timkring

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.