Heroes biggest problem was that it was a tv show written like a comic, ironically enough.
All of the craziest ideas that didn't really work on the small screen - all the crazy power ups, power downs, power 'oh, I forgot he had that power', all the retcons, all the theme changes, all the character whiplash -- none of it would have seemed out of place in a printed comic books series with a 10 or 20 year run.
Seriously. Type out every story of one of the X-Men books, including crossovers, and then read it to a non-comic book reader - or even yourself. Or even just pick ONE character and follow their arc over the past twenty or thirty years - like Magneto. "Well, he was the X-Men's enemy but then Charles Xavier left him in charge of the school until he wasn't in charge of the school anymore and took all the mutants to an asteroid which was then shot down so he went on a rampage and then ended up freeing a country of mutant slaves and becoming their leader until the country was blown up. Oh, and also there was a time in there where he was an amnesiac, and also masquerading as an alien, and depowered for a while but not for long."
Without time between each story it looks silly. With the time between stories allowing a more gradual transition most of it is a LOT better in context (most).
That is Heroes in a nutshell. Decades of comic series smushed into a four year show.
Shows that came after it understood that you have to dial back the crazy when translating to the big AND small screen. While that can be incredibly frustrating sometimes (Smallville), it's really helped keep things in a narrow enough window for more people to enjoy (Arrow, Agents of Shield, Flash - though I'm a little worried about the last one).
The Reborn trailer worries me because it STILL looks like too much is going on for a mini-series.
