"The world became a dark place," mourns the future Hiro in this fantastic episode set five years into the future courtesy of his teleporting ability. Deploying that well known paradigm within science fiction - the parallel world - Heroes conjures up a suitably jarring world for both Hiro, Ando and the audience not only in narrative terms, but thanks to some very washed out, bleached visuals and disorientating camera angles.
The actors all acquit themselves well, particularly Greg Grunberg and Masi Oka in the darker versions of their usually positive roles. Cleverly though, the characters haven't made a simple transition from 'good' to 'bad'. We learn that much has happened in the five intervening years, such as Matt Parkman's growing bitterness, to radically alter their respective outlooks on life - and death. This brings us swiftly onto the hapless, but eternally cheerful Ando. Poor guy! Let's cross our fingers he can escape from his not so rosy future... with the hardest part yet to come.
