'Heroes' Comes Out Swinging

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'Heroes' Comes Out Swinging



ALL ABOARD Milo Ventimiglia, Adrian Pasdar, Zachary Quinto, Masi Oka, and Ali Larter are back to see where Heroes takes us next
PHOTOGRAPH BY JAMES DIMMOCK


The superpowered stars of NBC's hit series embark on a new journey spanning both continents and centuries, centered on a murder mystery -- the fate of the world (and the network) may be at stake

ALL ABOARD Milo Ventimiglia, Adrian Pasdar, Zachary Quinto, Masi Oka, and Ali Larter are back to see where Heroes takes us next
PHOTOGRAPH BY JAMES DIMMOCK
All AboutHeroes

By Jeff Jensen Jeff Jensen
 Jeff Jensen, an EW senior writer, has been despondent since the cancellation of ''Twin Peaks''SPOILER ALERT: This article reveals major plotlines for season 2 of Heroes

The arrows are flying. A dozen of them, launched from the bows of 17th-century samurai warriors assembled on a watercolor green field and about to rain down upon the head of one Hiro Nakamura. But they don't. Instead, the squall of pointy death screeches to a cartoonish halt, frozen in space by the time-traveling/time-stopping supernerd with a clench of his bespectacled eyes. It's a surreal image, though for now it exists only in the mind of Masi Oka, the Emmy-nominated star of NBC's Emmy-nominated sensation Heroes, who actually finds himself sneaker-deep in farm grass, trying to bring this comic-booky moment to life. In this scene from the show's second-season premiere (airing Sept. 24), Oka is supposed to execute his character's trademark reality-pausing maneuver — they call it ''the squishy-blinky'' around here — yet he is being thwarted by the most insidious of bad guys: a breeze. See, when time stands still, wind shouldn't be rippling through the grass. The solution is simple — throw down a bluescreen, manufacture some lawn with F/X — but it's slow in coming, as the on-set producers are currently sipping smoothies and joking with Oka's dialogue coach about turning U.S. states into Japanese-sounding words. ''Or-ee-GON!'' ''Wash-ing-TON!''

''It's a little like the first week of school,'' says Oka during a break in the (in)action. ''A little hard to focus.''

They'd better buckle down quickly, because there's homework to be done. As any student of TV history can report, sophomore seasons can be slumpy. Cockiness, ambition, the ridiculously unreasonable demands of journalists (those jerks!) and network execs (see: No. 4 NBC, desperate to maintain its one certifiable hit) — a small sample of the kryptonite that can cripple a phenom's follow-up year. Heroes — created by Tim Kring, the non-nerd whose ingenious conversion of geek tropes into mainstream drama has made him TV's newest cult pop auteur — would seem to have the brains and humility to avoid these pitfalls. Listen to this: ''I've been a stick in the mud the past year,'' admits Milo Ventimiglia, whose Peter the Power-Absorbing Super Sponge was last seen blowing up over Manhattan with brother Nathan the Flying Slimeball (Adrian Pasdar). ''Parts of this — the crowds, the blind excitement of people — terrify me. That kind of closed me off. But this year...I'm trying to embrace it more.''

Nonetheless, there are reasons to sweat. First, there was the nearly 20 percent drop in ratings last spring after a momentum-killing seven-week break. Then there was the cliff-hanger-heavy finale, which spawned much What happens next? wonder, yet also inspired a lot of That was it? disappointment. And now, with the departure of writer Bryan Fuller, who left to create ABC's new buzz fantasy Pushing Daisies, the show must press on without one of its most valuable players. Emmy nods or not, it's time for Heroes to prove itself all over again. And Kring knows it. ''Season 2, in many ways, is about lessons learned,'' he says. ''The stakes are higher, that's for sure. But I try not to think about them, because it doesn't make an already challenging job any easier.''

Like we said: The arrows are in the air.

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20036782_20037403_20057885,00.html

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RELIVING THE PAST Hiro (Masi Oka) and new Hero Takezo Kensei (David Anders)



So. What were you expecting from the season finale?

