1. Genesis (a.k.a. In His Own Image)
First Aired: Monday September 25, 2006

Writer: Tim Kring
Director: David Semel

Cristine Rose (Angela Petrelli), Deirdre Quinn (Texas Tina), Randall Bentley (Lyle Bennet), Ashley Crow (Mrs. Bennet), Thomas Dekker (Zach), Jack Coleman (Horn-Rimmed Glasses), James Kyson Lee (Ando Masahashi), John Prosky (Principal), Tohoru Masamune (Boss at Yamagato), Greg Wrangler (Fire Chief), David Ury (Super), Milos Milicevic (Big Guy), Claudia Difolco (Reporter), Max Amini (Cabbie), Brian Tarantina (Weasel), Richard Roundtree (Charles Deveaux), Shishir Kurup (Nirand)

High atop a New York office building, Peter Petrelli spreads his arms, wind fluttering his jacket, preparing to fly. With a final breath and a prayer, he makes the leap. The ground rushes up to meet him, but then another face appears, and then…
The sound of a woman’s voice wakes Peter from his dream. Simone Deveaux wonders how long her father has for this world. Peter, the dying man’s nurse, gives the old man two more days of life. Simone is grateful for Peter’s dedication; to her father, Peter is more like a son than a nurse.
Across the world in Bombay, India, Dr. Mohinder Suresh concludes his lecture on the human genome project. With wonder in his voice, he explains that the project has discovered tiny mutations in the human species’ genetic code, changes that are taking place at shockingly rapid rates.
The class is cut short when a colleague brings Suresh some terrible news: His father was killed while driving a taxi in New York City. Suresh doesn’t believe that his father’s death was an accident; he believes his dad was murdered because of his theories on human evolution. Arriving at his dad’s apartment, Suresh begins looking through his father’s research when he hears a man’s voice in another room. Suresh grabs what he can and flees the apartment before being discovered.
In Las Vegas, Niki Sanders is hard at work, stripping in front of her webcam for a not-so-satisfied customer. When the stranger on the other side of the ether runs out of credit, Niki dons a robe and checks on Micah, her gifted son, to see if he’s ready for school. Their morning ritual is interrupted, however, when she spies two goons at the front door. Grabbing Micah, Niki races out the back, burning rubber before they can be detected.
Odessa, Texas is not the type of place where miracles happen, but something out of the ordinary has occurred nonetheless. Sixteen-year-old Claire Bennet videotapes her 80-foot free fall from the top of an industrial tower. Though all her bones are shattered and knocked out of socket, she simply pops them back into place and walks away without a scratch – it was the sixth time she’d tried this.
Nathan Petrelli is a busy man, a man on the make, a man in the middle of a fierce political campaign, a man who doesn’t have time for brother Peter’s dreams about flying. Nathan fears that Peter’s delusions will lose him the election. A call from their mom interrupts their conversation… she’s been arrested for shoplifting.
The second hand of his clock ticks by the contemplative eyes of Hiro Nakamura in his workaday cubicle. He closes his eyes and concentrates, his brow crinkling into a wrinkled mass. The second hand stops, ticks backwards, and continues on its circular way. With a shout, Hiro runs to his friend to tell him the news: He has successfully manipulated time and soon he will learn to manipulate space.
A private school is no place for the poor, or so it would seem when Micah’s principal tells Niki that her son is being shown the door, no matter that Niki wrote a check for $25,000 to get him in. With Micah out of school, tuition past due, and loan sharks coming after them, it would seem that Niki has run out of options, that there is no one looking after her to protect her in this dangerous time.
Mrs. Petrilli thinks it’s “no big deal” that she was arrested. After all, the police dropped all the charges. Still, Nathan is furious at her for stealing a pair of socks when their dead father left her a fortune. Nathan takes off, but Peter stays behind to find out what’s going on inside his mom’s head. The answer is simple in its honesty, “I just wanted to feel alive again.”
A fire rages at an Odessa cotton mill. With camera running, Claire races into the flames and rescues a man trapped inside. Even though fire hungrily eats through her clothes, she remains unharmed. As firemen descend to check on her, she turns and runs from the scene.
Nathan offers Peter a job coordinating volunteers for his campaign, but instead of responding to this offer Peter brings up their earlier conversation about flight. Nathan doesn’t want to hear anything more about that and tells his brother, “It’s time for you to grow up.”
Outside the campaign office, Peter climbs into a taxi commanded by Suresh, wondering aloud about the solar eclipse that is about to blanket the world in darkness. Suresh drops Peter off and picks up another fare, a man who reads Suresh’s name from his taxi license and begins talking about the “retired” professor from India. Realizing that this mysterious man may have had something to do with his dad’s death, Suresh runs from the cab, fleeing into the anonymity of the New York City streets.
After dropping Micah off at her mom’s, Niki returns home to find her apartment turned upside down, but there’s worse. Much worse. The two goons grab her, throw her down on a bed, and demand a payment of 50 grand. One of them makes her a deal: Start stripping to lower her debt. An unwilling Niki begins to disrobe, but when she stops, the goon smacks her across the face and everything goes black.
Simone arrives at her boyfriend Isaac’s loft to discover him madly destroying canvases he doesn’t remember painting. He admits that he was high on heroin at the time, but even that can’t explain how these paintings have accurately predicted events that had yet to happen at the time of their creation. Feeling that he’s coming unhinged, Isaac decides to go cold turkey. He kicks Simone out, handcuffs himself to a water pipe, and throws the key far from his grasp.
In Tokyo, Hiro remains convinced that the power of his mind enables him to bend time and space, and the coming of an eclipse only fuels this obsession. His disbelieving friend challenges him to materialize in the women’s bathroom of a local bar. Though Hiro mysteriously accomplishes this seemingly impossible feat, his friend still doesn’t believe him.
Returning home from the fire, Claire has but one question for her mom: Who are my real parents? Before she answers, Claire’s father returns home; it’s the same man who caused Suresh to flee his cab.
Niki comes to in a pool of blood. Blinking her eyes back to full consciousness, she finds that the two goons have been brutally slain. There seems to be no explanation for this, until her reflection in a mirror motions for her to be quiet about what just transpired. There would be nothing out of the ordinary about this, except for the fact that Niki was standing completely still while her reflection moved on its own.
On the Tokyo subway, a poster of New York sets Hiro to dreaming, but it’s no dream when he closes his eyes, opens them again, and finds himself in the middle of Times Square.
Simone collects a vial of morphine from her father’s house and takes Peter with her to Isaac’s loft. When they arrive, they find that Isaac has sawed off his handcuffs in order to free himself from the cuffs and get a fix. While Simone dials an ambulance, Peter notices a painting of himself flying, but there’s something more shocking to come: Isaac reveals a painting of New York City consumed by fire.
High atop a New York office building, Peter Petrelli spreads his arms, wind fluttering his jacket, preparing to fly. With a final breath and a prayer, he makes the leap. The ground rushes up to meet him, but before he hits the pavement, his brother Nathan suddenly appears and takes flight, grabbing Peter and holding onto him in midair.




