NBC's "Heroes" Redeems HBO's "Carnivale"

Opening with an ending, the funeral which began the fourth season of "Heroes," Monday night, hoped to lay more than Joseph Sullivan to rest. Critics and fans alike assailed Season 3 for its sloppy story arcs that reintroduced Ali Larter as a test tube triplet, inflicted Maya again upon the male cast, and mutated Mohinder into 1986's "The Fly." This time around, creator Tim Kring instead unearths the remains from HBO's "Carnivale," and bills his Season 4 cast as the original attraction.

While the macabre realm of the Sullivan Bros. Carnival - with its freaks, geeks and "chosen family" - resonates with the "Heroes" theme, it doesn't eliminate the truth of an unoriginal idea. Even the IMDb filmography of Robert Knepper, the actor playing Samuel Sullivan, reveals when Knepper's career with "Carnivale" began and Kring's imagination ended. The fair that attracted ordinary people with extraordinary abilities has already been to town. But if you're juggling too many supernatural subplots, it's only a matter of time before somebody drops the ball.

Anyways, it has been six weeks since Building 26 imploded, and several of the heroes seek normalcy as they attempt to rebuild their lives. Matt Parkman (Greg Grunberg) tries to shield his estranged wife, Janice, and their baby from the intrusion of Roy, a hunky delivery boy. Paramedic Peter Petrelli (Milo Ventimiglia) regained his ambulance route with his co-worker, Hesam. Even best friends Hiro Nakamura (Masi Oka) and Ando Masahashi (James Kyson Lee) are up to their typical office hijinks again by spending 50 million of Yamagato Industries' yen to mastermind their "Dial-A-Hero" hotline.

Plus, the indestructible Claire Bennett (Hayden Panettiere) somehow endured the most intensive G.E.D. crash-course imaginable to successfully enroll at college. In exchange, Claire must deal with obnoxious preening of an ambitious roommate for the entirety of the first half of NBC's two-hour event. Little did Claire anticipate that, by night's end, her Little Ms. Perfect roommate would be a suicide statistic, and the college could let her quirky friend, Gretchen (Madeline Zima), fill that empty bed right away.

Yet for others, their treatment at the hands of the federal government hasn't exactly been water under the bridge. It's likely that Tracy Strauss (Ali Larter) instead used that water to murder four Building 26 agents with hydrokinesis, and nearly made Noah Bennett (Jack Coleman) her goldfish too when she transformed his car into an aquarium. Fortunately for Noah, his fair-weather friend, Emile Danko (Zeljko Ivanek), didn't forget him or Building 26, and asks Noah to help him stop Tracy, even if it takes a Wet-Vac, before she finally gets them both.

Much to Danko's dismay, he dies unexpectedly by the blade of one of Samuel's carnies, but holds an actual key to the saga's next chapter. Now it's up to Noah to reform Tracy, reunite the Company, and to learn who, or what, the compass that Danko stashed inside a safety deposit box is pointing toward. He just needs to recuperate after getting mugged by that carnie for it.

Meanwhile, the other heroes are beginning to realize that redemption has its costs. Peter abandons his family to hone his ability at helping others, Hiro endangers his health to travel through time and right old wrongs, and Parkman struggles to trust both his wife and himself as Sylar's personality torments his tortured conscience.