Heroes: Origins

According to NBC Chief Kevin Reilly, while Heroes fans anxiously await the series' return in the fall, creator Tim Kring will be busy working on a new project. The Heroes: Origins spinoff will run alongside Volume Two of the original Heroes saga and will involve the audience in the plot.

As with everything about the original series, not much is being revealed to the public at this time but the plan for Origins is to introduce a new character in each of six stand-alone episodes and in the end of these episodes, viewers will vote on who they want to join the cast of the main show in Volume Three.

Part of the inspiration for the Origins project came from positive viewer response to some of the side characters, such as the Charlie, the diner waitress with the perfect memory who befriended Hiro and Ando on their journey to "Save the Cheerleader."

They also hope to use the six episodes of Heroes: Origins to avoid the midseason lull that so many shows, including the original Heroes, experience in the spring, following the holiday hiatus and interruptions from sporting events and awards shows. In total, between Heroes and Heroes: Origins, there will a total of 30 episodes, where most shows only film 24 per season.

While scheduling for Origins hasn't been completely ironed out as of press time, the plan is most likely to run through the main show's 24 episodes, with a very brief hiatus, two to three weeks, at the holidays and then insert the six Heroes: Origins episodes at the end, with the viewer-selected hero selected as the season ender. Another scenario inserts the Origins episodes just before the last episodes of the main series, three to four episodes before the finale.

One thing that Reilly is positive about is that Origins will be run in a six-week block. Because viewers will be voting on the new hero who will appear in Volume Three, Reilly believes that peppering the main series with a new episode of Origins every four weeks would be too difficult for the viewers to follow, resulting in more votes for the last hero to be introduce simply because he or she will be fresh in our minds, not necessarily because he or she is our favorite.