A 72 minute version of the Pilot exists. This will appear on the Season One DVD. This version was originally shown at Comic Con in San Diego, CA in 2006. The title of the original, extended version of this episode was "In His Own Image".

In the original version of the pilot, when Simone and Peter arrive at Isaac's loft, they find that he has cut off his own hand. These scenes were used in some of the promotional videos for the series, but the script was later changed to say that Isaac had only overdosed.

In the originally aired version of the pilot, Claire injured her hand badly by putting it into a running sink garbage disposal to retrieve her class ring. However, Emerson (the company which makes the "In Sink Erator" brand disposal which was used in the shot), threatened to sue NBC for airing footage which they claimed "seriously damaged the reputation" of their product. NBC settled out of court, so all future airings of this episode will have that scene removed. (This scene was kept in when it aired in Australia and the UK).

In previous versions of the script Issac Mendez was named Diego Medina and Issac Borolo and Hiro Nakamura was named Hiro Tanaka. Simone Deveaux at various points had the last names Devere and Deveraux.

International Airdates:
Malaysia: January 31, 2007 on Star World
Australia: January 31st, 2007 on Channel 7
UK: February 19, 2007 on the Scifi Channel.
Brazil: March 2nd, 2007 on Universal Channel
Hungary: March 4, 2007 on Tv2
Turkey: March 4, 2007 on CNBC-e
Belgium (Flanders): March 5, 2007 on VT4
Latin America: March 9, 2007 on Universal Channel Latin America
India: January 24, 2007 on Star World

Hayden Panettiere coincidentally played a cheerleader in her last role, Bring It On: All or Nothing

Powers Developments:
Claire Bennet: Her body will regenerate almost instantly from virtually any injury, the only limit seems to be that obstructions must be removed (such as a protruding rib which must be pushed back into place before her skin can heal). We see her testing these powers by falling a long distance, walking through fire, and putting her hand into a garbage disposal. She also seems to feel very little pain.

Isaac Mendez: He seems to be able to paint the future, but he believes that he can only do it while he is on heroin. We see several paintings which Isaac claims to have painted weeks before, but which clearly show events that have happened within the last 42 hours.

