TVSquad

First we had the lawsuit that claimed the idea for Heroes was stolen, then we had the controversial comments from ex-Zach, Thomas Dekker. Now comes what could be the most intriguing Heroes controversy of them all.

Was the first season tag line "Save the cheerleader, save the world" borrowed from a short-lived NBC show from the mid-80s?

That's the news from the B-Side blog, which discloses that the classic, campy NBC sci-fi show Misfits of Science (which starred Courteney Cox and ALF's Max Wright) had the catch phrase "Save Adele, Save The World." Now, this would be just a cute coincidence if it wasn't for the fact that Heroes creator Tim Kring was one of the writers on the show! Of course, since he was a writer on the show, maybe it's not a controversy at all.

After the jump, video from the show, which includes the tag line.

Note: the B-Side Blog seems to be down right now, so here's the story on Defamer.

I have a lot of problems with last night's season/fall finale of Heroes, most of which have already been discussed in Jason's review, in the comments section and elsewhere in the blogosphere. Why didn't Hiro freeze time again when he got into the vault with Adam? Why didn't Peter just stop time when Nathan was shot? Why was Nathan's press conference indoors when he was about to announce he could fly? What's the sense in killing Nathan and not Matt and Peter, when they can just show the world their powers? Why can't Hiro just go back in time to prevent Nathan from being killed, or why don't they just use Claire's blood (or Peter's?) to save him? And on and on and on it goes. I guess that's the problem of introducing time travel and immortality to a story. Anything can happen so it all seems ridiculous. Still, the show is a blast and I'll be back for the third volume.

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.

I have to admit that I don't really get why so many Heroes fans are up in arms about this second season. I've heard everything from "sophomore slump" to "it has jumped the shark" to "it sucks!" and I don't agree with any of those viewpoints.

Has it been the intense, oh-my-God look how this episode ended in another cliffhanger thrill ride of the first season? No, but I think that's more a case of how the last season ended and how they had to set up this new season, with new plots and new heroes and old heroes in new situations. And I think that the show really kicked into gear with Monday's fantastic installment.

The Heroes controversy continues.

It has been reported that Thomas Dekker (who played Zach) and his management didn't want him to play a gay character, and that's why the character and the actor suddenly disappeared from the show. But now Dekker has said on his web site (horribly designed, and I can't find the posting) that it's absolutely untrue.

In fact, Dekker says that he has played a gay character three other times in his career, as a younger teen, and would have done it again. He says his leaving the show had nothing to do with the story arc for Zach, though he doesn't really get into why he did leave the show.

Producer Bryan Fuller said in an interview last month that Dekker left because the character was gay and they were going to explore that plot further in later episodes.

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.

• Reason magazine took a nasty (and inaccurate) dig at TV writer Lee Goldberg recently.
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• Best Week Ever has the latest "Paris Hilton did what?!" news.
• Ain't It Cool News has an interview with Heroes director Tim Kring.
• Geraldo Rivera's show is coming back to FOX News (and I didn't realize he had a blog).
• That's Ellen DeGeneres?
• Is The Daily Show journalism, satire, or both?

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]