Last week it was announced that one cast member from the original ‘Heroes’ would be part of ‘Heroes: Reborn’, NBC’s upcoming 13-episode miniseries.  That would be Jack Coleman who played Claire’s father Noah Bennett more commonly referred to as HRG or Horn Rimmed Glasses.  And though other veteran’s names have been mentioned including Zachary Quinto‘s, it now sounds like viewers shouldn’t expect this to be a full-on sequel to the original series.

The new series will actually focus on a new batch of characters according to series creator Tim Kring:

“The vast, vast majority are brand new characters, brand new ideas. [Bringing back previous characters is] really only to give a sense of continuity and a tether to the original world. If it was all completely brand new, we’d miss certain elements that need to be there to give you that bridge to cross to something new. I approached Coleman because he was a character who had a spine through the series that allowed you to meet new characters. So he’s a character I wanted to make sure had a little part at the beginning of this thing.”

So even Coleman’s character HRG isn’t a regular cast member and will only be part of the story in the beginning to set the story up and to catch audiences up on the reality of this world.

Kring also revealed that the new miniseries wasn’t his idea, but that NBC came to him asking him to craft it:

“They saw the value in that franchise and brand and asked if I was interested in helming it again. And we had left the story in a place where we had more story to tell. So given the opportunity, I had ideas of where I wanted the story to go originally when we were hoping for a fifth season and so when we were given the opportunity five years later, some of those same thoughts were there as to where this story goes. But five years had passed and I also had new ideas on how to reboot the brand in away that gives people a whole fresh take on the series with a whole host of new characters but gives you that sense of you’re in that world of Heroes you’re familiar with.”

Considering that ‘Heroes,’ like ‘Lost,’ started off insanely strong and popular, rockier subsequent seasons caused audiences to tune out in droves, leading to their, largely unsatisfying endings.  Will audiences take a chance and give ‘Heroes: Reborn’ a chance?

Source: Collider