Hiro Nakamura: Hiro claims that he can "bend the space/time continuum" thus speeding up or slowing down his passage through time and being able to "teleport" by instantly moving to another point in space/time. We are told that he made his train late this morning, we see him make the second hand of a clock stop and then move backward, we see that he gets past a throng of women to wind up in the women's bathroom, and finally we see him teleport from a busy subway train in Tokyo to Times Square in New York.

Nathan Petrelli: We learn that he can fly. When Peter jumps from the rooftop, Nathan is able to fly upwards and catch him in an effort to save his life. This may have been foreshadowed by the fact that Nathan always appeared in Peter's flying dreams earlier in the episode.

Peter Petrelli: Peter has strangely vivid dreams of flying and claims he has a sort of spiritual connection to his brother, Nathan. When Nathan suffered an accident some months ago, Peter knew of it in a dream.

Niki Sanders: She seems to have an alter ego with a very different personality, and possibly possesses super-human strength. Niki often sees her reflection moving independently of her own actions, and when threatened by two enforcers she blacks out (possibly being "possessed" by her other personality) and wakes up to find the men dead, including one of them being literally ripped in half. (edit) New Heroes:
Claire Bennet: A seemingly normal High School cheerleader, Claire just wants to forget her new abilities and live a normal life. Her parents names are unknown, but her father is the mysterious man with the horn-rimmed glasses; sister of Lyle Bennet; friend of Zach. Age: 17. Gender: Female. Hometown: Odessa, TX.

Isaac Mendez: Renowned painter and comic book artist, Isaac is also a heroin addict whose paintings tend to depict violence and tragedy. Dating Simone Deveraux. Age: 28. Gender: Male. Hometown: New York, NY.

Hiro Nakamura: A cubicle worker for Yamagato Industries in Tokyo, Hiro has always dreamed of living a life of purpose... of being a hero. Friend of Ando Masahashi. Age: early twenties. Gender: Male. Hometown: Tokyo, Japan.

Nathan Petrelli: Nathan is running for the U.S. Congress, and fears that his eccentric mother and younger brother will hurt his chances of winning the race. Older brother of Peter Petrelli; Son of Angela Petrelli; Reluctant associate of Linderman. Age: early thirties. Gender: Male. Hometown: New York, NY.

Peter Petrelli: A hospice nurse, Peter has a gift for making dying patients feel better just by his presence. Brother to Nathan Petrelli; Son of Angela Petrelli; Caretaker for Simone Deveraux's father. Age: mid-twenties. Gender: Male. Hometown: New York, NY.

Niki Sanders: A former casino employee and young mother whose ex-husband is in jail for murder, Niki supports herself and her son by running an Internet strip-tease business. Mother of Micah Sanders; Ex-wife of D.L. Hawkins; Owes money to Linderman. Age: Late twenties. Gender: Female. Hometown: Las Vegas, NV.

Music Featured In This Episode:
1. "Mustang Sally" by Wilson Pickett
2. "Eyes" by Rogue Wave
3. "I Want It That Way" by Backstreet Boys
4. When Hiro was being thrown out of the pub after teleporting himself into the ladies room, the music being played is from a Japanese rock duo, is "That's The Way It Is (Kore Ga Watashi No Ikirumichi)" by Puffy (aka Puffy AmiYumi)
5. 'Red House' by Jimi Hendrix, when Niki was stripping.
6. "Eptesicus" by Han Zimmer & James Newton Howard
7. "Road to Joy" by Bright Eyes

Daniella Sevre who plays Jackie Wilcox also plays the role of Brianna, in the movie Bring It On: All or Nothing, with Hayden Panettiere (Claire Bennet) as Britney Allen, who is her friend. They also have red uniforms like they do in this show.

Goof: (Factual errors) Several characters are shown looking directly at the sun during a partial eclipse. In reality they would all suffer serious eye damage from doing so. Only Niki, who views the eclipse through a pinhole camera, uses a safe method.

When Mohinder Suresh goes to his father's office after learning of his death, he comes across a picture of himself at his college graduation with a man (by implication, his father). The man in the picture is not Erick Avari, the actor who played his father in several later episodes.

According to Heroes' creator, Tim Kring, Mr. Bennet has a distinct pair of glasses due to the fact he had very few lines in the pilot and needed to be recognizable by the audience. Also, he said the horn-rimmed glasses were chosen because they had a distinct early days of the CIA look.

While Claire is talking to her mother after just putting her hand down the garbage disposal, her hair is over her shoulder then behind her back in each shot.

