Written by: Michael Hickerson (SoSF Staff Journalist)
Producer Tim Kring has solved one of the big mysteries on “Heroes” in its second season.
During an interview with SciFi Wire, Kring talked about the photo of the original members of the Company that was glimpsed in this and last week’s episodes.
“We will be seeing the people … in the photo,” Kring confirmed. “I think all of them will be [played by the actors in the photo]. I just have to tell you, the photo has got a life of its own, because, logistically, it was so difficult to actually come up with this photograph that’s used now and refers to things that are shot well in the future here. It was very difficult to get that all lined up. But, yes, the photo is as accurate as we can make it.”
One of the women in the photo looked a lot like Joanna Cassidy, who is best-known to genre fans for her work in “Blade Runner.” Kring wouldn’t confirm her casting, but said: “It did look an awful lot like Joanna Cassidy in there.”
Kring acknowledged the fact that the “Heroes” cast is growing almost exponentially week after week.
“Yes, on a show like this, you have to be able to fold people in and fold people out,” Kring said. “So the audience should fully expect to see characters leaving in the near future.”
“Heroes” airs Monday nights at 9 p.m. on NBC.
I think the main drawback to Heroes’ second season is the fact that it brought over so many of the original cast when it was clear they weren’t needed. In future I think Kring might be best served focusing on one main story arc and only bringing in the characters who would be integral to that arc. Otherwise good characters are just wasted. Kring doesn’t have to kill off the characters not carried over; I for one would be very satisfied that characters like Niki or Ando are doing their own things within the Heroes universe and we’re simply not seeing them. I’m trying to think of a good example of this system – there’s probably some great ones in comics, but I’m not a big comic reader, to the best thing I can come up with is book series. In “The Dresden Files” we don’t see every supporting character in every book, just the ones important to that story.