The Hollywood Reporter has a list of all the new people joining the hit NBC show Heroes this fall. Barry Shabaka Henley, Holt McCallany, David Anders (from Alias), Japanese pop star and actress Eriko Tamura, Lyndsy Fonseca and Dianna Agron will have reoccuring roles throughout the season.

David Anders will play Takez Kensei, Hiro’s childhood hero and samurai warrior, while Tamura will play a Japanese princess. We had previously posted the rumor that Miss Universe was up for the part.

Henley will play Detective Fuller, a New York police officer. McCallany will play Ricky, the ringleader of a group of Irish thugs.

Fonseca and Agron will play beautiful cheerleaders in Southern California, where Claire (Hayden Panettiere) is expected to move. Fonseca’s character April is sweet, while Agron’s Debbie is a mean girl.

Looks like we really are getting X-Men Lite with the addition of new powers and people, although I can’t really picture Anders playing a Japanese Samurai.
via Hollywood Reporter

Could we see the very hot Miss Universe 2007 Riyo Mori next season on Heroes?  According to a report from the Associated Press, the dancer may be up for a role that would be a love interest for one of the main characters.

“As soon as I won Miss Universe I had this big chance,” Mori said in an interview Monday. “I’ve never acted before. I went to the casting audition and read a script in English and Japanese, and they said it was really good. So I hope I can be in the show.”

Well if her acting is halfway decent she should do very well on the show.  Considering her heritage, I wouldn’t be surprised if she is a love interest for Hiro.

via Associated Press

NBC released its line up of Fall programming today and low and behold - Heroes is getting a spin-off show after its first year.

“Heroes: Origins” will air as stand-alone episodes that center each week on a different character not yet seen on the original show. Peacock has also added an interactive element to the show: Viewers will be asked to pick their favorite character from “Origins,” who will then join the cast of the full-blown “Heroes” skein the following year.

Instead of taking up another hour slot, Heroes: Origins will air during those times when Heroes is on hiatus or wraps its regular season. This means there are 30 hours of Heroes action coming our way this fall. As someone who has bemoaned the long season and mid-season breaks, resulting in many dramas only airing 18 new shows a year, I’m more than happy to see 30 weeks of Heroes action.

Heroes will stay in its regular Monday night slot, and following up the hour later with a new time travel show called “Journeyman” staring Moon Bloodgood in the female lead.

via Variety

Paroday Press Comics has announced the upcoming release of Hewoes #1, written and illustrated by Bill Maus.

When cheerleader Klair Bendit discovers her weird flexibility powers playing Twister and her dad’s secret project involving strangers from around the world, the fun begins,” said Publisher and Editor-in-Chief, Don Chin. “Bill Maus has a keen eye at poking fun at pop culture, and his art style on this book is much in the vein of the classic Mad Magazine satires, complete with grey art tones and square word balloons.

In Hewoes, readers will be introduced to Klair, the enigmatic Pastrami brothers, Internet Weathergirl Sniki Sanders, constipated Japanese office worker Hewoe, and Mohinder Night Shalaman, who is trying to make sense of the whole thing while a berserk hairdresser named Styler is on the rampage!” said Maus, from his studio in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

Hewoes #1 will be available in July 2007 with a cover price of $2.99. This 24 page black and white comic will have two covers, a “Good Hewoes” and a “Bad Hewoes”, and will ship 50/50.

A four page preview and both covers after the jump.

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Just had a chance to catch Monday night’s episode of Heroes featuring George Takei (Mr. Sulu from Star Trek) as Hiro’s father. When Hiro’s father leaves, check out the license plate of the car Takei gets into.

Heh. I like it when a show doesn’t take itself too seriously that it can have fun like throwing in a Star Trek reference, or getting comic legend Stan Lee to make a cameo. Of course the ending to this week’s show was a bit of a let down, but apparently “it” has been planned since before the first episode aired.

via TV Guide (link) and My Extra Life (link)

Stan “the Man” Lee will be making a surprise cameo appearance on the February 19th episode of NBC’s Heroes. “Unexpected” has Hiro on a bus trip with Lee behind the wheel.

There have been a lot of comparisons with Heroes and X-Men, so having Marvel icon Stan Lee show up seems like a nice nod.

via Superhero Hype (link)

While I have no problem writing Best Of and Top Ten lists, this is my first year coming up with a Best Of list for comics, and it has been a real challenge. First there is the whole “thousands of titles out there” deal, then there is the fact that these kinds of lists are a touchy subject to write. What may be on my Best Of list, is on the @$$ List for someone else. Regardless, it’s time to look back over the year and see what was tops when it came to comics.

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I know I ragged pretty hard on NBC over that whole “Heroes as a free download” thing. And as much as I have been wanting to write a decent review over the series, in a well thought out way, I can’t. That’s because this is simply the best show on television - period.

Heroes blows everything else this season out of the water. That’s a pretty big claim considering other shows like My Name is Earl rank on my Must Watch List. Not much else I want to say right now, I’ll try and do something over the show after next week’s mid-season finale.

TV Guide’s Mike Logan is reporting actor George Takei will be playing the part of Hiro’s father in the NBC hit Heroes.

Hiro’s father is this big honcho who shows up in America with his bodyguard. He has this whole elaborate scheme to kidnap his son and take him back to Japan.

Tim Kring, Heroes creator, says the character will debut in a January cliff-hanger.

