Why does Heroes show inconsistent versions of the same scene

Question

I've noticed on Heroes that when they start off from a scene they showed on the previous episode that the scene is slightly different, like it's another shooting of the same scene, or maybe just a different cut.

For example, towards the end of season 1 episode 4, when Hiro appears to Peter on the train, Peter says: "How's this happening?" and Hiro responds with: "Sorry if I scared you; you look different without the scar", but when the same scene is shown at beginning of the next episode (season 1 episode 5), Peter says: "What?! Are you doing this?" and Hiro just responds with: "You look different without the scar". Why is that?

Answer 1

Heroes had different writers and directors 'guesting' on each episode. Episode 4 was written by Tim Kring and Bryan Fuller and directed by Ernest Dickerson, whereas Episode 5 was written by Kring and Micheal Green and directed by Paul Shapiro.

Shapiro reshot his version of the scene in your example where future Hiro meets Peter for episode 5, as producer Greg Beeman mentions the shooting of this scene in his blog for the episode - he also mentions the addition of guest directors from episode 4 onwards, and how they have a lot of control over thier idividual episodes.

I wouldn't be surprised if it followed that each writer/director got to reshoot their own version of those closing/opening scenes for each episode.

Answer 2

Much of the series is about Alternate Realities: bad outcomes in one reality are 'prevented' by one of the characters travelling to an earlier point in 'The Timeline' -several characters have Time Travel abilities- and taking steps to stop the 'bad future' happening; the second version of 'the future' shown is one where the protagonists have a better outcome.