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Tim Kring, creator of NBC's Heroes, told SCI FI Wire that he and his writing staff are looking ahead at season two and that if they've taken one lesson from their freshman year, it's this: Don't be afraid to reveal secrets, even big ones, along the way. "I have to admit I feel pretty good about the fact that we didn't leave a lot of things dangling for people," Kring said in an interview at Wizard World in Los Angeles on March 17. "There were one or two moments where there were things we had answers to and we couldn't film them, or we cut them in the editing room, and I regret that. But I do think this idea ... of not being too precious with any one idea is really an important lesson: to be willing to kill people off and take the really tough decisions to kill off characters that may be fairly popular for the sake of reinventing the show. It has to have a kind of constant sense of reinvention, or else we're going to die of our own inertia."
Kring added that he and his writers are trying to avoid the problems that other TV shows encountered after hitting big in their first seasons, only to falter in subsequent seasons. "The other big thing is we just have to reveal things in a timely fashion and not let them build up," he said, pointing to the example of The X-Files, which built up so much mythology over the course of 10 years that no answers were likely to satisfy the audience. Kring added: "I think we want to have some more romance, I think we're missing that. I'd like to have some more romance on the show."
Kring also said that he wants to tell a few more stories, along the lines of this year's "Company Man," that detour away from the season's main story arc and delve a bit deeper into the backstory of a single character or two.
With the examples of Twin Peaks and even Lost, Kring is aware of the pressure for Heroes to maintain its quality and appeal. "I'm as worried about that as anyone else," he said. "I would be lying if I said that that doesn't keep me up at night. Because I do think that you only get one chance to really have a first impression, and that first blush, like anything else in life, whether it's food or a relationship, ... always has a certain bloom on it that is hard to relive. That being said, one of the ... basic premises of the show was setting up a world and a premise that would allow us to rejuvenate and not to be locked onto the same characters. So some of that secret weapon is the ability to bring on some new people. And I think since it's a show where I think mostly the reason that people watch it is they're enjoying the characters, ... if we can create new characters that people are intrigued by, you get a chance to start afresh with people. So that's the whole conceit. And then the other thing was the idea of trying to wrap things up in one season. Or one volume. And then start over in the next volume, but something new, so you give people the sense that there are closed-ended qualities to the show." Heroes will wrap its first season with new episodes beginning April 23 in its regular timeslot, Mondays at 9 p.m. ET/PT. (NBC is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.) —Patrick Lee, News Editor
Kring added that he and his writers are trying to avoid the problems that other TV shows encountered after hitting big in their first seasons, only to falter in subsequent seasons. "The other big thing is we just have to reveal things in a timely fashion and not let them build up," he said, pointing to the example of The X-Files, which built up so much mythology over the course of 10 years that no answers were likely to satisfy the audience. Kring added: "I think we want to have some more romance, I think we're missing that. I'd like to have some more romance on the show."
Kring also said that he wants to tell a few more stories, along the lines of this year's "Company Man," that detour away from the season's main story arc and delve a bit deeper into the backstory of a single character or two.
With the examples of Twin Peaks and even Lost, Kring is aware of the pressure for Heroes to maintain its quality and appeal. "I'm as worried about that as anyone else," he said. "I would be lying if I said that that doesn't keep me up at night. Because I do think that you only get one chance to really have a first impression, and that first blush, like anything else in life, whether it's food or a relationship, ... always has a certain bloom on it that is hard to relive. That being said, one of the ... basic premises of the show was setting up a world and a premise that would allow us to rejuvenate and not to be locked onto the same characters. So some of that secret weapon is the ability to bring on some new people. And I think since it's a show where I think mostly the reason that people watch it is they're enjoying the characters, ... if we can create new characters that people are intrigued by, you get a chance to start afresh with people. So that's the whole conceit. And then the other thing was the idea of trying to wrap things up in one season. Or one volume. And then start over in the next volume, but something new, so you give people the sense that there are closed-ended qualities to the show." Heroes will wrap its first season with new episodes beginning April 23 in its regular timeslot, Mondays at 9 p.m. ET/PT. (NBC is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.) —Patrick Lee, News Editor
