“Heroes” Ending Early On Two

The NBC hit series “Heroes” will end its second season early next year. But don’t fret fans of the show — the series has received a full 24 episode comitment by NBC and it looks like the network is standing by that.

The show will end its second season in April of next year and then immediately launch into a six-episode mini-series called “Heroes: Origins” according to creator and producer Tim Kring.

Kring also stated that “Origins” would be more of an anthology show than the serialized “Heroes” storyline. As of yet, scripting has not begun on “Origins” so there’s no details to verify if any of the main cast members will do a crossover to “Origins.”

Part of the thinking behind running the season like this is to avoid a large in-season break for the serialized show. This year, “Heroes” was broken up into three main blocks, with the final spring block pulling in smaller ratings than the fall and winter blocks. NBC hopes that by keeping fans coming back for new episodes on a more regular basis, the show won’t lose as much of its ratings momentum.

“Heroes” went back into production earlier this week, working on the second season. Kring was elusive on saying which of the regulars from season one would make it back for season two, though Greg Grunberg has been in the press talking about his role in season two. We also know Hiro is alive, though he’s stuck back in feudal Japan. Kring said this development will take several episodes to resolve when the second season begins.

Kring said all of this at a Thursday press conference intended to highlight the “Heroes World Tour” that will take place later this summer.

The “Heroes World Tour,” underwritten by Nissan (which also sponsored NBC’s original airing of the series’ pilot and provided a memorable piece of product placement in season one), will take members of the cast to at least seven cities in seven different countries – Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, Munich, Paris, London and New York – to promote the release of the series’ first season on DVD and HD-DVD. The week-long tour will kick off on August 28, the day the season-one DVD sets hit store shelves.

Kring also said that all the episodes from episode nine onward would have commentary in the box-set.