“I was watching the Winter Olympics and saw the ad for Heroes Reborn and the other actors and I began texting each other if we knew about this,” says actor Jack Coleman aka Noah Bennet, adopted father to cheerleader Claire, on how he found out about the miniseries reboot of the fan fave Heroes show on NBC.

He was one of the few actors to return to the show, a character who creator Tim Kring said at the TCA Summer Press Tour will be the window to the mythology of the old show for all new fans. As was revealed previously, there are some signature alums from the original 2006-10 NBC show returning, read mindreader Matt Parkman (Greg Grunberg), The Haitian (Jimmy Jean-Louis) and Hiro Nakamura (Masi Oka). But some of the vital principals are absent — i.e. Claire (Hayden Panettierre), Sylar (Zachary Quinto) and Peter Petrelli (Milo Ventimiglia) because “they didn’t have availability, it was out of our control,” acknowledged Kring, while also mentioning that bringing back the old guard also entailed “what the story dictated” on the new show.

Heroes Reborn takes place five years after the original series and takes its cue right from Claire’s big reveal that she’s a human full of super-talents (she always could put her broken bones back in place). In X-Men-like fashion, now all the heroes with superpowers are out and are poised to be exploited by the government. Claire, however, is dead in the new series.

The old characters will be sprinkled every few episodes, per Kring. Dr. Mohinder Suresh (Sendhil Ramamurthy), the genetics professor who studied the Heroes’ powers phenomenon, is talked about on the new show and ultimately makes an appearance. Similar to the original series, Heroes Reborn characters also will be tempted by the dark side. But just because some of our favorite characters aren’t seen this season doesn’t mean that they’re gone for good.

“The show was designed to be elastic in its premiere. I always saw it as a show that could repopulate itself,” said Kring. Thirteen episodes is the perfect number for the Heroes Reborn creator to break story. The short order for Heroes Reborn versus the 20-something episode count for the original series’ seasons allows “us to do an aggressive storytelling. When you have an endless road ahead of you, no matter how hard you try, you have to hold back things. The art of the stall. But with aggressive storytelling, we’re putting 50 lbs. in a 10 lb. bag.” said the co-creator.

Heroes Reborn premieres with a two-hour episode on September 24 at 8PM.