So we were sent some new images today of the upcoming episode of Heroes entitled Lizards which airs this coming Monday the 1st of October. Enjoy the new images!

So you just got done watching the first episode of Heroes Season 2? All ready for next week’s episode? Well then here is the promo video from NBC previewing next week’s coming episode! Enjoy the video!

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I am never quite sure how much the Nielsen ratings actually work, in fact I am never sure how much they actually say about who watches what, but I will digress. I was reading an article over at Media Buyer Planner who discussed the new Nielsen rating which allows shows to count both the original airing and subsequent airings of the show to be counted all at once. Here is what Media Buyer Planner said about how this could effect the ratings of Heroes:

For its premiere episode of Heroes, NBC is taking advantage of a new Nielsen rule that lets networks combine the ratings of multiple runs of a show - the original airing and any subsequent airings - and report them as one number.

Monday’s episode of Heroes will be repeated Saturday night, and the numbers for both broadcasts will be counted together when Nielsen releases its final numbers for the week, writes Variety. Better yet for NBC, the Saturday repeat will not be counted in NBC’s weekly averages, which means that the network will be able to eliminate what may well be one of its least-watched hours while at the same time boosting the audience average for the show.

I received a few e-mail’s last night after the premiere that a few of you were disappointed that I didn’t give more insight into the premiere, and instead just gave my opinion on the pacing, with very little specifics. So to meet the requests of the audience and to better acquaint you with the return of Heroes, here is a much deeper look into the first episode of Heroes in Season 2. I should say there are some spoilers below if you have not watched the show yet, that is your warning!

One of the more difficult areas of starting a new season of a show, is the beginning, how do we grasp the audience back into the storyline? Heroes didn’t waste anytime in that area, the show begins with a look at Mohinder giving a speech to a half empty (or half full) lecture hall describing a deadly virus that is mutating in these evolved humans (AKA: heroes). Following his speech to the less then amused audience he is approached by a guy who is stalking Mohinder at each of his lectures trying to get him to join his company which tries to “save” these heroes and teach them how to use there powers for the greater good. The beginning of the show to me just set the mood for the episode right from the onset by really becoming much more of a show with questions rather then one with answers.

Heroes then does a very large shuffle, where we are then tossed back and forth through several new and old characters. One of the focuses however of the episode was on Claire who moved with her family down to California to start fresh. Of course Claire’s Dad is very specific to Claire about just blending in at school, not to make any friends, and to be anything but special. Of coure it would help if she wasn’t almost run over by her new love interest West who later in the show we learn has the ability to fly. And like any teenager, Claire doesn’t listen to her wise father and instead dislocates her leg when jumping off of a cheer leading lift, and puts her hand through a Bunsen burner.

And what would an episode of Heroes be without our good friend Hiro, who we find in 1671 in Japan near his very own Hero, Takezo Kensei. This is an interesting sequence of events as we find that Kensei isn’t everything the tales and books that Hiro read growing up told him about, in fact 99% of the tales seemed fabricated. In fact Kensei is an English man who pays people to do his own dirty work, and Hiro in an effort to save him from a sea of arrows teleports him, stopping Kensei from his original quest. So now we are left with Hiro attempting to make Kensei into the hero that he had read about growing up.

As I mentioned before the show really jumps around a lot and in fact we don’t hear from all of the Heroes in this episode. However Parkman the man who can hear people’s thoughts is now taking care of Molly who became a big part of the show late last season for her ability to locate all the heroes in her brain. Parkman is doing his best to look after Molly and it seems as though Parkman and Mohinder are working together to make sure she is kept safe. The scenes with both Parkman and Molly were probably the most profound in the whole episode, mainly because they allowed a deeper insight into how the life of a Hero.

Then of course there is Nathan, who has now seemingly lost his election, and seems to have gone into a total tailspin downhill. I was actually shocked to see Nathan away from his clean shave and perfect haircut, but now he is with a full beard and throughout the show is numerously getting wasted away in alcohol. His mom who we all know to be a very pointed woman blames Nathan for the death of Peter, and Nathan won’t have any of that, and tells her to leave. It was a very intense sequence of events and one that really no one expected going into the show. Nathan really looked as though he had hit a low in his life and felt a lot of guilt for what had happened to Peter.

The show wouldn’t end without a few cliffhangers and this is really where the first episode of Season 2 of Heroes really picked up the ball. We learned that both Nathan’s Mom and Hiro’s dad got images of themselves with red swirl shape on it which both somehow meant they were to die soon. We then find Ando with Hiro’s Dad continuing to be loyal and faithful to his family and to Hiro. Ando goes to get a sword for Hiro’s father but when he returns he watches the subsequent death of Hiro’s dad by a hooded man who we could not identify (possiby Sylar) pushing Hiro’s father off of the building. We knew someone was going to die in this episode but Hiro’s father was not among my list of possible candidates.

And then the show wraps up with something I am sure the ladies wanted to see and that was Peter was still alive (what a surprise). We meet this Irish crew who seems to be looking for a crate of electronics when they open up this big crate to find Peter chained to the back suffering from memory loss. However he still has some powers working inside of him as he literally takes out this Irish crew with just a flick of his wrist, and thus the episode concludes.

