Tim Kring, creator and executive producer of NBC’s hit SF superhero drama Heroes, has put together a cliffhanger for the fall season break of the show that is guaranteed to give each member of the large ensemble cast a moment to shine and fans something to clutch onto until the show returns next year.
In an interview with SCI FI Wire, Kring stated that the mid-season ender on December 4th will be somewhat familiar as to its style of presentation, because it will follow the winning formula developed for the initial pilot episode back in September.
“The pilot had cliffhangers for every single character, so it forced you to come back in the next episode to the same idea,” Kring said. “By the fifth episode, we were able to winnow that down so that we could tell fewer stories. In episode six we basically told two characters’ story. It was Claire (Hayden Panettiere) and Niki (Ali Larter). And we’ve sort of fallen into a pattern of three or four stories per episode now.”
“Fallout,” which will be the final episode (epi. #11) until the show returns on January 22, 2007, will go back to telling everyone’s story, and it will end with several cliffhangers.
“We’re off the air for six weeks after episode 11, and so we cliffhang once again most of the characters’ stories, which forces us in episode 12 to come back to everybody’s story,” Kring said. “So it has been a real balancing act, a real juggling act, and the only thing I can say is that if you miss certain characters for a while, just stay tuned, because they come back. They all sort of ebb and flow.”
NO NEW EPISODES FOR SIX WEEKS?!
Oh, the humanity.
Yeah Summer the break may be difficult, but those of us who just now started watching can get all caught up!
Six weeks isn’t really that long. Most shows do break for Christmas and New Years, you know. This is nothing new. It’s a nice thing, though, with all of these other shows breaking for three or more months.
That’s the upside. I get to introduce the show to a couple of friends who hadn’t watched yet, and I get to rewatch the episodes and examine them closer for clues.
Mike and Evo hadn’t noticed that that symbol from Chandra’s book was a doodle on one of Claire’s textbooks, so now I want to see where else it may be lurking (yes, I know about the one guy’s pendant).
And why do Peter’s and Isaac’s eyes turn white when they’re channeling the future, and no one else’s seem to do that when they’re using their powers? The one exception was when Claire “revived” on the examination table, but not any other time she used her powers. That’s one puzzle I hope to figure out.