Watching Heroes

I’ve been keeping up with strike news via United Hollywood.com, a blog put up by members of the WGA. I was thrilled this morning to find this statement on their website:

This was sent early this morning to membership. The delay in publishing the deal points, we’ve learned, was because the companies dragged their feet enshrining some of the final details in an attempt to renege on some of what they had promised. The last-minute fight to keep that from happening took until late last night.

To Our Fellow Members,

We have a tentative deal.

It is an agreement that protects a future in which the Internet becomes the primary means of both content creation and delivery. It creates formulas for revenue-based residuals in new media, provides access to deals and financial data to help us evaluate and enforce those formulas, and establishes the principle that, “When they get paid, we get paid.”

The full letter is available at the link above. The agreement will still need to be approved by the WGA’s membership, but it sure sounds like an end to this strike is really happening. Now my tiny, little happy dance has turned into a full-blown celebration!

In an interview on CNBC’s “Fast Money,” Disney chief executive Michael Eisner revealed that a deal has been reached between the major media companies and the Writers Guild of America to end the strike.

“It’s over,” Eisner said. “They made the deal, they shook hands on the deal. It’s going on Saturday to the writers in general.”

Eisner did not go into the terms of the agreement but he said the deal was struck last Friday. “A deal has been made, and they’ll be back to work very soon,” Eisner said, adding, “I know a deal’s been made. I know it’s over.”

I am waiting on official confirmation from the Writer’s Guild of America before I begin rejoicing but I must admit I did a tiny, little happy dance in my chair when I read this news.

With a rumored end to the strike near, fans are wondering when they might see see the beginning of Heroes Volume 3, “Villians.” The answer, unfortunately, is next fall. Tim Kring told the Hollywood Insider that, even if the strike ended today, Heroes would be lucky to pump out 3 quality episodes. The show is much more production and special effects intensive than a lot of network television, so producing more than that would be difficult. Of course, this is assuming the season would still end in May.

“To come back with just three episodes could be creatively dangerous,” says Kring. “But that’s my personal opinion. I’m not sure where the network stands in the matter. Hopefully we’ll hear that in a few days.”

If the network wanted to extend the season out by a month or two, the situation could change.

Good news today as the Director’s Guid of America (DGA) reached an agreement with the AMPTP. Their agreement could act as foundation for the WGA to resume negotiations with AMPTP.

 According to a statement from the DGA, the new tentative agreement includes:

• Increases in wages and residual bases for each year of the contract
• DGA jurisdiction over programs produced for distribution on the Internet
• A new residuals formula for paid Internet downloads (electronic sell-through) that essentially doubles the rate currently paid by employers.
• Residual rates for ad-supported streaming and use of clips on the Internet

This is less than the writers have asked for, but more than they are getting now. Cross your fingers that they are willing to resume talks and get this thing settled sooner rather than later.

Should an agreement be reached in the next week or so, it is possible that some shows could resume production and bring 4 or 5 more new episodes to the season. Other, more production-intensive shows (like our beloved Heroes) still might not return until next season.

Let’s hope this is a step in the right direction for all concerned!

Source

Some of your favorite Heroes actors have their own “official” MySpace pages. Most of them are updated regularly and they are a great way to keep up with what is going on with them during the strike. This may not be all of them, but these are the ones that appear to be official:

Greg Grunberg (Matt Parkman) - www.myspace.com/greggrunberg
Hayden Panettiere (Claire Bennet) - www.myspace.com/haydenpanettiere
James Kyson Lee (Ando Masahashi) - www.myspace.com/jameskysonlee
Kristen Bell (Elle Bishop) - www.myspace.com/officialkristenbell
Jimmy Jean-Louis (The Haitian) - www.myspace.com/jimmyjeanlouis
Dania Ramirez (Maya Herrera) - www.myspace.com/daniaramirez

I have a few more that I am trying to verify as official and, if I am able to do so, I will update this post.

Don’t forget about the Official NBC Heroes page - www.myspace.com/nbcheroes. If you haven’t added our page to your friends yet, you can do that too. Find us at www.myspace.com/watchingheroes.

As I showed you in the Christmas Caroling video, a good portion of the Heroes cast joined the writers on the picket lines at Universal Studios last Tuesday, as did a number of Heroes fans, creator Tim Kring, producer Jeph Loeb and director Greg Beeman. United Hollywood has posted an album of photos from the picket lines. I’ll share a few with you here but make sure you check out the rest at UnitedHollywood.com

From the video, we could see that Jack Coleman, Masi Oka, Dania Ramirez, Cristine Rose and Tim Kring were there, but these photos also show that Greg Grunberg (I told you I thought he was in the video), Dana Davis, Sendhil Ramamurthy, Ali Larter, and Kristen Bell were there as well.

