BBC has announced that they will be airing Season 3 (Villains) of Heroes in the fall simultaneously as NBC airs it in the US.
Jana Bennett, director of BBC Vision, has said the traditional several-month delay in the show making it to UK screens will be slashed for the next run.
“People want to participate globally - and, in part, that’s why this autumn, when NBC launches Heroes series three in the States, it will be aired simultaneously by the BBC in the UK,” said Bennett, speaking about changes in TV and media at the Banff Television Festival.
Broadcasters are increasingly looking to narrow delays in international distribution. Bennett said: “Imagine now the world communities and conversations that would congregate around programmes like Planet Earth, Wild China or Amazon - if they were available to that global audience at the same time.”
Heroes season three will begin on NBC with a two-hour launch show on September 22. The second season - which aired in the US in the autumn last year - still has several weeks to run on BBC Two.
Real-life BFFs and frequent collaborators Seth Green and Breckin Meyer are nearing a deal to join the cast of Heroes for multi-episode arcs, sources confirm to me exclusively.
As I first teased in this week's episode of Ausiello TV, the Robot Chicken duo will play Atlanta-based comic book aficionados who cross paths with (and perhaps serve as advisors to) one of the Heroes. I'm told the names of their characters are still in flux, so there's a chance the cheeky monikers I referenced in ATV won't stick. Then again, they very well may. (Fingers crossed that at least one of them does.)
Got any theories as to what higher purpose Green and Meyer may serve in the Heroesverse? Is it just me, or do these two bring to mind a certain nerdy advisory panel from another popular sci-fi franchise? C'mon, it can't just be me.
CBS is saying aloha to a new installment of the "Hawaii Five-O" franchise from "Criminal Minds" exec producer/showrunner Ed Bernero.
The new take on the popular crime drama, which aired on CBS from 1968-80, is one of three projects Bernero has in the works, along with "Washington Field," which is being done in cooperation with the FBI, and a fugitive apprehension drama.
Bernero is such a big "Hawaii Five-O" fan that he has the iconic theme song from the show as his ringtone. He said he didn't even hesitate when execs at CBS Par TV, where he has an overall deal, approached him with the idea for a new incarnation of the classic Leonard Freeman cop series.
Bernero is writing the project, which he describes as " 'Hawaii Five-O' 2.0."
Like the original series, it is a procedural chronicling the workings of the fictional Hawaiian state police department. In the original, the unit was headed by Steve McGarrett, played by Jack Lord. In the new series, McGarrett's son Chris will be the top cop.
While the characters, storytelling and pacing will be updated, "we will try to keep as much of the original show as possible," Bernero said. "I'm not trying to reinvent it."
The famous opening music will be back but may also get a face-lift, much in the vein of the theme from the 1966-73 series "Mission: Impossible," which was rearranged for the 1990s movie franchise.
As for the staple "Book 'em, Danno" closing line, there will be a version of it in the new installment, Bernero said.
"Five-O," which would be filmed in Hawaii, is the second classic cop series that CBS is looking to bring back. The network also is developing an updated "Streets of San Francisco," penned by Sheldon Turner.
The two would give CBS more procedurals in distinct locales to complement its "CSI" series set in Las Vegas, Miami and New York.
Like several other classic cop series such as "Starsky & Hutch" and "Miami Vice," which have made the leap to the big screen, there has been an attempt to make a "Five-0" feature, but the project, set at Warner Bros., has been dormant for a while.
"Washington Field," also set up at CBS, is named after FBI's Washington Field Office that houses the National Capital Response Squad, an unit comprising elite experts in different areas who travel around the world, responding to events that concern the U.S. national interest.
"If the police need help, they call them," said Bernero, who is penning the project with brothers Jim and Tim Clemente. "It's almost like 'The A-Team,' but it's real."
Jim Clemente, an FBI profiler, has written an episode of "Criminal Minds." Tim Clemente is a former terrorism expert on NCRS.
FBI is opening its doors to "Washington Field." For example, the show would be able to film in the agencies' facilities and use the "from the files of the FBI" logo.
The third project UTA-repped Bernero has in the works at CBS Par TV centers on the FBI's fugitive apprehension unit.
"The main character is a woman who is the daughter of a fugitive, so she has an unique eye to how they run and hide," Bernero said.
The idea was pitched to him by novelist Joseph Finder and his brother Henry, New Yorker editorial director. The two will pen the script with Bernero supervising.
Prison Break's season opener features bad times for (at least) one character; new characters exposed.
***Detail-free spoiler inside (in other words, something happens, but we don't know to who)--you have been warned!!!***
It's that time of the year for returning shows--hype for new seasons must be backed up as vets try to keep all eyes on themselves rather than shiny new programs hitting the airwaves. And nothing says, "We're back!" like an explosive season premiere. They're on the run...except when there is a great photo op.