Some of the things that I was a bit disappointed on, was that we really didn’t get any answers solved, but similar to a show like Lost we just were given more questions left to be answered. Seeing Hiro back in time was actually a treat, and I thought Kensei was really a treat, a typical hero that we read about that actually wasn’t much of a Hero at all, but just was in the right place at the right time. Your going to obviously see a few things in the weeks to come. Claire is going obviously grow closer to West the man with flying ability, and I am sure we are going to see Claire break every rule her father makes. Secondly Hiro is going to do everything to make Kensei the hero that he read about growing up. And I am sure finally we will get a lot more insight into Peter, what happened after the explosion and who the man or woman was under the hooded cape that killed Hiro’s father.

So the time we have all waited for has come, Heroes Season 2 is here, and we are ready for the first episode of the second season of Heroes. The episode is titled Four Months Later and it couldn’t have be titled any better because it is literally looking at at everything in the world of Heroes four months after the happenings of Season 1. So your wondering what we thought? Well here is our review of ‘Four Months Later’ the first episode of Season 2 of Heroes.

The second half of ‘Four Months Later’ makes a lot more headway and that is when the show really picks up. The premiere of the second season of Heroes began quite similar to how Season 1 began, and that is with a bunch of questions. I have to say that the premiere answered maybe two questions and opened up about ten others. I would say in the sense of answering questions, this episode got a very low score. But in terms of enjoyable viewing, the Heroes premiere for me got a mild thumbs up. It wasn’t the most engaging episode of the short Heroes lifespan but it does give a lot of great insight into what is to come from Season 2 and that is a lot of new Heroes, and even more expansion of the current ones.

So for the first half of the show, we are getting a pretty scattered look at what is going on in everyone’s life, including some new Heroes. The first half of the show was pretty slow in that it was a lot of introducing characters again, something that makes the show feel like a typical Pilot, more then a continuation of second season premiere. The first half of the premiere was still very engaging and offered up a lot of insight, I just was expecting some big bangs right out of the gate, and the first half was actually pretty slow.

So the wait is over, the time we have all be anticipating has finally arrived and I hope you all are as excited as I am to see the show back on TV. It has been a long summer, but we here at Heroes Insider thank you all for sticking with us through the summer because now is when we here at Heroes Insider are ready to get the ball rolling. Starting this evening and every episode forward, we will have a full review of what we thought of the episodes. We would also love your feedback so comments would be great! So make sure to set your Tivo, Beyond TV, Myth TV, or just tune in tonight at 9pm Pacific on NBC for your chance to watch the first episode of Heroes Season 2.

For those who may have forgotten, or are really interested in giving Heroes a chance, Season 2 of last years hit series premiers this coming Monday the 24th of September at 9pm pacific time. There is no doubt that this is one of the most highly anticipated premier’s this fall and many are wondering where the show will go from here. Here is a preview of Heroes Season 2, to get you ready for Monday’s big premiere. Remember Monday we will have a full review of the first episode of Season 2 ready for your viewing pleasure! See you all then!

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So NBC has been busy this summer, they got into a major feud with Apple and there iTunes service and no longer allow TV shows to be sold on iTunes which for many of us was a big blow. Then NBC went straight to Amazon to use there Unbox service to digital distribute there shows. However today NBC announced that they will be taking many of there shows online on there own website to be distributed free of charge, however with advertisements. The new service is called NBC Direct, and here is a snippet of the official press release from NBC.

NBC.com today announced the launch of its new service, “NBC Direct,” which will allow users to download and view NBC’s popular primetime and late-night entertainment programming on their desktops for up to one week after broadcast. This new feature provides yet another platform on which fans will be able to enjoy NBC Entertainment content. The announcement was made by Vivi Zigler, Executive Vice President, NBC Digital Entertainment.

“With the creation of this new service, we are acknowledging that now, more than ever, viewers want to be in control of how, when and where they consumer their favorite entertainment,” said Zigler. “Not only does this feature give them more control, but it also gives them a higher quality video experience.”

The first version of this new feature, which will begin beta testing in October, will allow users to download full length episodes for viewing on Windows based PCs. Each original episode will be licensed to users for viewing through “NBC Direct” for one week following broadcast and will then expire. The downloaded file will provide users with an improved overall viewing experience compared to traditional streaming video. The list of programs available at launch will include “Heroes,” “The Office,” “Life,” “Bionic Woman,” “30 Rock,” “Friday Night Lights,” “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” and “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.”

Although most of you probably don’t think there is any reason to look at the ratings of a re-run episode of Heroes I think otherwise! Being that we are only one week away I was interested to see if anyone would be watching to get back in the mood for Heroes, and it appears that just isn’t the case. Here is what Zap2It had as the 10pm ratings:

“CSI: Miami,” 6.5/11, easily won the 10 p.m. hour for CBS. ABC scored a 3.9/7 with “Supernanny,” while a “Heroes” rerun on NBC earned a 2.7/4.

So as you can see Heroes really didn’t have what it took in terms of re-runs, but in one week we are going to see how it does in its sophomore season, I hope you are all as excited as we are!

In a year that really celebrated The Sopranos, it is no surprise that Heroes didn’t get the nod for Best Drama which is actually a bit disappointing considering a lot of times the Emmy’s seems to want to “pass the torch” to a new show, but in a year that was dedicated to The Sopranos it would have been a bigger shock had Heroes won. In the end it wasn’t a terrible outing for Heroes, it didn’t win any big awards, it did however get some stellar nominations, a lot of publicity, and leads in great to next week’s season premiere.

We hope you enjoyed our coverage of the 2007 Emmy’s, hopefully next year in 2008, Heroes comes out a bit stronger then this year.