A blockbuster explosion of superpowered action? Logic-tight resolutions to twisty-turny, season-long story lines? A haircut for Peter? If so, you're among those for whom the finale didn't quite ''flame on!'' For those new to the Heroesverse — or if the memory somehow faded during the Harry Potter/High School Musical/''Umbrella-ella-ella'' heat wave — here's a brief refresher. Sylar, the Megalomaniacal Mutant Serial Killer (Zachary Quinto), was ready to nuke New York, but curses! He was foiled by Hiro and his Legion of Superpowered Acquaintances. Pummeled by Niki, the Very Strong Schizoid Stripper (Ali Larter), skewered by Hiro, and power-sucked by Peter (who in turn went radioactively ballistic), the deviant dweeb disappeared down a manhole. Claire, the Indestructible Cheerleader (Hayden Panettiere), escaped her power-hungry blood kin, the Petrellis, and reunited with her adoptive dad, the morally ambiguous Horn-Rim Glasses (Jack Coleman), while the fates of wounded Heroes Matt, the Mind Reader (Greg Grunberg), and D.L., the Walks Through Walls Dude (Leonard Roberts), seemed uncertain.

Meaty, huh? But on screen, surprisingly thin. True, in Coleman's words, ''a TV show can't do what Spider-Man 3 can do.'' But it tried: Kring's original script was ambitious and epic, but had to be scaled back due to time and budget constraints. ''On paper, there was this big final battle, with buses flying and trucks tumbling. And I know we shot a lot that ended up on the cutting-room floor,'' says Oka. ''I understand the criticism, but in terms of the story, it served its purpose.''

Yet good intentions don't quite explain the finale's biggest Huh? If Peter can fly, why did he need Nathan to zoom him up, up, and away before exploding? ''It's all about Peter's mental state,'' says Ventimiglia. ''He was so focused on stopping this power coming up from within him, he couldn't tap into anything else.'' Coleman teasingly suggests that expectations may have blinded viewers to the possibility that Sylar was diabolically manipulating the entire denouement, from his apparent defeat to Peter's paralyzing meltdown. ''Maybe we needed to play that up some more,'' allows Coleman. ''But I think there was a slyness that some people missed.''

Of course, with the first season now on DVD, fans can go back and judge anew. Or maybe Team Heroes can just promise us that they'll try harder. And guess what? They are! Kring and company realize that spinning a dense, complex, season-long saga put too much pressure on the finale to hit a transcendent crescendo. ''The good news is that we've been able to learn from the mistakes and make the second season better,'' says Panettiere. The big adjustments: dividing the season into at least two separate sagas (or ''volumes'') and more episodes that focus on smaller groups of characters like last year's stellar H.R.G.-centered ''Company Man.'' Larter describes season 2 as ''a weave, especially in the early episodes; we're introducing new characters and weaving in and out of old ones.'' Adds coexec producer Jesse Alexander: ''It was too much for the audience to invest emotionally in a story that stretched 23 episodes. Season 2 is more focused.''

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CHEER UP, CLAIRE! Hayden Panettiere's character gets a boyfriend this season


It's also more smartly scheduled. Hoping to avoid duplicating last
spring's ratings slippage, NBC will air season 2's volumes in repeat-free blocks. (When Heroes wraps in late April, it will give way to an anthology series called Heroes: Origins, which will feature celebrity storytellers like Kevin Smith and introduce brand-new characters that could either graduate to the main show or be spun off into their own ongoing series.) ''There's no question Heroes is the big daddy on the NBC block,'' says NBC Entertainment co-chairman Ben Silverman, who's leveraging Heroes' Monday muscle to launch a full night of sci-fi-themed programs that also includes newcomers Chuck and Journeyman. Silverman says the only challenge Heroes faces to maintaining and maybe even growing its audience is ''making sure we showcase everyone's favorite characters.'' (Think: the second season of Lost or Desperate Housewives, where old faves were back-burnered in order to focus on new faces.)

Nevertheless, Heroes will open its season with an infusion of new blood. Also on the menu — at least one shocking death, and the promise of hotties swapping super-spit. Season 2 starts four months later, after the big New York City battle royal, and finds the characters scattered across the globe. Not every cliff-hanger will be resolved immediately or explicitly — episode 8, entitled ''Four Months Ago...'' will fill in all the blanks — but it is revealed that yes, Peter, Nathan, and Sylar all survived the Kirby Plaza donnybrook, albeit some in better shape than others. ''It's a smash cut open. Boom! You're in the middle of everyone's story,'' says Quinto, who will leave the series around episode 16 so he can play Spock in J.J. Abrams' big-screen Star Trek reboot. ''My ideal would be to come back when I'm done. Hopefully, there'll still be room for me.'' That's a no-brainer: Kring is already plotting Sylar's dramatic late-season return.

