Tim Kring’s Heroes follows the lives of extraordinary people who boldly go where no ordinary man has gone before. Until now, the show was unable to go anywhere near a Blu-ray Disc with Universal opting to go the HD DVD-exclusive route when the first season was released to home video last year. Now with Universal on the Blu-ray wagon, season one gets a near-identical re-release on Blu-ray.
Like many self-professed geeks, I felt the draw of Heroes from the first moment Hiro Nakamura appeared on-screen. Here is an uber-nerd tied to his cubicle who wants nothing more than to be something more. His vocabulary is littered with pop culture science fiction references and girls would just assume he keep a minimum safe distance of 100 yards. He’d be the first in line to bypass the DVD version of Heroes and snatch up the Blu-ray version, no matter how many additional “Benjamins” he had to fork out.
I believe it was the wives and friends of geek nation who helped propel Heroes into smash hit status. We pulled them into our weekly escape and let Kring’s colorful characters and suspenseful comic book endings do the rest, no matter how cringe-worthy the acting and/or dialogue may have been. Sure, Kring may have bit off more than he could chew when it came time to save the world after saving the cheerleader. But we stuck around to the end (or another beginning), which is precisely why Universal owed us their absolute best effort when it came time to bow Heroes on home video.
Heroes originally aired in 1080i high definition and I was one of the early adopters who watched every episode of season one in HD on its original air date. I found the broadcast picture to be choppy thanks to Dish Network’s compression, and also inconsistent in clarity from one scene to the next. This inconsistency carries over to Blu-ray with an abundance of noise in varying from light to excessive, from the first episode to the last. Scenes lit by the sun or extremely dark, such as Peter jumping off the roof in the pilot or anything filmed in Suresh’s apartment, are laced with a considerable amount of noise I don’t recall littering the broadcast version. Detail on Blu-ray, on the other hand, is excellent and a noticeable step up from the broadcast version. The tighter scenes are brimming with detail and more acceptable levels of noise.
Universal’s pledge to use DTS-HD Master Audio on all Blu-ray releases has carried forwards into Heroes, supplanting the HD DVD version’s 5.1 Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 mix. To find noticeable differences between the two versions is tough. Both are more defined and spatial compared to the broadcast presentation, but surround use is infrequent and relatively weak when employed. The LFE channel plays deeper on the DTS-HD mix, as one would expect, but any other differences are too minute to call out for certain.
All of the extra features found on the HD DVD version of Heroes: Season One have ported over to Blu-ray, and they are as strong and relevant now as they were then.
Deleted Scenes – Roughly 50 deleted scenes are broken up across all discs except for the final one. Many of these are only 10 seconds long and offer little in the way of interest such as a line or two of additional dialogue cut from an existing scene.
Spanning all Heroes: Season One discs and the majority of episodes is Universal’s proprietary interactive set of features, U-Control. Universal offers a wide variety of U-Control options for this high profile release, most of which are interesting enough to activate. A question raised during the season, “Why can’t I clearly see all of Isaac’s paintings?” is answered in Artwork Presentation. This feature blows up an Isaac painting as it appears in the show for closer examination. Character Connections, as the name implies, builds a Suresh-inspired map as the show progresses depicting how each character’s path crosses with another via string. It’s fun to watch the map grow with each successive episode. Picture-in-Picture Commentaries are just that, though it’s important to note that different groups of people sit down to chat about different episodes, and the PIP-specific volume can be adjusted in the settings menu. Last, and by no means necessary viewing, is Helix Revealed, which offers little more than pointing out where the Helix symbol appears throughout the show.
Knowing which U-Control features appear in which episodes is spelled out in the Chapter Selection menu of each disc. Going a step further towards achieving top-tier disc navigation, Universal has hot-linked each feature on each episode so you can, for instance, jump right to a Helix sighting rather than wait around in random episodes in hopes one appears.
The remaining extra features are disc specific, and Disc One has what every Heroes fan has been holding their collective breaths for: the Tim Kring Extended Cut Pilot. Tim offers up an optional audio commentary for this 73-minute long glimpse into a much darker side of Heroes that, until now, had never seen the light of day. A well-acted but awkward in the overall story arc terrorist plot and an alternate introduction of Matt Parkman’s character comprise the majority of new material. Sylar, played by a stand-in actor, even makes a brief appearance long before his actual reveal many episodes later. Tim is quick to point out other snipped bits and pieces, along with delve into the technicalities of filming scenes to look more theatrical than a typical television show because he had more time to work with, and how a vast number of sets were borrowed from Crossing Jordan. Aside from removing lines that better defined the Petrelli family relationship, the cuts made were the right decision.
Genetics Abilities Test – This HD DVD / Blu-ray exclusive allows you log into Primatech as HRG to determine what your Heroes ability is. Questions such as birth date, blood type, memorization tests and personality traits last a few minutes and deliver a final verdict. With the verdict comes an access code which can be uploaded to the Heroes website to reveal additional powers information.
The remaining extras include Making-Of Heroes, a typical featurette interspersing Tim Kring comments, cast comments from Hayden Panettiere, Masi Oka, Adrian Pasdar, Ali Larter and others; Special Effects, which dissects Hiro’s first time freeze scene in Tokyo; The Stunts with stunt coordinator Ian Quinn, who loves pointing out his cameos; and Profile of Artist Tim Sale, a great interview where Tim discusses how he joined the Heroes team and adjustments he made to make.
Heroes’ instant ascent to phenomenon status demands a robust high definition home video treatment and Universal has no disappointed. There’s sufficient new supplemental material to keep the existing fan base happy, and scores of slick high-def exclusive material to draw in new tech-conscious audiences. Toss the inclusive hard slipcase into the equation and Heroes: Season One on Blu-ray is a set not to be missed.
– Dan Bradley
Shop for Heroes: Season One on Blu-ray at Amazon.com.
