Sci-Fi Storm

The first season of NBC’s hit series Heroes comes out on DVD next Tuesday. Read More for a review of the DVD package, and in the meantime take the Heroes Challenge!

Heroes: Season 1 consists of 7 DVDs, contained in a double-wide flip out cardboard case with plastic clear plastic DVD holders – 3 of the 4 are the two-disc “stacked” variety, which means you have to remove the top disc to get to the second one, or risk scratching the disc. The front of the case has cast portrait in subdued colors, overlaid on a city street portrait with an overall brown tone. Inside, beneath the clear holders, are images and the Issac paintings from the series, giving the hybrid comic book feel of the show. On the non-holder facings are the descriptions of what is on each disc, sone in a comic book font.

This fits into a cardboard slipcase in the same brown tones, but with reflective highlights and embossed title letters on the front. The lower half of the back features a brown-toned version of Isaac’s painting of the destruction of New York City.

Each disc starts off with the same animated main menu, which is a representation of Isaac’s loft and zooms between several paintings. When it zooms in on one, it shows live action scenes from the series. On each is a “Play All”, “Chapter Index” (which, because the show refers to the episodes as “chapters”, is really the episode index), “Bonus Features”, and “Languages”. The other menus are static, with a comic image from the series.

Among the special features is the original “Tim Kring Cut” of the pilot episode, which was screened at San Diego Comic-Con, but not on air. This is a longer episode that is mostly the same, with a few additional scenes, but the biggest difference is the Matt Parkman storyline is included here instead of the second episode as aired, and its different.

In this version, instead of a murder scene attributed to Sylar, Parkman becomes involved in the activities of a terrorist cell attempting to get hold of Plutonium, and a member of the cell called “The Engineer”. The scenes and even some of the dialog are similar (instead of hearing the hidden child, he hears the prayers of one of the cell members), and The Engineer has the ability to produce radiation from his hands – and thus the ability to set off a nuclear explosion when coupled with the stolen plutonium. Sylar still makes an appearance, only as a figure in shadow who meets with and is known to Mohinder in once scene.

It appears the terrorist storyline was abandoned and the focus placed directly on Sylar, and the Engineer’s ability passed on to another character to still have the nuclear explosion in the storyline, and all the scenes involving Parkman reshot with the new script and included in the second episode of the series instead. Another noticable difference is in the original pilot Issac cuts off his hand, where in the aired version he simply had an overdose.

Other special features include audio commentaries and deleted scenes on a number of episodes, along with featurettes that include “Making Of”, “Special Effects”, “The Stunts”, “Profile of Artist Tim Sale”, and “The Score”. They certainly didn’t spend any money coming up with titles for them 🙂 . The featurettes weren’t too long, and they were enjoyable to watch.

There is also a “game” called “Mind Reader”, where Matt Parkman figures out which of the Heroes you end up on after doing some math. It’s a pretty standard “mentalist” math trick, but I don’t want to give too much away – but it was simplistic and not interesting.

Certainly this is a worthy DVD set for this spectacular series. The bonus of the original pilot where you get to see a storyline that was abandoned and changed was quite interesting – unfortunately you will start to think what could have been if they had used the original storyline.