Sendhil Ramamurthy

Jack Coleman

(more…)

Some of the Heroes cast members, including Jack Coleman, Masi Oka, Dania Ramirez, Cristine Rose (and I think I saw Greg Grunberg in there too) as well as Heroes creator Tim Kring, joined Justine Bateman, Fred Savage and others on the picket lines to sing a Christmas Carol of sorts to the studio bosses.

Actually the general idea of the song is asking fans not to download or stream any online video and to boycott the purchase of DVDs this holiday season to try and send a message to the studios. If we don’t purchase or stream the shows, the studios don’t make money. I will admit, this is a hard thing for me this holiday season. If I can’t have any new shows, I need my old ones on DVD. But maybe I can hold out and boycott…for a few days anyway.

Heroes stars Greg Grunberg (Matt Parkman) and Sendhil Ramamurthy (Mohinder Suresh) showed their support for the WGA today by joining the picket lines on this 4th day of the strike. SplashNewsOnline also caught Patrick Dempsey, Katherine Heigl, Eric Dane, and T.R. Knight of Grey’s Anatomy and Reno 911’s Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Grant, who were in full costume, out on the front lines.

For additional photos (and a larger version of this one), see the source.

Heroes ratings for Monday were down again. They lost another 500,000 viewers from last week bringing in only about 9.8 million and earning a 4.9/11. I suspect this will creep up with the buzz about this week’s show and the promise of the “Four Months Later” episode. It’s the one we’ve all been waiting for, after all. I don’t have to tell you who won the night, do I? I’ll give you a hint - in involves dancing.  

My favorite Hero, Greg Grunberg, did an interview with Buddy TV this week. Greg talked about how the writers strike is affecting production, Parkman’s newly expanded powers, and his relationship with his TV dad, Alan Blumenfeld (Did you know Alan played Greg’s dad on Felicity, too?).

James Kyson Lee, who plays Ando, will be making an appearance at Pacific Media Expo (PMX) this Sunday, Nov. 11. Lee will greet fans with a “rare, intimate two-hour panel and autograph session.” For more information, you can visit PMX’s website: http://www.pacificmediaexpo.com./ (Thanks to Heroes-TV!)

If you want to be spoiled about who may be dying sometime in the next few episodes, Use Your Ability has a very revealing photo posted. (Don’t click if you don’t want to know!)

Greg Beeman reveals some interesting things about Isaac’s paintings and how they create them in his blog this week and has fantastic photos of cast and crew, as always.

The latest chapter of the graphic novel is called “Quarantine.” It tells the story of Howard LeMay of Homeland Security, who I suspect may be the DHS officer who interviewed Peter in Monday’s episode. I can’t find anything to verify that this was Mark Harelik’s character’s name in that eppy though.

I haven’t seen a sneak peek of next week’s episode yet but I suspect it may surface later today. I’ll share it with you as soon as it’s available.

It looks like the rumors that Tim Kring had left Heroes were, as rumors tend to be, grossly exaggerated. While Tim is supporting the writers strike and walking the picket lines, he hasn’t quit the show. In fact, on Monday he called in to Entertainment Weekly from the front lines of the strike to give them an interview.

He wasn’t calling to squash the rumors of his demise though, or even to talk about the strike and what it means to Heroes. He was calling to talk about Heroes ratings decline and the fan frustration with this season’s storylines. He was calling to apologize to fans! 

Here’s what he had to say about the major fan complaints:

THE PACE IS TOO SLOW ”We assumed the audience wanted season 1 — a buildup of intrigue about these characters and the discovery of their powers. We taught [them] to expect a certain kind of storytelling. They wanted adrenaline. We made a mistake.”

THE WORLD-SAVING STAKES SHOULD HAVE BEEN ESTABLISHED SOONER The premonition of nuclear apocalypse created a larger context that unified every story line last season. Kring now sees that Volume 2 (the first 11 episodes of season 2) would have been better served if Peter’s vision of viral Armageddon had appeared in the season premiere rather than episode 7. ”We took too long to get to the big-picture story,” he says.

THE ROOKIES DIDN’T GREET THEMSELVES PROPERLY New Heroes Monica (Dana Davis), Maya (Dania Ramirez), and Alejandro (Shalim Ortiz) ‘’shouldn’t have been introduced in separate story lines that felt unattached to the show. The way we introduced Elle (Kristen Bell) — by weaving her in via Peter’s story line — is a more logical way to bring new characters into the show.” (That said, Kring says a few newbies won’t make it beyond this second volume, which wraps Dec. 3.)

