NBC announced yesterday at the TCAs that their revival series Heroes Reborn will not be returning for a second season. They of course touted its “limited run” event series status and suggested that it was never intended to continue beyond its thirteen episode order. NBC chief Bob Greenblatt said “I think that was always the plan” even though series creator Tim Kring had claimed before the series debuted that he had ideas for additional seasons. And let’s face it, that “limited run” tag is just a way for networks to avoid admitting failure as has become the trend of late. Previous “limited run” shows such as Under the Dome and Wayward Pines have continued beyond their first season while last year’s Dig quietly headed off to TV Oblivion after one low-rated season. Heroes Reborn bowed to moderate ratings back in Fall and saw it numbers continue to drop, so the cancellation (that’s not really a cancellation according to NBC) is not a huge surprise. And for those believing the claims by networks that they are not watching the overnight ratings, Heroes Reborn actually saw decent gains with delayed viewing (averaging over 81%), but that apparently wasn’t enough to keep it going. I thought the show might still have a slight chance because this season and anything beyond will just get tacked onto the Heroes syndication run. I figured if they could use the show to fill up a difficult hour on the schedule, it may be worth keeping it around. But Heroes Reborn already gets the original show’s somewhat light 77 episode count up to 90 and gives it more long term viability in syndication. And the show is likely an expensive one to produce, so keeping it on was likely just not economically feasible. This was already a Call to Action show and if fans were to make a big enough outcry, maybe NBC execs would change their minds, but that’s definitely a longshot at this point. The series did manage to resolve the cliffhanger from the original show’s fourth season finale and I will assume that next weeks final episode will not leave viewers hanging (its a limited run series, remember?).
This is the first genre show of the 2015-16 to get cancelled (or whatever you want to call it), but several more are currently hanging on by a thread such as Minority Report (almost certainly cancelled though FOX won’t admit it yet), Scream Queens (also a limited run series), The Last Man on Earth (currently in limbo), and Sleepy Hollow (almost certainly in its last season). Keep a close eye on this site and the Cancelled Sci Fi Twitter Site for breaking news as the networks continue to make announcements throughout the TCAs.