Something else you can bank on: Volume 2 will be driven by a murder mystery, with the first victim slain in the premiere. The saga — entitled ''Generations'' — will also focus on the earlier era of Heroes, a shady bunch whose members include Nathan and Peter's Lady Macbethish mom (Cristine Rose) and Hiro's billionaire pop (George Takei). The new season will spill their secrets and maybe their blood — all are being hunted by a mysterious enemy. ''There are some juicy scenes that leave teeth marks on the scenery,'' says a spoiler-skittish Takei. Ditto Rose, who was so nervous, she limited her comments to a carefully sculpted statement. (An excerpt: ''Something happens that plunges Angela, the control freak, into fear and panic....'') ''They really keep us in the dark,'' says Rose. ''You probably know more than I do.''

Well...yeah, we do. We know that Hiro — whose giant leap backward will inadvertently alter history — will spend about eight episodes repairing the damage (and seeing some samurai action himself). We know that Peter's got amnesia, Nathan's now a drunk, and newly integrated Niki/Jessica will become intimately acquainted with the virus that's afflicting those with awesome abilities — a major plot point of season 2 . We know that the unspoken fan question ''What's Heroes going to do when they run out of cool powers?'' will be addressed on the show itself. ''The question presumes that there can't be a duplication of powers,'' teases Kring. ''But what if there was a finite pool of adaptations? What if there are other people in other parts of the world breaking out with similar abilities?'' And we know that the fearsome phantom that haunts the mind of Molly, the Human Hero Tracker (Adair Tishler), will be ID'd in episode 5. Tishler's theory? ''He's the bogeyman, like Sylar's boss,'' says the actress, adding that her orphaned character is living with Suresh, the No Powers Super Scientist (Sendhil Ramamurthy), and Matt, the Mind Reader. ''It's no mystery — I survived the finale,'' says Grunberg. ''I get into the action in a much bigger way this season.''

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ON THE COVER An exclusive first look at Masi Oka in 17th-century samurai armor

As Molly plays Two and a Half Heroes, the Bennets will be living on the down low in Southern California, though H.R.G. will put his family at risk by working with a surprising ally to settle some old scores with his former Hero-hunting employer. (Deadwood's Stephen Tobolowsky has been cast as the company's new boss.) Another complication: hormones. Yep, Claire's getting a boyfriend (Nick D'Agosto) — a fellow Hero, it turns out — following a love/hate courtship. Hiro's getting lucky as well, with a Japanese princess looming in his future. Past. Whatever. ''I really felt romance was a missing element last season,'' says Kring. ''These characters are young, single, and available — might as well hook them up.''

One last new and provocative ingredient being stirred into the Heroes mix: reality. With story lines set in post-Katrina Louisiana and addressing issues like illegal immigration, Kring is ratcheting up the with-great-power-comes-great-responsibility allegorical resonance. The majordomo of TV's premier escapist fantasy seems wise enough to not overstate this stuff, but he does firmly believe, ''Our world can and should have social relevancy.''

Right now, though, Kring and his cohorts aren't so much worried about saving the world as they are making sure their fictional one never falls into peril. The pressure was on immediately, as everyone reported to work for Heroes' sophomore season in mid-June — two months earlier than many other programs — all in hopes of getting a jump on the show's tricky writing and daunting production schedule. Oka recalls asking the producers, '' 'What's the main thing that can really screw up season 2?' They pretty much said 'Ego.' I'm taking that advice to heart.'' So are many of his other Heroes, a surprisingly tight-knit ensemble despite the fact that most of them rarely act together. No jealous fuming over Oka's Emmy nomination — just pride. And while it's hard to imagine Oka ever becoming Evil Diva Boy — if he did, what would it look like? ''I would just act everything at home on green screen,'' he jokes. ''Give them my facial expressions and say, 'There you go, that's season 3.''' But then, eyeballing the crew setting up the next shot in the hot sun, Oka quickly gets all Mr. Nice Guy: ''If I got to be an egomaniac, I'd give the crew more time and some breaks. We ride them like a horse.'' Smart, humble, hardworking — sounds like Mr. Squishy-Blinky already has all the powers he needs to dodge those arrows.

Want more Heroes exclusives? See new video interviews with the Heroes cast, our complete episode guide, and geek out by contributing to EW.com's ultimate Heroes' fan page.