Watching Heroes

Comic Book Resources recently spoke with veteran comic book, film and TV writer/producer Mark Verheiden who joined the Heroes staff last year as a consultant for the “Fugitives” story arc. 

In addition to his extensive work in comics, Verheiden has worked on a number of films and television shows including The Mask, Timecop, Smallville and Battlestar Galactica.

He took some time to chat with CBR about Heroes and some of his other projects.  Here’s the Heroes portion of the interview:

You’re on “Heroes” now. How did happen?

‘Battlestar” had wrapped and I had some friends who were working there already. I met with [“Heroes” creator] Tim Kring and we mutually decided for me to come on and join as a consultant for the second half of season 3. It’s been exciting. It’s a huge show. Quite different in some respects from “Battlestar.” Some good. I think just on one level, the budgets are amazing and it’s fun to see the things you can do. We’re slightly more liberated than I think we were on “Battlestar,” although we were able to accomplish a lot on “Battlestar.” And it’s a great bunch of people.

When I started, someone said, “wow it’s got to be hard to catch up on all this mythology” and I said, “buddy, what do you think I’ve working on?’ I’ve been working on heavily mythologized shows. There is a lot of complex mythology in the past and I think as we’re going forward we’re losing a bit of that complexity and moving towards stories that are more user friendly and accessible and I think people will notice a shift in the beginning of the second half of season three, “The Fugitives” arc. It’s exciting and I don’t know how to describe it exactly. The tone is pretty intense. Not that “Heroes” hasn’t been intense before but it’s pretty intense. It has all our guys pretty much on the same path.

You were brought on to work on the second arc of the season. Was “Villains” already laid out and the new status quo set up?

Tim and the people there certainly had an idea of what they wanted to do with the “Fugitives” arc before I came on board. “Villains” was basically done when I joined. I did not contribute to that, that all happened before I came. For the “Fugitives” arc, they certainly knew what they wanted to do, so for me it was about coming on board and jumping in. I started “Galactica” in Season 2 so it’s not like I’m unfamiliar with jumping in and catching up and rocking and rolling. In fact, like “Battlestar,” on ‘Heroes” I wrote and produced the second episode of the “Fugitives” arc so I got in there pretty quick. [laughs]

I was able to work in the room with the writers and the writers have been very accepting and helpful. And look I needed help, and probably still do, to get caught up and understand all the ins and outs of the show’s mythology and how things work and how to get things to work. It’s been good. I’ve been there at this point four or five months and so the new guy-itis has drifted off and now I’m able to contribute as much as I can. But it’s Tim Kring’s show and my job is to help realize his thoughts and offer my own too and see where we can go.

What we tried to do with the show as a group, people will notice that we’re not doing as many stories per show and lingering a bit on the stories we’re doing. And we’ll see how that goes. It’s a crazy world out there.

How many episodes is “Fugitives?’

Twelve. Twenty-five in all for Season Three.

It felt like a major aspect of the “Villains” arc, both to its benefit and detriment, was setting up a new status quo. Do you think that’s fair?

I think there is an aspect to that. It was running some characters through some very intense paces and exploring them. I think the back-story we did on some of these people is very interesting but I think in going forward what we’re probably doing is leaving some of the stuff of “Villains’ behind. You’ll see that Primatech and Pinehurst aren’t viable anymore. So those entities will be dissolved and a couple of characters have decided to, one in particular, taken a dramatic new turn that will set off where we’re going with “Fugitives’ very clearly. The Nathan character played by Adrian Pasdar, a great actor, he has some really fun and emotional turns coming in the “Fugitives” arc. There’s also a great arc with Sylar coming up. Very fun. He’s a fun character to write for. Tim wrote the first episode and it’s really great.

I do want to be clear on “Heroes” that I don’t have an issue with “Villains.” I wouldn’t have come on the show if I’d had huge issues with it. It’s not about that at all.

It was announced that the great John Glover is joining the show as Sylar’s father, and you’ve worked with him before on “Smallville,” where he played Lex Luthor’s father.

Obviously, with my “Smallville” background, I love that they got him. He’s fabulous and he’ll be perfect for this part. It’s a great part. That’s all I’ll say about that.

It’s been a chaotic past month or two on “Heroes,” between the staffing changes and the coverage in the media about the show going downhill and such. Does all that affect the work?

First of all, I don’t know that I agree that it was that bad. So I don’t know if I approve the premise of some of it. But going forward, we’re not deaf. We listen to what the general drumbeat is and as we go forward, I think we’ve made some adjustments. But they were adjustments that were being made before all this stuff really came down. One thing I’ve learned after doing this for a while is that you can’t really control that sort of thing. You can just do the best you can do. That’s what I’m about, trying to do the best shows we can do. I was reading somewhere where someone suggested that, “well they must not care about the show.” [laughs] Critique it all you want. You can have all the issues you want, but in terms of caring I’m telling you we care about the show. Not just the writers, not just the producers, the cast, the enormous crew, everyone. It’s a little absurd.

You can’t spend that much time and effort on something and be apathetic.

Exactly. You don’t stay in the office until midnight and work seven days a week and all this stuff because you’re just knocking it out. We’re very passionate about the show. Look. If people have a problem with what has come before, that’s the world. I don’t know what to say about it except that as we go forward we’re doing the best we can to make a fun, entertaining show and look, it’s a challenging environment in terms of what’s going on in the world for television in general. So that impacts how things happen, too. Is that a fun part of being there where there’s all this? That’s probably the least fun part. But everybody who’s there is killing themselves to make the best show possible. You can’t fault us for lack of trying.

To read more about Mark Verheiden and his work on Battlestar Galactica, the movie My Name is Bruce and more, check out the full interview at Comic Book Resources.

PS - Don’t miss the latest episode of the Heroes web series, “The Recruit,” entitled “Day of Reckoning.”