TVSquad

Heroes didn't have time to complete more than 11 episodes, all of which have aired, before production was shut down due to writers' strike. However, it was confirmed the cast and crew had time to shoot some scenes for episodes 12 and 13 (other sources say they had time to shoot part, if not all, of episodes 12 to 16!). TV Guide's Michael Ausiello reports that Tim Kring presented a new trailer at the Jules Verne Adventure Film Festival of Los Angeles, which includes some of those yet-to-air scenes.

There's good news and bad news coming out of the Heroes' universe. The good news: despite the ongoing WGA Strike, the current 'Generations' story arc running on the hit NBC show will conclude on December 3rd in an episode entitled 'Powerless'. The bad news: should the strike extend through the new year 'Powerless' may be the season finale for Heroes.

That's what Jeph Loeb, co-executive producer and writer of the series, is saying in press reports. Luckily, Loeb and executive producer/creator Tim Kring saw this strike coming ahead of time so they, and their crew, worked like crazy to get the first story arc done before the strike deadline. This made people like comic book artist Tim Sale, who creates art for the Isaac Mendez character, nearly have a nervous breakdown. Even with the hectic work schedule Loeb states that fans should be satisfied with the end of the first story arc as many hanging plot threads will be resolved.

The second season's of NBC's hit show Heroes may only begin in a month but that doesn't prevent the nice people behind the show for giving us hints about what is to come. The series just launched YamagatoFellowship.org, a new website linked to the show's mythology. This site is dedicated to the Yagamato Fellowship, founded by Kaito Nakamura (played by George Takei) and the famous samurai Takezo Kensei (who will be played by Alias' David Anders).

I was thinking about this the other day. Even though I named Heroes as the best show of the year, I've been worried lately that season two might turn out to be an over-hyped, overdone disaster that will make me tire of it really quickly. I mean, they're adding cast members at an astonishing rate (Kristin Bell, Nichelle Nichols, David Anders, Stephen Tobolowsky, Janel Parrish, Jessica Collins). They're going to have a storyline in another time (Hiro), produced a spinoff mini-series to be directed by Kevin Smith, produced online stories and comics to keep fans entertained and well-fed and gone on a world tour to promote the show. It's really overwhelming, and I hope they're not doing too much, too soon.

The Boston Globe's Matthew Gilbert is worried too.

In an interview with Popgurls.com, Heroes producer Bryan Fuller discloses that, yes, the character of Zach on the show was indeed gay and they were going to follow the story through, but then negotiations with the actor's (Thomas Dekker) management got "ugly."

Fuller says that Zach was going to come out on the show and actually help Claire "come out" about her superpower, but then reps for Dekker said that they didn't want to make the character gay because it might hurt his chances of getting the role of John Connor in the new series The Sarah Connor Chronicles. So they took out a line that would have said that Zach was gay and never really got into it again, though in everyone's mind the character was still gay. Fuller, gay himself, says that he was hurt and insulted by the entire "debacle."

They had whole episodes revolving around Zach planned, but then his reps pulled him from the show completely.

Somehow I expected this: NBC is being sued over one of the concepts used on its hit series Heroes. Not that I expected the show's creators and writers to have "stolen" ideas from elsewhere, but I expected some artists to try and claim the show stole ideas they developed before Heroes first aired. When a show becomes a hit, people want a piece of the pie.

In this case, New York artists and couple Clifton Mallery and Amnau Karam Eele claim that Heroes' creators based the Isaac character and his power on a short story, a painting series and a short film they exhibited in 2004 and 2005.

As season one of NBC's hit show Heroes is slowly heading towards its conclusion, information about the second season is starting to leak.

Will all of our beloved characters return? Will we meet new heroes and new bad guys? What will the storyline be? Heroes creator Tim Kring met with SCI FI Wire to dish about "Volume Two" of the series.

Heroes is about ordinary people finding they have special abilities and gather to save New York from exploding. Will we still see heroes cooperate to save someone or something? Will a possible conspiracy remain in the background? Amongst answers, Kring revealed that Heroes is a little bit more like 24 than Lost in its way of telling the story. What does he mean by that?

