Heroes will always have a special place in my heart. The series premiered on Sept. 25, 2006, right at the beginning of my sophomore year of high school, and as such, it was the first real "grown-up" TV drama I ever watched, immersed myself in and theorized about even when I wasn't watching it.

In short, I was obsessed.

This show hooked me right from the beginning, too. As the pilot episode, appropriately titled "Genesis," introduced each of the main characters and the extraordinary abilities they grappled with and tried to understand in their everyday lives, I too couldn't help but be enthralled by it all, wondering how they got these powers, who's behind them, and isn't someone going to notice that guy just flew in the air? From Zachary Quinto's masterful portrayal of the quietly evil and tortured villain Sylar to Hiro Nakamura's (Masi Oka) comical naivete to featuring a Gilmore Girls alumnus with Milo Ventimiglia taking on the role of Peter Petrelli, Heroes seemed to have it all for me.

However, Heroes was great until it wasn't. Though the series could never quite live up to its stellar first season, it actually started to fall a part for me at the end of Season 1. Heroes had not one, not two, but a three-part Season 1 finale that attempted to go out with the bang the series had been building up to all season. Unfortunately, it instead went out with more of a whimper.

What's more, Heroes was a victim of the Writers Guild of America strike that began in 2007 with a truncated second season as a result. Eleven-episode seasons may be standard for cable dramas these days, but with a network show like Heroes at that time, this setback really threw off the flow and momentum the series had going into its sophomore effort. With convoluted and often over-the-top storylines at a time when viewers weren't quite ready to embrace the sort of camp you get with TV shows featuring superheroes these days, Heroes never really lived up the potential it seemed to have shown in Season 1 of the show.

So, imagine my surprise when it was announced back in February 2014 that Heroes would be returning in the form of a 13-episode reboot called Heroes Reborn. I seem to agree with the consensus that the first season of the show was pretty spectacular, but it was followed by a rapid decline in quality in subsequent seasons. Now that we're just a few weeks away from the Sept. 24 premiere of Heroes Reborn on NBC, it makes me wonder, did Heroes really get that bad after all?

Yes and no. I still think no season of Heroes can come close to how exceptional Season 1 was. I even bought it on DVD way back when, which should give you an idea of how much I enjoyed it. Looking back on later seasons of the show does make my stomach churn. However, you can still find high-quality episodes that are important to the overall series from any season. Yes, I'm even counting the gagworthy Season 4 with that horrid carnival plot line.

If you're planning on watching Heroes Reborn, it's especially important to understand the series as a whole. While I imagine that you won't be too lost if you haven't seen a second of Heroes, with characters and references from the original series sure to pop up in Heroes Reborn, it certainly would be more enjoyable if you had at least a working knowledge of the show before starting this reboot. Binge-watching all 77 episodes of Heroes might be a tall order with a little more than three weeks before the premiere of Heroes Reborn, but these 16 essential episodes of the series, all of which can be streamed on Netflix right now, should be doable in the amount of time you have left. Don't even try to resist the urge to yell "Yatta!" when you get there.

1. "Genesis" (Season 1, Episode 1)

Any streaming guide for a TV show has to start with the first episode, and it's a good thing that the Heroes pilot gets the series off to a fantastic start. "Genesis" gives us just enough of a taste of the special powers the main protagonists hold to whet our appetites — Isaac Mendez's prophetic paintings, Hiro's manipulation of the space-time continuum, Claire Bennet's regeneration — but not too much so as to not give us a reason to come back for more. Though the characters have unusual abilities, there was something so compellingly human about them in the pilot episode that made them both relatable and a spectacle at the same time, which is a winning formula for any series.

2. "Collision" (Season 1, Episode 4)

"Collision" is an appropriate title for this episode of Heroes because this is when the characters' lives really start to, well, collide. When you have an extraordinary ability like the heroes do, you're obviously going to try and find others like you in order to get to the bottom of whatever's going on. Some of the characters do just that in this episode, while others meet unintentionally, not even knowing that the person they're in the same room with also has superpowers. Though it would seem like these connections would clear things up for the heroes, they seem to only make the situation murkier.

3. "Hiros" (Season 1, Episode 5)

This episode mostly chronicles the aftermath of what goes down in "Collision." However, it's noteworthy because it gives us one of the most iconic moments of the series when Future Hiro freezes time to deliver an all-important message ("Save the cheerleader. Save the world") to Peter on the subway. Not only did this become a catchphrase of sorts for the show, but it also set one of the biggest storylines of the first half of the season in motion.

4. "Homecoming" (Season 1, Episode 9)

This is one of my favorite episodes of the series. Even though the events that take place in this episode are predicted by one of the characters beforehand, they play out in a way that is totally unexpected. This is definitely one of the more action-packed, albeit gruesome, episodes of the series, but that also means it's a non-stop thrill ride until the end credits roll.