HIRO WAS IN JAPAN WAY TOO LONG Hiro’s (Masi Oka) time-bending adventure in 17th-century Japan — where he mentored samurai hero Takezo Kensei (David Anders) — finally came to an end on Nov. 5. But Kring says it ‘’should have [lasted] three episodes. We didn’t give the audience enough story to justify the time we allotted it.”

YOUNG LOVE STINKS Kring regrets sticking Claire (Hayden Panettiere) with a super-dud boyfriend and forcing Hiro to moon over a cutesy princess. ”I’ve seen more convincing romances on TV,” he admits. ”In retrospect, I don’t think romance is a natural fit for us.”

As they say, it takes a big man to admit when he’s wrong. I’m glad to see that Kring has sense enough to listen to fans rather than insisting that his creative vision is right and viewers are wrong. It’s the viewers that make or break the show after all.

I just ran across this while reading some news on Yahoo TV and thought I’d let you breathe a sigh of relief. It’s from Kristin at E! Online and we know she has the real scoop!

RUMOR OF THE WEEK

In addition to all the strike news flying around the Industry last night, there was also a Heroes rumor that spread through town like wildfire. It seems to have started with an ArtfulWriter.com commenter who posted:

“On another front, I have been advised by a source on Heroes that Tim Kring has quit the series. Apparently the network was making him remove storylines that could not be wrapped up in the existing episodes that are now being finished. This caused wholesale rewrites of three episodes over the past week and weekend.”

WHAT? That’s insane! It can’t be true…right?

Right. Just wanted to help squash this rumor before it gets any farther. According to an NBC spokesperson: “This is completely untrue.” So, there you have it folks: Don’t believe everything you read on the Internets.

I bring you this news with a heavy heart. The Writer’s Guild of America went on strike at midnight last night after last minute negotiations broke down.

What’s all the hubub about? Very simply stated: the writers want a better deal. Sticking points include DVD profits; residuals from streaming of shows online, downloads and promotional use of shows and films. The Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers (AMPTP) doesn’t want to pay for the online-related issues. They say the market is too young to know if it will make any money from streaming and downloads. Both sides are sticking to their guns, hence the impasse that allowed the strike to go ahead.

Why should you care? Well, as a Heroes fan, you should care because this will very likely cut our season short. As it stands now, the 11th episode, which will air on December 3rd, will be the 2nd season finale. The producers have said they are retooling that episode to fit as a finale. It was already going to wrap up part of the story arcs, but now will apparently wrap up the entire season. If the strike lasts more than just a few weeks, there is no way the season would recover. They will have lost too much production time.

If you were around back in the late 80’s when the WGA went on strike, you might remember that that strike lasted 22 weeks. It completely ruined the 1988 TV season and the industry took ages to recover. Some say they never did recover completely.

I am devastated. How will a TV Junkie, like me, ever survive this strike? I guess it’s time to break out the DVDs or spend some time watching TV Land.

Tim Kring has said earlier this season that he planned to wrap up Volume 2 of Hereos before Christmas, but if the Writer’s Guild strike goes ahead, it might also end up being the Season 2 Finale.

TV Guide’s sources have confirmed that an alternate ending to the December 3 episode is being shot. If the Writer’s Guild doesn’t reach and agreement and does go on strike, that episode could function as a season finale with the re-shot ending. If a last minute agreement is reached, the alternate ending would most likely be scrapped.

Keep your fingers crossed that a deal can be struck. Seems it’s in the best interest of the studios to work it out. As a TV Junkie, I really can’t bear the thought of only half a season of my shows.

First we heard that Heroes: Origins was changing names, now TV Guide is reporting that NBC has pulled the plug on the spinoff!

The show, which would introduce new characters with abilities, was slated to run next April as a companion piece to the Heroes series. Sources are telling TV Guide that the possible strike by the Writers Guild of America may have been a factor. The guild’s contract expires at midnight Thursday.

“Looking at everything in context of the strike, we’re evaluating all of our production commitments,” said one insider. “Scripts haven’t been written yet.”

Several prominent directors including Kevin Smith (pictured here), Eli Roth, John August and Michael Doherty had been slated to do episodes.

Could the lower ratings and “sophomore slump” buzz be contributing to the network’s decision as well?

We’ll keep you posted as more information becomes available.