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With "Heroes" floundering since it successful premier season, co-executive producer Adam Armus is hoping the Fugitives volume brings a revitalizing kick.

Armus seeks to refocus the remainder of Season 3 on what he sees as the series' strength: the characters.

"Honestly, it's really about bringing the humanity back to the show," Armus explained during an interview with the official Heroes Magazine. "The dependency on shows like this is to get wound up in the machinations and the mystique of what's going on. But what we are finding is that our most successful episodes, and the stories that we all like the best, are the ones that focus on our characters and gives them human problems.

"The idea of 'Fugitives' is a sort of reset and getting back to who the heroes are again. It's no longer about dealing with The Company and their agenda. It's about protecting ourselves and finding ourselves and helping ourselves. It's been the impetus for this arc and it's allowed us to tell some really nice dramatic stories."

Reconnecting the characters to who they are as people and to where they came from were key goals, according to Armus. The heroes will realize what's at stake not just for the world, but for them personally. Raising those stakes is the addition of Emmy winner Zeljko Ivanek to the cast, who plays the sinister Emile Danko.

"We have added some fantastic actors and it's exciting to us because we know our words are in good hands," Armus said. "When we add new blood it's like a fresh kick. Zeljko is a really talented actor who we are giving a very villainous role to. ... We paint him as a very bleak guy and then we dig a little deeper and we find a very complex, damaged guy underneath all of that. What better actor to do all that stuff?

"We have a great story planned for him in Episode 22 [airing April 6]. We see some of the mystery behind the man who is this very dark figure who is Draconian in his approach. We are really excited."

"Heroes" airs Mondays at 9 p.m. ET on NBC.

Read more of Armus' interview in Issue 9 of Heroes Magazine, on sale now.