Episode:In His Own Image

In His Own Image
Season:	One
Episode number:	Original Pilot
First aired:	Unaired
Written by:	Tim Kring
Directed by:	David Semel

In His Own Image is the original, unbroadcast version of the pilot episode, Genesis. A screener of the episode made its way onto P2P file sharing networks prior to the original airing of Genesis, and a greatly expanded 72 minute version was shown at ComicCon 2006 in San Diego.

Differences

There are a number of important differences between In His Own Image and Genesis:

• The screen font and music used throughout are different.
• Mohinder's lecture is slightly shorter
• Before Linderman's thugs arrive, Niki cautions Micah not to speak to any strangers.
• Claire and Zach's conversation after she falls is expanded. The history of their friendship is explained: while they were childhood friends, Zach claims Claire stopped speaking to him in sixth grade. At the end of their conversation, they are passed by a firetruck headed for the train wreck, and a mysterious truck.
• Ando is shown typing the other side of Niki's IM conversation as huggerz69.
• Nathan has a few more (harsh) words at the police station with Peter and Angela.
• The scene with the Yamagato Industries employees exercising on the roof is split into two separate sequences, one during the eclipse montage and one earlier.
• Isaac and Simone's scene is expanded. She suggests that his painting of the suicide bombing was just a coincidence, and that perhaps he painted it after he saw the newscast and forgot because he was high. He then shows her the painting of her standing in silhouette in his doorway as she just did a few moments earlier. After she leaves, he shackles himself to a pipe to keep himself away from his drugs (and his paints).
• Sandra Bennet explains that the reason her friend Carla says Mr. Muggles isn't breedworthy is that he's not sexy enough.
• When Simone and Peter arrive at Isaac's apartment, they discover he's cut off his hand to escape his shackles.

Cut Subplots

Additionally, there are a few subplots which were cut entirely from Genesis:

• At Tina's house, Micah makes a phone call to a bus station and inquires about purchasing a ticket. She leaves to get cigarettes, and Micah eyes the money in her purse. Later, when Niki wakes up to an answering machine message to find Linderman's thugs murdered, it's a message from Tina, telling her that Micah is missing and took $300 from her purse.
• In the version shown at ComicCon, an additional superpowered character, the engineer, was introduced. He had ties to a terrorist cell that Matt Parkman was investigating. In a scene which later became the Walker murder scene in Don't Look Back, Matt discovered a member of the engineer's former terrorist cell hiding under a grate. Later, it was revealed that the engineer's fellow terrorists were responsible for the train wreck in Odessa, TX. This subplot did not appear in the episode-length screener or in Genesis. Many elements of the engineer's story were reused for Ted Sprague.

Memorable Quotes

"Why are we here? What is the soul? Why do we dream? Perhaps we’d be better off not looking at all--not delving, not yearning, but that’s not human nature, not the human heart. That is not why we are here."

- Mohinder (voice-over)

"You know what? Leave her alone. She's okay, that's all that matters."

"Thank God mom's fine. She's a criminal, but thank God she's okay. Next thing you know, she's going to be telling us she's a crackwhore"

- Peter, Nathan

Gallery

• 
  Isaac shows Simone a painting of her walking out on him, on the day she leaves because of his drug abuse.
• 
  Isaac cuts off his hand in order to escape from a pair of handcuffs he had used to keep from using drugs again.
• 
  Isaac walks past a painting of Uluru.

Notes

• In an interview with Tim Kring, he says that the 72-minute cut of In His Own Image will be included on the first season DVD set.
• In the first draft of the pilot, Sylar was supposed to appear in an Italian prison. According to Greg Beeman's blog, this version of Sylar was supposed to have long claw-like nails and sharp teeth. He was also supposed to be "way weirder and more monstrous, — like [Nosferatu]."

External Links

• Video clip of Matt Parkman (click the monitor in the squad car to play)