-time criminal who used his power of "sneaking out the back door" to escape the wreckage of the shattered UPN. Currently on the run after his appearance on America's Most Wanted.
- Nikki Sanders (Jessica Simpson): After losing out on the first season of American Idol, Sanders ended up performing in cheap bars across South America. Harsh criticism of her singing abilities causes her hormones to kick in, transforming her into a raging beast. Her anger is usually directed at Hawkins, for no apparent reason.
- Mikki Sanders (Haley Joel Osmond): Nikki's ten and a half-year-old son, Mikki is the current champion of Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?, making him the unlikely brains of the Heroes bunch. Mikki once fixed a computer by kicking it, leading him to believe that he has powers over anything made by Microsoft.
- Hiro Nakamura (Jackie Chan): Bored with his office job in Tokyo, Nakamura uses his "powers" (and a large jet plane) to "teleport" himself to America. Once there, he makes numerous attempts to bend the laws of physics in order to win at poker. He also likes to "teleport" himself into girls' locker rooms and make them look at his "sword collection". Nakamura claims to be able to time travel at a rate of one second per second.
- Matt Parkman (Darryl Gates): A former LA cop on disability leave since getting hit in the head with a brick during the 1992 Los Angeles Riots. Since the incident, Parkman hears voices in his head and actually listens to what they say. Even more incredibly, the other "heroes" believe in the voices as well.
- Mohinder Suresh (Sendhil Ramamurthy): A professor of genetics and psychology from the University of India, Suresh does not claim any powers. His job is to try and explain why the rest of the Heroes cast believe they have superpowers. So far he hasn't had much success.
Various Other "Heroes"
- Meredith Baxter-Birney (Jason Bateman): The strange older woman living in the trailer across the street from the cheerleader, she likes to set things on fire using her "power" of clicking the cigarette lighter she bought from Wal-Mart. May or may not be the cheerleader's biological mother, depending on the results of the DNA tests.
- "The Haitian" (Actor Unknown): Not an actual character on Heroes, "The Haitian" (so named by the show's fans) appears in the background as an extra in several scenes every episode. Rumor has it that the mysterious extra likes to lurk around the set after filming, passing out small bags to the writers in exchange for unmarked American currency.
- Hana Gitelman (Lara Croft): Known as the "Human Cell Phone", she attempts to prove her powers by acting distracted, seemingly talking to nobody and getting into numerous motorcycle crashes. Claims to be in the CIA, which is unlikely due to her non-existent spying and cooking ablities.
- Molly Walker (Randomly chosen little girl from some commercial): When Molly was just a baby, her parents were tortured to death by some government agent. Molly survived because the writers thought she was too cute to kill. Now eight-and-a-half, Molly uses her "princess powers" and "super duper cuteness" to stop the bad guys who try to make her do her homework, clean her room, eat all her vegetables and go to bed on time.
- "Claude" (Ashton Kutcher): The "invisible man" supposedly seen by most of the Heroes cast. Probably does not actually exist.
- "Nuclear Man" (Theodore "Ted" Logan): An escapee from Guantanamo Bay, "Nuclear Man" believes himself to be radioactive and thus a target of both terrorists and the Department of Homeland Security. The other "heroes" shy away from him, mainly because he hasn't bathed or showered since 1998.
- Simone Deveaux (Tawny Kitaen): An "innocent" dealer of arts and other fancy things, Simone is killed off in Episode 16 due to a lack of creative direction by the Heroes writing staff.
- New York City (Vancouver): While not an actual Heroes character, New York is worthy of mention because of the numerous times the city was "destroyed" during flashbacks, flash forwards, psychic visions and other strange dreams. As of the end of the first season, the Heroes version of the Big Apple is still intact...for now.
Sylar: Fox Strikes Back
Angered at the declining ratings for 24 on Monday nights, Rupert Murdoch sent in special agent Jack Bauer (Emilio Estevez) to do something about it. Realizing that Bauer would lose his all-American luster if he were caught on the Heroes set, Murdoch assigned him the alias "Sylar". Using his power of torturing people (perhaps the only actual superpower shown on Heroes), Sylar attempts to kill off the Heroes cast, one by one. After killing his victims, Sylar removes their brains and sends them by Fed-Ex to top-level News Corporation scientists, who perform strange experiments on them.
Season Two
Having beaten Sylar (at least for the moment) in the Season One finale, the "heroes" spent Season Two trying to battle an even more deadly foe: television writers. In a last-ditch attempt to prevent the writers strike, the main characters head out to Hollywood using any available means of transport at hand. After 11 episodes of cross-country mayhem, they arrive only to find out that they are too late; due to the strike, the remaining Season Two episodes will never air. The "heroes" are sent off to hiatus, awaiting 2008 and Season Three.
Season Three
Production Notes and Trivia
- Each writer on Heroes is assigned one of the show's characters, for whom he writes the storyline. After completion, all the individual story lines are mixed in a blender and poured out, creating that week's script.
- Time Magazine awarded Heroes second place in its 2006 "Man of the Year" contest. The show barely lost out to "You".
- A series of "Heroes" graphic novels was commissioned by NBC and sold over the Internet for a brief time. The series was withdrawn due to claims of copyright infringement from the Justice League. A set of Heroes Action Figures was produced at the same time but never released; it is believed that several of these were sold on eBay to help NBC cover costs during the writers strike.
- Viewers have noticed the recurrence of several symbols on Heroes, including scars, eclipses, Japanese writing, an illegal DVD decryption code and Les Moonves's head. These are actually random symbols set up by stagehands and have nothing to do with the show's plot.
- NBC renewed Heroes for a second season in January 2007, ensuring that the show would continue to develop its complex and engaging plotline.
- During Sweeps 2007 NBC announced the first Heroes spin-off. Appropriately titled Heroes: The Next Generation, the new show was to feature contestants competing against each other for a chance to become the newest "Hero". Due to the writers strike, this show was moved from NBC to YouTube. Only one episode aired before threatened lawsuits cancelled the project.
- Heroes was nominated for eight different Emmy Awards in 2007, including "Best Destruction of Vancouver", "Best Stunts That Look Like They Came Out Of A Jackie Chan Movie" and "Best Anime". Family members said that they were discussing putting Emmy Lou Johnson, who gives out the Emmy Awards, into a nice retirement home.
- NBC and the producers of Heroes are currently being sued by Nickelodeon, who claim that the show is a rip-off of their 1985-1991 series The Tomorrow People. NBC claims that the suit has no basis, because The Tomorrow People was only a children's television show.
