Does "Redemption" mean more to Heroes than just the title of its next volume? Producer Bryan Fuller has been talking about what to expect from the show's fourth season, and why the show has turned itself around.
According to Fuller, "Redemption" will see the series returning to its original concept, and the show's characters trying to return to their lives, in light of what everyone has been through in the last three seasons:
[Every season so far] has been valid, and every one has been a slightly different style, which I think is interesting. I love how the show is continuing to grow. It is evolving, and I do think there is a lot of good stuff in 'Fugitives' and 'Redemption.' [In those volumes,] we saw the characters in situations we hadn't seen them in before and got to find out interesting things about those characters... So what I'm excited about with season four is getting everybody back to the basic principle of ordinary people in an extraordinary world and how these characters are relatable to us and what we would do if we were in their situations, and really grounding it in that conceit.
Part of making the characters relatable again will involve giving them back a life beyond their powers:
[F]or every plot conceit that we have for a character, we have even more conceits for what's going on in their personal lives that makes their plot story so much more complicated, because their emotional, personal story is so intrinsically tied with what's happening with them. I like the balance of the personal lives that we're telling this season.
Although Fuller stresses the point that he thinks that the show has never been outright bad, there is one telling line from the interview that suggests that he does know that the show has some work ahead of itself to regain past glories:
We love the cast. That's the thing. ... We just sort of have to find better uses for them.
Hopefully, that better use may include some fresher plots, as well... Heroes returns in September.
Why Bryan Fuller thinks Heroes is back, and what about Star Trek? [SciFi Wire]