They're on the run...except when there is a great photo op.
Based on feedback from this year's Comic-Con, Heroes already showed that it's returning guns-a-blazin' (read a full-episode recap here), forcing other fall hits to reveal their hands a little early and catch some buzz.
While Heroes' action-packed, game-changing third-season premiere (airing on NBC September 22) certainly deserves serious attention, nothing gets people chatting like killing off a main character. Apparently, that's just what's in store for fans of Prison Break when the drama's fourth season is unleashed on Fox September 1.
Preview screeners of the first episode have been mailed out to some lucky journalists, and TheTVAddict.com (sort of) spilled one of its big secrets. According to the site, one (or possibly two) "of your favorite characters" will get killed in the two-hour premiere. The "possibly two" disclaimer likely indicates a cliffhanger "did he/she die?" ending, but at least one death is certainly in the cards.
Thankfully, TVAddict does not give the name of the character or any specific details on who it is. Enter E! Online to provide some details! The site says that both suspects are "hot bodies" (her words, not mine). Ladies, isn't that everyone on the show?
E! also provides a look at two new characters to be featured in the upcoming season. The Company man after Michael and Lincoln this year is named Wyatt (Cress Williams, ER, Grey's Anatomy), who discovers that his targets aren't where people think they are. Also joining the crew is computer hacker Roland, played by James Hiroyuki Liao (CSI), who serves as the tech-savvy--but, like any IT guy, difficult to work with--member for the good guys.
And if that weren't enough Prison Break news for one day, there is also a video game based on the show in the works. In the season three DVD box set (out now), an insert promotes Prison Break The Game from publisher Brash. The solo screenshot indicates that gamers will play as Michael Scofield in Splinter Cell-type stealth action. Look for the game in stores in February on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
OK, Prison Break fans... let's hear your theories! Who is getting 86'd from the show?
Because NBC cancelled “Journeyman” after only 13 episodes, viewers never learned who or what was sending startled newspaperman Dan Vasser back and forth through time on his mysterious missions, or why.
This was a problem. Kevin Falls, who came up in the TV business writing for “Sports Night” and “The West Wing,” was new to science fiction when he created “Journeyman,” but the time-travel drama quickly attracted rabid fans aplenty.
When the episodes stopped airing, many wanted very much to know the secrets of “Journeyman,” and what future episodes would have held for Vasser.
Back in late December, Falls answered via e-mail all of AICN’s questions on the matter. But because there was a writers strike at the time, and no one was yet certain if “Journeymen” creators would be permitted to produce episodes beyond the 13 NBC had already aired, we were asked not to reveal the secrets of Falls’ “Journeyman” playbook until he was certain the small-screen adventures of Dan Vasser had come to an end.
That time, sadly, has come.
Who or what was sending Dan on his sudden missions into the past? Was it God? Nature? KEVIN FALLS: Let’s just say it was too specific and grand to be science or government.
Would we ever learn? We would have led you to the water's edge and let you figure it out. The later conflict of the show was going to lie with those people who were trying to find the cadre of travelers. Would they try to manipulate them for their own self interests? [Recurring FBI agent] Richard Garrity was coming back for sure.
We also were aiming for a series ending where the key people Dan helped through the course of the season would figure in a Rube Goldberg-inspired climax. Not quite on the level of save-the-world like “Heroes,” but something with some scope.
Did Livia [Dan’s ex-fiancée, who turned out to be a time-traveler herself, from 1948] stay so long in her future and romance Dan because The Powers That Be meant for her to act as his mentor? Initially. And her mission was to get Katie and Dan together. At first we were going to do it because we wanted [Dan’s son] Zack to have some traveling power (to the immediate future) but felt that was too genetic like in [the novel] “The Time Traveler’s Wife.” We really ran away from anything derivative. Anything that harkened back to other TV shows was coincidental.
Does Livia's story mirror that of Evan [the time-traveling mental patient at the center of the final episode]? Did she decide to pull out of Dan's life [by faking her own plane-crash death] to facilitate a mysterious greater good? We kept going 'round and 'round about that. We felt that Livia was keeping some secret from Dan that was huge and tragic.
Why could Livia only go forward from her native era? At some point (when Livia dies maybe?), would Dan suddenly start moving into the future as well? We just thought it would be cool to give them each a specific and separate gift and we liked the tragi-romantic notion of them cursed to never live in their respective presents.
Would Dan have met the elderly 2008 Livia in the first season? Yes. Absolutely. She was alive. Many of the fans projected that and they were right.
Did we ever learn what did Livia did for a living in 1948? We were going to have her in law school and her husband being threatened by that. And maybe the husband would try to take advantage of her gift.
