Watching Heroes

In an interview with the New York Times published today, Tim Kring talks about the upcoming season of ‘Heroes’ and how the story changed during the extra long hiatus created by the writers’ strike.  The article is a bit long, but a good read and includes a few tidbits of news that are different from other things we have heard about the premiere and the DVD release. 

Here are some highlights from the article with some info we knew and some we didn’t:

• Kring was accompanied to the interview by Katherine Pope, who heads the NBC Universal studio that produces Heroes. Ms. Pope was apparently there to keep Kring from talking about his mistakes, as he did to Entertainment Weekly last year.
• “Villains” will run in 13 episodes and will focus on a single big story line, exploring the question: “Who am I? What is my purpose?”
• Kring has learned a lesson about introducing new characters to the show. “…when any new characters come in we need to connect them to the story line and characters they’re already familiar with.”
• The original idea for the second volume of Season 2 was for the Shanti virus to be released in the finale of “Generations,” setting up eight episodes of the next volume entitled “Outbreak.”
• Season 3 will be extra long, containing 25 episodes rather than the standard 22. The two volumes of season 3 will contain back to back episodes with only one break in between volumes.
• The new season will begin with two episodes back to back from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. on Sept. 22. The preceding hour will be an hour long special which is described as “some kind of red-carpet pseudo-premiere party with stars doing interviews about their characters,” not a recap show as was previously thought.
• Kring expects “the fanboys to line up” at the upcoming Comic-Con and is “promising them a surprise.”
• The Season 2 DVD, releasing August 26, will include the two never-before-seen, partly completed episodes that were scrapped when the ending was changed due to the strike.

For the complete article, see the source.