5. "Six Months Ago" (Season 1, Episode 10)

If you're only going to watch a handful of episodes of Heroes, I also highly recommend watching "Six Months Ago," another one of my favorite episodes of the series. As the title suggests, this episode takes place about six months before the series begins, just before the heroes have really discovered what's going on with their abilities. It gives a little more context to the behavior and motivations of the characters that we see expressed in the present, which is always welcome in such an mysterious show like this. "Six Months Ago" also has a truly memorable — and heartbreaking — ending.

6. "Company Man" (Season 1, Episode 17)

This episode is unique from others in the Heroes franchise in that it is one of the few to not feature a storyline from each of the ensemble characters but instead focuses on one main narrative throughout. And boy, what a narrative it is. This episode is definitely one of the more cinematic of the series, playing out more like an action flick than an episode of a TV drama. Most importantly, the episode humanizes Noah Bennet in a way, showing that this character is more than meets the eye in more ways than one.

7. "Five Years Gone" (Season 1, Episode 20)

Unsurprisingly, "Five Years Gone" takes place five years into the future, and a bleak one at that. It shows what would happen if the heroes didn't prevent a major disaster from happening. Not only does the episode hint at some things that actually will come true later on in the series, it also gives us a glimpse at a similar hostile kind of world the heroes find themselves in during Heroes Reborn. Plus, it's always fun to imagine how lives change in alternative timelines.

8. "How to Stop an Exploding Man" (Season 1, Episode 23)

Like I said, I was kind of let down by the way Season 1 of Heroes wrapped up with "How to Stop an Exploding Man," although the finale does provide some satisfying closure for the season. Still, I predict this episode will be a significant one to watch before Heroes Reborn premieres because it shows Dr. Mohinder Suresh and Noah Bennet begin to team up in a way that may be crucial to understanding their interactions when both characters return in the reboot.

9. "Four Months Later ..." (Season 2, Episode 1)

Unfortunately, the Season 2 premiere is where Heroes starts to skip over — not quite jumping — the shark. Still, "Four Months Later ..." is important in that it expands upon the legend of the famous samurai warrior Takezo Kensei. The sword of Takezo Kensei that Hiro wields throughout Seasons 1 and 2 of the series is similar to the one held by Miko Otomo in promotional material for Heroes Reborn, as I pointed out in my interview with the actress that plays the character, Kiki Sukezane, in July. It's possible that the tale of Takezo Kensei is an important one to remember as it could connect returning character Hiro to Miko in the new series.

10. "Out of Time" (Season 2, Episode 7)

One of the issues with Season 2 of Heroes is that it took a while for the season to really get going. The whole point of the season and what the heroes will fight to prevent isn't really made clear until we get to Episode 7, "Out of Time." However, once we arrive at the heart of the season, it gets pretty good, turning a lot of what we thought we knew on its head, which is something Heroes tends to do very well. This is also when some new sinister plans are put into place, which always makes for deliciously entertaining TV. 

11. "Eris Quod Sum" (Season 3, Episode 7)

Heroes never makes having extraordinary abilities look fun, but one character seemed particularly tortured by his or her power on the show. That's why this hero decides to no longer have powers in this episode, which is difficult to watch, but it also gives you a sense of the kind of toll not being like everyone else and even being harmful to others takes on a person.

12. "Villains" (Season 3, Episode 8)

I love time-traveling episodes in Heroes because I'm a big fan of backstory and exposition, and this episode is jam-packed with both of those. "Villains" brings us back 18 months into the past, which, in the timeline of the show, is before much of Season 1 takes place. That means this episode revisits many of the plot points that began in the first season, giving us a better idea of what was really going on during those events, and it also brings us back to the glory days of the series, which is always welcome.

13. "Into Asylum" (Season 3, Episode 21)

Heroes Reborn begins with the heroes being forced into hiding or killed because they are seen as responsible for a terrorist attack in Odessa, Texas. Though the heroes always seemed to be on the run throughout the entire series, this rounding up of "specials," as they were called, was one of the main plot lines of Season 3. This came to a head in the 21st episode of the season in a way that was so creepy, it actually made me believe that was really going to be their fate.

14. "1961" (Season 3, Episode 23)

The Season 3 episode titled "1961" takes us back to that year when Peter and Nathan's mother Angela was just a teen. Not only did this episode dive into the nuances of Angela, one of the most enigmatic characters of the series, but it also helped us better understand how this whole mess of people having unusual abilities got started in the first place.

15. "The Wall" (Season 4, Episode 17)

There's a plan at the center of this Season 4 episode that foreshadows the ongoing war regular people will have with the heroes during Heroes Reborn. Once you find out what it is, you'll understand how people could think heroes could be so bad.

16. "Brave New World" (Season 4, Episode 18)

This is the series finale of Heroes, so you've got to watch it whether it's good or not, right? Well, I can't say this is a great episode of Heroes, but it is part of the jumping off point for Heroes Reborn, and it will help create a world of fear that the people with extraordinary abilities, or EVOs as they're called in the reboot, will encounter. Hopefully, Heroes Reborn can provide some closure for this cliffhanger of a series finale.

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