Published Jul 5, 2026, 6:00 PM EDT
Faith Roswell is a Senior Writer on Screen Rant's Classic TV team. Since earning her degree in Creative Writing over a decade ago, Faith has written articles on film and TV from a variety of different angles. Faith now combines her knowledge of psychology with her love of monster movies to give more insight into what makes the best ones.
You may have read her Screen Rant lists and features covering horror, sci-fi, and fantasy, or read her Amazon Top 10 book, "Movie Monsters of the Deep."
Faith has had an extensive career as a writer, appearing on BBC live radio, researching true crime for Rotten Mango podcast, and writing for publications including Mental Floss, Atlas Obscura, and The Daily Jaws before beginning here at Screen Rant.
Recent TV series like The Boys have redefined the superhero genre, becoming some of the best superhero TV shows of all time while also revolutionizing common tropes by giving viewers antiheroes with messy home lives and inconvenient powers. While there is still a demand for traditional heroes who use their powers to save the world, many superhero TV shows are better than any MCU series due to their creativity and character writing. The MCU franchise tends to excel at movies but fails when it comes to the world of TV and the character-driven moments that occur in between the explosions.
This is where one particular TV series stood out from the crowd with a first season that promised that the superhero show would be a masterpiece within ten minutes. With an impressive 92% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes and reviews praising the premise and characters, Heroes changed the game for superhero TV shows long before The Boys was made. The show's signature line "save the cheerleader, save the world" became a well-known catchphrase in the 2000s, and, with a plot full of intrigue and mystery, it appeared that Heroes was set to be as big as Lost.
Heroes centers on several strangers around the world, who discover that they have different superpowers. When a character who can paint the future predicts a catastrophic event hitting New York, the key to preventing the end of the world is a cheerleader, whose regeneration powers are being hunted by a supervillain. Unfortunately, each season of Heroes took a downhill turn, and the show never realized its potential. Heroes was added to Netflix on July 1, and despite the later seasons not living up to the first, it is still bingeable, with the potential to be a masterpiece.
Why The Heroes Sequel Series Should Still Happen
MovieStillsDBSeason 4 of Heroes ended on a massive cliffhanger that would have been a game changer for the series. When a character revealed her regeneration powers, she showed the world a reality that it may not have been ready for. A finale like this could have worked as a spiritual prequel to The Boys, which was already set in a world in which the existence of superpowers is widely known and part of celebrity culture. Still, given the season's 29% critics' score on Rotten Tomatoes, it may not be surprising that Heroes ended there.
That said, the potential of Heroes was already being recognized, with web-based mini-episodes already expanding the show's world before it ended, and Heroes: Reborn arriving in 2015 but lasting just one season. In 2024, it was announced that a Heroes sequel series was in development, coming from series creator Tim Kring. Heroes: Eclipsed was going to introduce new characters to challenge existing ones, but it does not appear to have been picked up. After such a strong first season, Heroes deserves a fresh start and a reboot that does its premise justice at last.
Heroes' Early Days Proved The Franchise's Potential
Before Heroes, the concept of ordinary people around the world being connected was only properly explored in Lost, and the later success of Sense8 with a similar idea proves that one major issue affecting the show is the fact that Heroes was simply 15 years too early. The show would fit perfectly among some of the best TV series of today, and the first season showed how well a simple concept and signature line could become cult hits.
The next seasons were beset by various issues, from the writers' strike to difficulty resolving the anthology format. Originally intended to follow different groups of people each season, the popularity of fan-favorite characters made it difficult to leave them behind, with Heroes instead expanding its cast and diluting the character development as a result. Today, anthologies are popular, proving again that the series was ahead of its time and could still attract a large fanbase now.
|
Season |
Date |
Rotten Tomatoes critics' score |
Rotten Tomatoes audience score |
|
1 |
2006 |
82% |
92% |
|
2 |
2007 |
50% |
66% |
|
3 |
2008 |
50% |
50% |
|
4 |
2009 |
29% |
52% |
Now that Heroes is officially entering a new era and streaming on Netflix, this offers the perfect opportunity for the platform to pay attention to the series' viewers. If Heroes gains a wider fanbase among people who missed the show when it first came out, or welcomes back existing fans who want to rewatch the magic captured in the phenomenal first season, this could be a sign that people are ready to see more of Heroes.
Release Date 2006 - 2010-00-00
Showrunner Tim Kring
Directors Allan Arkush, Jeannot Szwarc, Adam Kane, Greg Yaitanes, Sergio Mimica-Gezzan, Roxann Dawson, Paul A. Edwards, John Badham, Donna Deitch, Kevin Dowling, Seith Mann, Ron Underwood, Paul Shapiro, Lesli Linka Glatter, S.J. Clarkson, Daniel Attias, David Straiton, Kevin Bray, David Semel, Holly Dale, Ed Bianchi, Nathaniel Goodman, Christopher Misiano, Ernest R. Dickerson
Writers Tim Kring
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Hayden Panettiere
Ezekiel
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English (US) ·