Hiro has quoted Star Trek several times on the show, so this seems like a slam-dunk, and a great nod to the Star Trek community. Takei has had some very good (albeit small) roles over the years, but I can really see him playing a “heavy” in this series.

As Heroes continues to explode in the ratings, I hope Kring and the rest of the Heroes staff reach logical conclusions to story lines without going the Macguffin route that has caused Lost audiences to drop, and ultimately caused Alias fans to lose interest in the whole Rambaldi plot.

via TV Guide (link)

According to Variety, Heroes continues its successful climb as the hottest show of the season.  Monday night’s “Hiros” episode saw a 10% increase in viewership for adults 18 - 49.  NBC, who is going through some rough times at the moment, finished the evening at a close tie with CBS.

The more I watch this series the more I’m loving how well the story is crafted.  Yes, there is some bad acting, and some obvious plot holes, but overall this is THE series to be watching at the moment.  Unless you are a bittorrent user, here’s hoping you have been saving all of the episodes on your TiVo so you can have a Heroes Marathon at your house during the holiday break.

via Variety (link)

No, I’m not talking about 9th Wonders!, but rather a bonus online graphic novel that delves deeper into the storyline from where the show left off. Similar to the bonus online video episodes found in other shows, hints and a deeper understanding of the story might be found by reading (or printing out) the first issue.

In the debut, artist Tim Sale leads you into a story from Suresh’s childhood that haunts him to this very day.

via NBC Heroes (link)

The Fall television season hasn’t been off to a great start. All of the freshmen series have had less than stellar starts until Monday night’s debut of Heroes. According to Variety, NBC topped its broadcast rivals in a 4.7 share compared to CBS’ 4.4 share.  This is the highest rating for the 18-49 demographic NBC has had for any Fall show in five years.

According to Nielsen nationals, “Heroes” bowed to a 5.9 rating/14 share in adults 18-49 and 14.10 million viewers overall — growing 55% from its “Deal or No Deal” lead-in (3.8/10, 13.00m). In a good sign, the drama also built audience in the second half-hour.

NBC has been hyping the super powered series since the beginning of the summer when it began leaking information across the Interweb and turning a blind eye when it appeared on bit-torrent sites around the world. They even had a large number of people logging on to iTunes to download the series for free (although free was a bit misleading).

I just finished watching the pilot myself, and will have a more comprehensive review tomorrow, but I was really pleased that NBC aired the episode with few commercial interruptions. I would love if they continued this practice throughout the remainder of “Volume One”, but knowing the Peacock Network needs the money, I’m sure we’ll see our fair share of commercial breaks.

I’m still mighty mad at NBC and iTunes for that “free download” scam from a couple of weeks ago, so I haven’t had a chance to watch the kick off episode.  As soon as I get to my TiVo it is first on the list, and I’ll post my views here.

Until then, Scott Johnson at Extra Life has posted his views and comments on the debut:

Why does everyone have to be young a pretty? Why can’t we have an old man or something? I know we get the fat cop next week, and we have the funny Japan guy who can teleport. But I want more ugly people with powers. Everyone is just a little too GQ for my taste, and it distracts from the grit I need to have in my hero lore.

Read the rest of Scott’s thoughts at his website.

via ExtraLife (link)

So NBC made a huge to-do over Heroes being made available on iTunes for free beginning September 1. The day came and went, and still no word on where the free show was.

So here is the low down on this “wonderfully” thought out campaign by NBC to get people to watch their show. In order to see the Heroes pilot, you must first go to Regal Cinemas and obtain a code card. It really isn’t clear if the code card is free, or if you have to purchase a movie ticket to obtain one. Word on some message boards is it is free, while others are somewhat secretive retarded on the matter.

You then take this 12 digit code and enter it in the Redeem section of iTunes, upon which you will be given permission to download the pilot.

Okay…so what if you don’t have a Regal Cinema in your town, next town over, or the next town after that? You are screwed that’s what. In Kansas there isn’t a single Regal Cinema listed until you hit Kansas City, MO. Nebraska, North and South Dakota, you’re screwed as well. If you don’t have Regal, you might try AMC or Cinemark, which are also part of the promotion. And what if you don’t have the urge/need/money/desire to go to the movie theatre to begin with?

Hey NBC, if you really want people to watch your show, and you claim it is going to be a free download, then don’t make your audience jump through hoops to do it!

Morons…F’ing morons all of ‘em…

So what would have been a better solution you ask? Let’s see, comic fans are probably a huge target, why not ship the code in issues of comic books? No, wait… that is too easy. What about running the code in local newspapers? No, that probably is too obvious. Oh wait, how about making the damn show available for free without screwing potential fans?

Forget trying to do something the legal way. If you are still dying to see Heroes you can find the show all over the place via bitTorrent.

Superhero Hype! has a great interview with Jeph Leob about his work on NBC’s Heroes television series. Most of the interview focuses on how Leob became attached to the project. Considering that Leob still writes comics, is a supervising producer for ABC’s hit series Lost, and a writer and supervising producer for the CW’s Smallville, how does he manage his time?

The challenge is time again. I tend to write at night or I get up early, sometimes at 4:00 in the morning, and then write until I have to be on set or at the production. But this isn’t anything really new. Regardless of whether or not I needed to be on set or in the writers’ room, as someone that was working on a television series full-time, I have to be able to balance time between being a comic book writer, working on a television series, a television writer, and also having a life and being a dad.

via Superhero Hype! (link)