HEROES MAY END

TvGuide’s Michael Ausiello just reported,

Heroes’ second season may be coming to a close a lot sooner than expected due to the forthcoming apocalypse, also known in some circles as the damn writers’ strike.

Sources confirm that the show is going back and shooting an alternate ending to the Dec. 3 episode that, if used, would allow the episode to function as a season finale in the event of a strike. Originally, the episode was only supposed to serve as the conclusion of the current “Generations” arc. Should an 11th-hour agreement be reached and a strike averted (fingers crossed!), the alt ending would likely be scrapped.

In related news, the reality of this whole thing is only now hitting me. And I’m not happy.

As you may know, Heroes Season 2 is planned 22-23 episodes long, but the first 11 were labeled as “Volume 2 - Generations”. The 11th episode, which will be aired on December 3rd, was planned to be the last episode of Volume 2 and the introduction to the second half of the season: “Volume 3″…

…unfortunately, that 11th episode may become the Season 2 Finale, because of the writers’ strike, again!

GARNERED A NUMBER OF AWARDS & NOMINATIONS

Heroes has garnered a number of awards and nominations. On July 19, 2007 Heroes was nominated in eight categories at the 2007 Primetime Emmy awards, including Outstanding Drama Series and was also nominated for Best Television Series-Drama at the 2007 Golden Globes. The series won a People's Choice Award in 2007 in the category of Best New Drama, and was named Program of the Year in 2007 by the Television Critics Association and Best International Program at the 2008 Bafta Awards. The series has also been nominated for an NAACP Image Award, a WGA Award, and a Satellite Award.

SEASON 1-CHARACTERS

Originally, Kring designed the series to have an ever-shifting cast. However, his motivation changed when he realized how big the original cast hit with audiences; therefore he brought back most of the first season cast for the second season, with a few additions who received a star billing. In its first season, the show features an ensemble cast of twelve main characters making it the third largest cast in American primetime television behind Desperate Housewives and Lost. Although NBC's first season cast page lists only ten characters, Leonard Roberts (D.L. Hawkins), who first appeared in the series' fifth episode, was an additional member of the original full-time cast. In episode eleven of the first season, Jack Coleman (Noah Bennet) was upgraded from a recurring role to become the twelfth full-time cast member.

SEASON 3, ALLAN ARKUSH AS THE DIRECTOR

“Villains” will take center stage in the upcoming episodes, as well as the nature of these villains being set loose. “It will be really clear who these villains are,” says Arkush. “These are not necessarily characters you’ve met already. Obviously, there’s going to be a lot of Sylar.” Will some familiar faces clumped into this category? “One of the things that strikes me as so interesting about the show (”Company Man”) was when H.R.G. says, ‘I’m very comfortable in the morally grey area,’” says Arkush. “Think about that. Just like when Nathan and Linderman were going to destroy New York for reasons they thought were correct. And who on the show seems to be able to make very hard decisions and has grown as a character? One of those people is Angela (Petrelli).”

When it comes to grey areas, will Matt Parkman be exploring his newfound power and perhaps tapping into his dark side? “Matt’s going to be flashing someplace,” Arkush explained. “It’s one of the cool surprises.” As for the characters’ powers, he says, “One of the things that we’re going to explore is the very nature of these powers — where they come from, who has them, what the different aspects are of how they each got their powers and how it affects them. That’s going to be a major storyline this year — the actual genetic essence of the power.”

Among other burning questions is, will the innocent Hiro we first met turn completely to his warrior side? “As you’ve seen before in the show, sometimes there are multiples of the same person,” says Arkush. “That’s all I’m going to say about that.” And as for “multiples,” was Niki blown into a zillion pieces? “There’s some interesting stuff there, too,” Arkush says of the storyline.

Most importantly, by saving the cheerleader, have we saved the world? “In this version of this reality we have,” says Arkush. “As the show has shown, there are multiple realities. Every time you change something, every time you step on a butterfly, you could be changing the flow of the universe. That’s the chaos theory and that’s one of the things this season is about.”