NBC’s Heroes aired its series finale five years ago – which is almost precisely where its reboot, Heroes Reborn, will pick up the storyline this fall.

The cast and creator, Tim Kring, spoke about the new series at the TCA’s summer press tour’s last panel on Thursday.

Kring said that he had always envisioned Heroes returning to TV because of the very nature of the world the show had created.

“The show is about an indeterminate number of people around the world who have powers,” he said, “so I always saw it as a show that could repopulate itself.”

Heroes Reborn will add new characters while reprising a few old ones, which he said made total sense in the Heroes universe, introducing new characters who are finding out about their powers as the viewers do.

But Kring said it’s vital to think about the show as a character study, not a study of the powers themselves.

“The show is Heroes, not Superpowers,” said Kring. “We’re telling that story that I think continues to become something fascinating – the primal questions of ‘What’s happening to me? How is it all connected? What does it all mean?’”

NBC’s idea of bringing the show back as a limited series (for now) actually appealed to Kring because it’s closer to his original idea for the show a decade ago, which calls for what he calls “very aggressive storytelling.”

“I was most interested in the origin stories,” he said, “so once you answered those big questions, those primal questions, you have to replace those questions with other questions. Those are never quite as satisfying as those primal questions.”

When the show premieres Sept. 24, it is considered a limited series with 13 episodes, but Kring said there is no reason why it couldn’t go longer.

“I’ve always felt the brand was elastic enough,” he said. “It has a broad enough premise and it’s a premise I feel confident we could find other stories to tell.”

Heroes Reborn, which picks up five years after the series finale of Heroes, follows the same timeline as real life, according to Kring.

He said that even though he didn’t know they were going off the air when they did, the show just happened to end on an incredible moment, when Claire Bennet (Hayden Panettiere) revealed to the world that she had special powers.

“Because we didn’t get to have that fifth season, I always had it in my mind that there was an unfinished nature in all of this,” said Kring. “We now have the benefit of going five years later. We’re treating it as the tenth season as though there were seasons in-between.”

Heroes Reborn will debut as a two-hour event on Sept. 24, pushing back The Blacklist’s premiere to Oct. 1.

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