The hit American series Heroes, an epic drama chronicling the lives of ordinary people who discover they possess extraordinary powers, comes to BBC Two this week, beginning with this double bill.

The ordinary people discover their extraordinary powers as a total eclipse casts its shadow over the world. Their ultimate destiny is to save the world from impending disaster.

Those people include Peter Petrelli, a young man who dreams of flying, and his brother, Nathan, a ruthless politician who thinks that Peter is dreaming his life away. Meanwhile, ordinary people from all around the world are starting to suspect that they have abilities beyond those of normal humans.

Heroin addict and artist Isaac Mendez paints images he cannot understand, until he sees his paintings as real-life images on the news and wonders whether he is painting the future.

In Las Vegas, single mum and stripper Niki Sanders has got herself in trouble with the Mob and starts seeing strange things in mirrors. Texas high school cheerleader Claire Bennet is finding growing up hard, especially as she is seemingly indestructible. Through a series of daredevil stunts, Claire discovers that her body has no limits and is able to recover from any wound almost instantly. Japanese businessman Hiro Nakamura discovers that he has powers of telekinesis and tries to convince a friend that he can bend space and time, but is it really possible for him to move through the space-time continuum like his comic-book heroes?

Genetics Professor Mohinder Suresh travels to New York to find out the truth about his father’s mysterious death but the trail leads him to an unexpected place. He learns that someone else is on the trail of the same research – someone who may kill to protect the secrets of the next step in human evolution.

As a solar eclipse affects the world on a global scale, this group of misfits are about to discover a destiny that they did not know they had.

It’s a list of people who seemingly have no links between them but, as Heroes demonstrates, there can be similarities even between the most disconnected people.

Peter Petrelli is played by Milo Ventimiglia, Nathan Petrelli by Adrian Pasdar, Isaac Mendez by Santiago Cabrera, Niki Sanders by Ali Larter, Claire Bennet by Hayden Panettiere, Hiro Nakamura by Masi Oka and Mohinder Suresh by Sendhil Ramamurthy.