In the credits for this episode, Randall Bentley's credit is spelled "Lyle Bennett." Either this was an error in the production of the credits, or else the producers later changed the spelling of Claire and Lyle's last name to "Bennet."

Isaac is an oil painter - so if he used oil to draw on the floor of the future, he cannot lie down on the painting because oil takes several days - weeks to finally dry. Oil also creates thickness due to the overlapping of the paint. However, in his studio, we also see cans of acrylic paint, which is the type of paint he probably used to draw on the floor.

Mohinder claims that "humans only use 10% of their brain power," but that myth has long since been discredited by all reputable scientists.

The paintings Isaac made were created for the show by comic book artist Tim Sale. Tim Sale is best known for his collaborations with Jeph Loeb, the writer and executive producer.

After the fireman puts out the flames on Claire's arm he rips open the fabric to see if she is burnt. The fireman should know this is the last thing you should do if someone's clothing has been burnt, as the clothing could've fused onto her skin, and he would've just ripped some of her skin off.

Kitty Pryde went back in time in X-Men #141-142. Not #143 like Hiro said in the show.

Hiro: The Aboriginals in Australia can bend time and space.
Hiro is refering to spiritual beliefs of the Aboriginal in Australia. The expression Dreamtime is used as a reference to time outside of real time, time in the past or future or parallel timelines, in theory similar to the powers which Hiro has developed.

Claire's dog is named Mr Muggles, in the J.K Rowling book called Harry Potter, "muggle" is a term that refers to a human who is a member of the non-magical community, who don't have magical powers. This is funny because of course in Heroes, a lot of characters have specific powers!

HRG: Probably a lot of Sureshs where you're from, like Smith or Anderson.
Smith and Anderson are the names of the antagonist and protagonist of The Matrix Trilogy. Agent Smith is the antagonist and Thomas Anderson (Neo) is the protagonist.

Episode Title: "Genesis"
In the Jewish Torah, "Genesis" is the first book which details the creation of life on earth. This title plays on that because the episode is about a new stage in evolution, which could be called a new creation.

The book of Genesis (and many of the other books of the Torah) also make up the "Old Testament" in the Christian Bible.

As a parallel allusion, the word "genesis" also means "origin" and the first issue of most comic books (in which we generally find out who the super hero is and how they got their powers) is often referred to as an origin issue.
Hiro: X-Men no.143, when Kitty Pryde time travels...
Katherine "Kitty" Pryde, also known as Shadowcat, is a character in the Marvel Comics universe and a member of the mutant superhero team the X-Men. Kitty was created in 1980 by writer Chris Claremont and artist/co-writer John Byrne, first appearing in Uncanny X-Men #129. Kitty Pryde has a power which enables her, and those she has contact with, to pass through solid objects. Her actual time traveling story occurs in X-Men #141-142.

Ando: Beam us up, Scotty.
The phrase "Beam me up, Scotty" is associated with the original Star Trek series. When Captain Kirk wanted to be transported back to the ship, he would give the order to the chief engineer, Montgomery "Scotty" Scott. While this particular phrasing has become a cultural catch phrase, this exact wording was never actually spoken on the show. The closest wording occurs in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home when Kirk says, "Scotty, beam me up".

Hiro: Then I can teleport myself anywhere on the planet.
Ando: Like Star Trek.
Star Trek, created by Gene Roddenberry, first aired on American television in 1966. It has since spanned six television series, ten movies, and hundreds of novels. This science-fiction franchise popularized the concept of matter-energy transportation which allows people and objects to teleport instantaneously from one location to another. Within Star Trek, transporting is sometimes referred to as "beaming".

Ando: Use your 'death grip' Spock!
The 'death grip'! Mr. Spock is a character from the original Star Trek series played by actor Leonard Nimoy. He is the half-Human and half-Vulcan First Officer of the Starship Enterprise. Mr. Spock is proficient in the Vulcan nerve pinch, a maneuver that can render an opponent unconscious. The actor, Leonard Nimoy, invented the move because he felt the karate chop his character, Spock, was supposed to deliver was undignified. In the episode entitled, The Enterprise Incident, Mr. Spock supposedly administers the Vulcan death grip as a ruse to deceive his opponents, the Romulans. It is revealed later in the episode that there is no such thing as the Vulcan death grip.

Back Street Boys/Back Dormitory Boys
When Hiro is in the bar the camera pans around to two Karaoke singers singing "I Want It That Way". This is a tribute to 2 lip-syncers who have become famous by lip-syncing to Back Street Boys songs. They are called "Back Dormitory Boys" and can be found on YouTube, and other such sites. The outfits are similar to the video, and one of them even has a cast on his arm!