Chapter One 'Genesis'
- Episode aired Sep 25, 2006
- TV-14
- 53m
In Manhattan, Peter Petrelli is the younger brother Nathan Petrelli an overly ambitious and unscrupulous candidate for the next New York congressman, and he dreams and believes that he can f... Read allIn Manhattan, Peter Petrelli is the younger brother Nathan Petrelli an overly ambitious and unscrupulous candidate for the next New York congressman, and he dreams and believes that he can fly. He decides to prove his theory and jumps from the roof of a building in an alley and h... Read allIn Manhattan, Peter Petrelli is the younger brother Nathan Petrelli an overly ambitious and unscrupulous candidate for the next New York congressman, and he dreams and believes that he can fly. He decides to prove his theory and jumps from the roof of a building in an alley and his brother flies and saves him. In Texas, cheerleader Claire Bennet learns that she is lit... Read all
- Ando Masahashi
- (as James Kyson Lee)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaIn the original script for Genesis, Hiro was to exclaim "Bonsai!" after discovering his powers. According to a statement by Masi Oka on The View (1997), he approached Tim Kring and informed him that "bonsai actually means 'little tree'", and that he probably intended banzai. Because Masi felt that banzai had wartime/old-fashioned connotations, he asked if it would be okay to use the more modern exclamation "Yatta!" instead. Tim Kring gave Masi permission to change the line by replying along the lines of, "Dude, go to town."
- GoofsA solar eclipse is not a global event, and its point in time and duration highly depend on the observer's position on the planet. It is impossible for an eclipse to happen at the same time in New York and Tokyo as depicted.
- Quotes
Mohinder Suresh: Man is a narcissistic species by nature. We have colonized the four corners of our tiny planet. But we are not the pinnacle of so-called evolution. That honor belongs to the lowly cockroach. Capable of living for months without food. Remaining alive headless for weeks at a time. Resistant to radiation. If God has indeed created Himself in His own image, then I submit to you that God is a cockroach. They say that man uses only a tenth of his brain power. Another percent, and we might actually be worthy of God's image. Unless, of course, that day has already arrived. The Human Genome Project has discovered that tiny variations in man's genetic code are taking place at increasingly rapid rates. Teleportation, levitation, tissue re-generation. Is this outside the realm of possibility? Or is man entering a new gateway to evolution? Is he finally standing at the threshold to true human potential?
- Alternate versionsThe 2007 DVD release of the first season includes an alternate, 73-minute version of this episode. Dubbed the "Tim Kring Cut", the episode includes numerous extra scenes, including an early appearance by guest star Stacy Haiduk whose character wouldn't appear again until later in the season.
- ConnectionsFeatured in The 59th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards (2007)
Much like Bryan Singer's film showed ordinary people developing extraordinary abilities, Heroes starts with a group of individuals, living on all sides of the globe, coming to discover their new selves: Peter Petrelli (Milo Ventimiglia), a good-hearted nurse who's assisting a dying man (Richard Roundtree) and has a brother (Adrian Pasdar) running for Congress in New York, is convinced he can fly after experiencing some very suggestive dreams; Isaac Mendez (Santiago Cabrera), a drug-addicted artist, is supposedly capable of painting the future; Niki Sanders (Ali Larter), a single mom who has to strip on the internet to make ends meet and take care of her son Micah (Noah Gray-Cabey), is suddenly scared by her reflection in the window; Claire Bennet (Hayden Panettiere), a cheerleader from Odessa, Texas, can recover from any wound instantly; Hiro Nakamura (Masi Oka), a Japanese office drone, believes he can alter the time-space continuum. A normal person whose destiny seems to be tied with theirs is Mohinder Suresh (Sendil Ramamurthy), an Indian geneticist who moves to New York after hearing his father, a researcher who thought mutants (in lack of a better word) existed, was murdered while looking for them. And somehow all of this appears to be linked to a solar eclipse that occurs almost halfway through the episode.
Genesis is a bona fide first issue of a comic-book brought to the small screen: all the characters are introduced, their abilities are more or less explained and events are set in motion for some kind of life-altering incident that will determine the storyline of Volume One. There are also comic-based elements in the show's formal execution: captions indicate where the various people are, episode (or better, chapter) titles and numbers are shown on screen, and the final scene cuts to a completely black frame with the words "To be continued..." written on it. Furthermore, there's a bit of a comic-book geekiness in Masi Oka's performance, which provides some comic relief that sits well with the seriousness of other people's acting (Pasdar and Ventimiglia most of all).
But Heroes is more than a mere superhero show, in fact not one character is seen wearing a cape or some other fancy item of clothing. They're all "normal" people. Perhaps the name "Heroes" can be compared to the title of a comic-book that Marvel Comics published after 9/11: made by all the major writers and artists in the business, Heroes featured stories of the firemen and policemen who helped get the victims out of the Twin Towers. A few years later, a Spider-Man comic emphasized the role of those people by having someone saying to Spidey: "You're not a hero. Firemen and cops, people who risk their lives every day, they're the real heroes".
In light of that interpretation, it's no coincidence that Peter Petrelli, the only "hero" who believes our actions serve a higher purpose, is a nurse, i.e. someone who helps those in pain and does his best to save their lives (one should also note his alliterated initials, another comic-book staple, which match those of Peter Parker, aka Spider-Man). It's no coincidence most of the main characters are common men and women, with common lives and common jobs. They are the people who can really make a difference. As such, Heroes is a powerful meditation on the world we live in, a reflection disguised as a TV superhero epic.
- MaxBorg89
- Jun 21, 2008
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- Also known as
- Chapter One 'In His Own Image'
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- See more company credits at IMDbPro
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