from cnn.com.....

With "Heroes" its only new hit of the season, struggling NBC announced a fall schedule Monday that includes a spinoff and three other dramas also trading on supernatural themes.......

To stretch the normal 22-episode season of "Heroes," which faltered after its long hiatus this year, NBC will add "Heroes: Origins." The spinoff will introduce a new character each week, and viewers will select which one stays for the following season. The two series will have 30 new episodes combined.

very interesting.....

Faltered?
Did it get a ratings drop? The 6 week hiatus for no particular storyline reason was kind of dumb tho

Faltered?
Did it get a ratings drop? The 6 week hiatus for no particular storyline reason was kind of dumb tho


it got dinged with a ratings drop when it came back from hiatus, like a lot of shows did this year. the hiatus wasn't for storyline reasons, it's the standard 22-24 hours of a season aired over 35 or so weeks.

I'll be interested to see how the spinoff works. My guess is that one of the regular Heroes writers will get promoted up to co-showrunner or sole show runner with Tim Kring still in charge overall. They'll have to have some degree of separation in writing and production though, as I think they'll have to be in production simultaneously. Of course, on any other network but NBC, these would have become webisodes or some sort of other extra content. :)
I'm also guessing these won't air over the holidays, but will fill the March-April break?

Um, ok. I hope it isn't a mistake. I was excited at first but from the description is seems kind of wierd...

and viewers will select which one stays for the following season


:rolleyes: Coming up: Temptation island featuring special people only!

I was thinking more like American Idol Heroes ....

Can you imagine the judging on that???

Simon - "That was the most pathetic display of powers I have ever seen. What do you call that?"

Hero - "uh.... melting?"

hehehehe

Yeah, I'm not sure I like the whole voting for a character idea, hopefully people won't start voting for the worst superhero like they did in AI :D

I wonder if this spinoff will replace the comic books they have been releasing.

i'm not sure about this whole voting show deal... actually i think it would be hilarious to have Heroes spinoff in the same vein as the Law and Order series lol... just imagine it: Heroes: Criminal Intent & Heroes: SVU... hell even CSI, but that's a CBS staple ;) Heroes: Miami

According to scifi we will be getting the Origins show during hiatus (Yipee - Heroes on TV this summer!!!!!!!)

There are some mild spoilery things in the article so you might want to wait until after the S1 finale if you are trying to stay spoiler free.

http://www.scifi.com/sfw/news/

NBC Orders Second Heroes Series

NBC announced that it has ordered six segments of a new series called Heroes: Origins, which will air in the main show's Monday-night timeslot when it goes on hiatus, Variety reported.

The new series will center on new characters that haven't yet been introduced on the original show, and will feature an interactive element. Viewers will have a chance to vote for their favorite character, who will later cross over to the regular Heroes.

According to Variety, the move is intended to avoid repeats, which have been earning record low ratings this year on all five networks. (NBC is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.)
100%
Dang it! i was all excited for a couple of minutes that Origins would help through the summer hiatus - but according to writers Joe Pokaski and Aron Coleite, Origins will probably not air this summer but either in winter or next summer.

Beware!!! Spoiler article so here is the Origins info from it which I think is pretty harmless.

Congratulations on the "Origins" spin-off! Will this be the same writing and production staff working on this as the regular series? Are additional writers being brought in? If it's the same staff, man are you guys going to be tired!

Thanks. We’re very excited about Origins – and we think you guys will be too. Same writers, but probably a different production staff. And yes, we’re going to be tired. But what else is new?

What is the origin of "Origins?" How did this all come about and what was the impetus behind it? And when exactly will this run?

The impetus, we think came from a discussion as to how "Heroes" can run without a break. The network asked for 30 episodes, but Tim thought it would dilute the series too heavily. So Co-Executive Producer Jesse Alexander had a brilliant idea: What about an anthology aspect to our universe? Several one-hours dedicated to the origin stories. Everyone fell for it hard. When it will run is still to be locked down – one possibility is to have one or two during the Christmas break and run the rest after season 2 ends. But this may change come gameday.

We understand that "Origins" will focus on a new character each week and the audience will be able to vote on whether that character gets added to the series. Any idea how the voting on that will work yet? Phone/text messaging? Online polls? And can you tell us will these be characters in the present or possibly in the past? Now, does this necessarily mean that if a character doesn't get voted on to the show, we'll never see them again?

We have no idea how any of that is going to work. Hopefully in the coolest way possible. But if two or three characters pop – why wouldn’t we use them?

Also regarding "Origins," there has been some rumblings in forums of people concerned that this exploits the "Heroes" idea too far or spreads you guys too thin. Now, we're sure you all wouldn't commit to something like this unless you felt you could continue to hit it out of the park, but can you address those fans fears a bit?

It’s a pretty valid concern, but fear not. We don’t do things halfway here at all. We think "Origins" will be very different from "Heroes." From a writing standpoint, it’s like exercising a different set of muscles, because we’ll be telling one story from beginning to end in one hour, as opposed to a serialized segment of one of up to 10 stories week-to-week. Some of the most fun we’ve had are episodes like "Company Man" that allow you to dig a little deeper into a character’s soul.



http://www.comicbookresources.com/news/newsitem.cgi?id=10616

They seem to be quite clueless what to do next, don't they? 'Summer show to fill in hiatus' 'Reruns suck!' 'No wait! Christmas break, more viewers!' 'Let's let the public decide, everyone loves that!'

Now that it's still succesful, seems the cow will be milked for maximum potential. Not too hot for that; They goofed up the last 2-3 episodes already pretty badly probably due to tiredness and being rushed. Jumping into another series is creative suicide.

According to Kristin, TK says this will air in May after the regular Heroes season.

(warning - spoilers in article)
http://www.eonline.com/gossip/kristin/detail/index.jsp?uuid=2bf85c26-e175-47a0-adeb-c618836ba586


Kring says that Heroes will run contiguously through April, and then the Origins episodes will air in May.
Kring says they haven't started scripting Origins (the episodes revolving around new characters), but it is fair to describe it as an anthology series. Right now, he is not expecting any of this cast to take part. "This is our chance to tell stories about other people out there."