Did Livia use future technology to further her finances? I think we know what happens when you do stuff like that. There's blowback, like in Episode Nine. They can only make money to help them survive in their travels.
So she didn’t "invent" the radar range or the UNIVAC or The Clapper? That was Evan. He was smart that way. One scene that kept getting cut out of the pilot and episode 9 was Dan needing cash in the past and gambling on some well-know bowl game. But it got cut for time and I still regret it.
Were Dan and Evan born during the same comet pass in 1972? People shouldn't get too locked into the comet thing. That was just one theory.
Are The Powers That Be necessarily a force for good? I think the end game was for the good. We wanted to explore some darker themes early on, but our ratings dictated otherwise. I wanted Dan to have to shepherd a hit man through his life to kill someone. It would really fuck Dan up, but there'd be a bigger reason for it. Sort of like life (not the TV show) we would have done it [late in the first season].
Was it not irresponsible of the The Powers That Be to snatch Dan away while his car in was in drive? What Dan came to learn is that he better adjust his life to fit the TPTB and not the other way around. And he did.
Non-Vassers never seem to see the time-travelers vanishing or appearing unless they're supposed to. Can one assume this is somehow by The Powers That Be's design? Are they that omniscient? You know, the idea of the white light was more to help with transitions. But the idea was that the believers got to see it. We used a little more than I wanted later, to be honest. But the strike limited my input toward the end. In fact, I'm blown away by the response the last two shows got. We had to rush them before the strike. I did my rewrites on both the weekend before we walked. I was lucky Tracy McMillen, Aeden Babish and Matt McGuinness did such a good job on the first drafts of their episodes. But we could have used a couple more coats of paint. But thank God I had my co-EP Alex Graves minding the store.
Would a future storyline deal with Dan erasing the government's knowledge of his ability? Why not?
Did Dan himself tell a young [Livermore Labs tachyon expert Elliot] Langley about his ability decades ago, around the time that photo of Langley posing with a preteen Vasser was taken? No. But I think Langley was on to Dan at a very young age.
The season finale would have brought together some if not all of the characters Dan saved -- to do what? Well, it was going to be a plague, but then “Heroes” did that. When we were told “Heroes” was doing it, they suggested we change ours. No way we were going to win that one. We would have come up with something, but remember, I could read the tea leaves in mid-October. I decided then, let's think in terms of 13 [episodes].
What else was ahead for Dan, Katie, Livia, Jack and Jack's hot girlfriend? How many of the [never-shot] final nine episode storylines had you worked out before the strike? Katie and Dan were going to split up for a while. [Dan’s brother] Jack and Dan were going to live together and then Dan and Katie would get back together. Livia was going to die in episode 20. Dan was going to save her in 21. And in 22, Dan would come back to his house in the present like he did in the pilot and someone else would be living there. Katie and Zack would be gone and this time Dan would have no idea how to get his family back.
And then we'd start season two. I'm getting depressed thinking about it. This staff was so fucking smart. We would have just gotten better. You know, I'm not bitter toward NBC as much as I am the mainstream critics who collectively dismissed us without giving us a second look. I think when we went out we were doing some of the best TV out there. And I’m so grateful that the on-line community embraced this show, actually got the show and ended up being the wind in our sails for the second half of the season.
I spot zero prior sci-fi in your filmography. Have you always quietly harbored an interest in the genre or was it more that NBC herded you toward it in the wake of its success with "Heroes"? You're right about that. Nothing in my resume, nor did I watch any sci-fi. But not because I turned my nose up at it. Quite the opposite. I didn't think I was smart enough to understand it. My brothers were big sci-fi fans and I always sort of envied them for it. (My brother Mat is one of the founders of Sideshow Collectibles.) I was a big sports nut as a kid and was sort of the outsider. But I have a deep respect for the genre and think shows like “Battlestar” filled the void left by shows like “The West Wing” as it applies to social commentary. And the same rules apply to sci-fi as they do to more traditional dramas -- rich characters and compelling stories.
So putting you into sci-fi was NBC’s idea? No, my agent Marc Korman suggested time travel after he heard that ABC was looking for a show in that genre. I pitched “Journeyman” to ABC (the best pitch I've ever given) and they passed. NBC was the last place we went. If they would have passed, I would have been on “Shark” another year.
I found the genre so liberating and challenging. We got to use time travel as a prism to comment on marriage and infidelity, sibling jealousy, lust, etc. I like to try different things. I don't know if I'd do another sci-fi show, but I wouldn't close the door on it either. I like to mix things up. I liked “Studio 60” a lot, but maybe [series mastermind Aaron Sorkin] should have done his unique take on a cop show or something different. By the way, he’s not done with TV, yet, and we’ll be the better for it.
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