Oh, man. So that happened.

Wow.

I know we all loved the first season of Heroes back in 2006, but we also all remember that seasons two through four were pretty terrible. And I know, I know, writer’s strike or whatever, but you can’t reasonably attribute all of the show’s problems to that. Mostly, it was just three-quarters badly written.

But regardless of the reasons for the original show’s issues, Heroes Reborn is a reboot/sequel that literally no one was asking for. It’s pretty obviously a cynical attempt on the part of NBC to capitalize on what little goodwill people had retained for the original show. But I watched it anyway, because I’m a sucker.

Heroes Reborn is bad.

It’s an ill-conceived idea in the first place, burdened as it is with the history of the original show, but Heroes Reborn takes its badness to the next level in several ways.

1. Noah Bennet (Jack Coleman) is the only main character from the original show, and his story line in Reborn is boring. After some kind of obviously staged terrorist attack in Odessa, Texas, Noah has some of his own memories erased, and so far all he’s done is find this out. Neither he nor we, the audience, have any idea what is going on, but we also don’t have much reason to care, either. He’s kind of trying to find out what happened to his daughter or something, but even he doesn’t seem to care that much.
2. New teenaged hero Tommy (Robbie Kay) has a kind of cool power, but his story is weighed down with a bunch of mind-numbingly dull teen angst bullshit. We spend most of the first two episodes learning about Tommy’s high school bully and Tommy’s crush on the bully’s girlfriend.
3. Married couple Luke (Zachary Levi) and Joanne (Judith Shekoni) are on a revenge quest that is both evil and stupid. This is complicated by the increasingly obvious fact that these two characters absolutely loathe each other. I don’t understand how this couple ever made a child together, and I don’t know what they think they are going to accomplish by murdering every mutant they can find. I suppose it makes sense that Joanne might just be completely unhinged after her son’s death, but I don’t know why Levi sticks around since he isn’t totally on board with all the murder they’ve been doing. Which brings me to…
4. It’s hard to buy the idea that people with super powers are an oppressed minority being hunted and killed/imprisoned with impunity. I mean, sure most of the super powers are probably not world-changing, but enough are that you’d think it would be pretty easy for these folks to take care of themselves. Even if I accept the idea that the government or some kind of shadow organization might be able to mess with mutants, I think a couple of middle class suburbanites with some small arms would have a tough time against a room full of super heroes.
5. Everything in Japan is the worst. Both Miko (Kiki Sukezane) 0and Ren (Toru Uchikado) look like anime characters, which is just plain silly, but the major sin here is the whole thing with Miko’s father’s video game. This doesn’t even remotely make any kind of sense, even in a world with super heroes. It’s totally cut off from all the rest of the story so far, and after two episodes there’s still no hint as to how this part ties in to everything else we’re seeing. The very worst part, though? The piss poor computer graphics for the game world. It’s just sad.

There’s some other stuff going on with some people at a casino or something and a guy with a luchador mask, but these story lines are actually so boring that I don’t have anything to say about them. Also, there’s some girl being mysterious and ominous with the Northern Lights and a hole in the sky. That can’t be good.

I just can’t bring myself to care.