(Spoilers after the jump)

This press tour hasn't exactly been good for my already-expanded waistline. Between the meals each network serves the critics and the snacks the hotel sends up on a daily basis, I seem to just graze all day long (by the way, the Ritz-Carlton has one of the best $15 cheeseburgers I've ever had. Of course, anywhere else, the burger would be $8. Still good though).

Case in point: NBC provided candy bins for the critics, giving them a chance to create to-go bags of various sugary snacks. Through all the afternoon press conferences -- for The Apprentice, the Grease reality show, Andy Barker, PI, and Raines, I absent-mindedly grabbed from the bag because, to be honest, outside of those great Rosie digs by Donald Trump, not much went on (even the Andy Barker session wasn't all that interesting, despite the presence of Andy Richter and Conan O'Brien).

But the Heroes session that closed the afternoon? That one made me take notice.

Here's an interesting little tidbit from the world of Heroes: it looks like NBC has changed their mind about Zach.

It certainly looked to fans like Zach (Thomas Dekker) was gay, for four reasons: one, when Claire's nasty cheerleader friend made a remark about Zach, he said something to Claire along the lines of "I'm comfortable with who I am." Two, NBC's recap of that episode says he is. Three, the character's MySpace page lists his orientation as "not sure." And four, creator Tim Kring talked about the character being gay (and what happened with an NBC exec) in this interview.

So people are wondering: did NBC change the orientation of the character? Did Dekker? Did the writers change it? Here I was going to say "oh, it doesn't really matter if he's straight or gay," and if this was real life it wouldn't, but if someone actually changed his orientation for some reason (or reasons) on a TV show, that's worth talking about.

[via Pop Candy]

(S01E11) Promos for this "fall finale" promised a stunning climax and that "a hero will die." Show creators can't be held accountable for, shall we say, the exuberance of the network publicity machine, but we do get a great episode this time that lives up to the hype. Bear with me, I kind of went overboard this week, with what I'll have to call an overly-extended review, but hey, it's the last episode until January 22nd anyway. Feel free to skim, my feeling won't be hurt.

Claire's Dad initially matches her honesty by revealing that he's known about her ability all along. Before tonight ends the new bond between them is turned on its head. That impressed me. HRG has become one of the most complex and interesting characters on the show. By the way, it's cool when characters actually communicate with each other; that then adds more conflict. It's great to see that happen again and again in this episode, as characters come together and talk about what they know, and to try and figure out just when the frak is going on.

(S01E09) I'm going to stick to the episode itself and mostly leave aside NBC's questionable promotional spots which ran all week. You know the ones I mean. Anna's preparing [written] a post on that issue, and it deserves its own post.

Let me get this out of the way too ... I thought the episode rocked. After last week, which was underwhelming, I'm relieved. I didn't even mind the Mohinder scenes this time, which were kept to a minimum, and at least gave us our first really substantial glimpses of the elder Prof. Suresh.

The first touch I liked: Claire passes the quarterback bandaged and slumped in his wheelchair, on her way to finding out she's been voted Homecoming Queen by a coalition of the unpopular. Later, she clocks her bitchy, homophobic, credit-stealing rival. With the help of her best friend, and later Peter, she's learned to embrace her "inner freak."

Tim Kring has been around TV a long time, with writing credits that go back as far as Knight Rider and Misfits of Science. He's probably better known for his more recent work though, writing for Providence, and creating Crossing Jordan and Heroes. It looks like Heroes could very well be his most successful show to date. With NBC already picking it up for a full season and solid ratings each week, it is one of just a few new shows that could be deemed a hit.

Kring has recently done a couple of interviews that shed a little light on just what they are up to with the show. There are some small spoilers, just so you know. The thing that sticks out to me is what he says when asked about how long the show will go, and what the overall plan is. "At the end of season one, there will be a resolution to the pilot's prophecy." That's good to know. You can find the interviews at TV addict, and TV Guide. Heroes airs tonight at 9, on NBC.