'Heroes': Redemption in so many ways, and Spock vs. Sylar

We haven't heard much from "Heroes" in a while, and when this panel was announced, we didn't think we'd get much more.  In terms of the story, a new carnival motif with new characters lead by earthmover Samuel (Robert Knepper) will take some getting used to, but it seems to have focus.  In terms of the representation, though it was announced last week, it is always impressive to see so many of the major cast members make it out for the panel.

Introductions and screams go hand in hand at Comic-Con. Tim Kring (scream).  Jack Coleman. (screams). Masi Oka (huge screams). Hayden Panettiere. Adrian Pasdar. Zach Quinto (mega SCREAMS). Milo Ventimiglia. Robert Knepper. Dawn Olivieri. Ray Park. Madeline Zima.

Kring gave his usual thanks to the crowd, acknowledging that it was Comic-Con International that launched the show.  Despite a huge ratings drop, the fandom is still strong -- even before the panel, a crowd of people snapped away at the name placards on the table.

Volume 5: Redemption will launch on September 21, according to Kring.  G4's Blair Butler moderated, and started off with a question about where everyone's character would be at.  Each answered, but let's paraphrase -- it was a big panel.

Noah/HRG is trying to start a new Company. Hiro is dealing with a possibly terminal illness and haywire powers. Clare is in college, trying normalcy, and exploring relationships. Nathan and Sylar are still joined, with Sylar also being inside of Nathan's mind as well.  Their journey will be explained by midseason. Peter is back to being a paramedic, but as Milo says, "if someone comes at him swinging, he'll hit back harder."  Knepper's Samuel is the "reluctant ringleader" who will try to recruit the heroes to join the carnival.  Olivieri is Lydia, an empath, and she's naked a lot.  The super speedy Park "likes to play with knives." Zima is Gretchen, a college mate of Clare's just trying to be her friend ("with privileges," says Panettiere).

Whew...

No. 1 sci-fi woman of all time? Ripley, believe it or not

I'm a big fan of lists, so is Jevon Phillips, a star contributor here at Hero Complex. Here's his take on a recent tally of the women of sci-fi....or is that sigh-fi? -- G.B.

As usual, there's a lot to dispute about anyone having a top so-and-so list, but Totalscifionline.com's 25 women who shook up sci-fi isn't too startling. "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Battlestar Galactica" and "Star Trek" are the only franchises with multiple entries on the list (and rightfully so). Sigourney Weaver's Ellen Ripley of "Alien" fame was named First Lady of Sci-Fi.

Of course, there were parameters, which the site laid out like so:

We've limited ourselves to TV and film - SF and fantasy literature probably warrants a further list all of its own - and in those instances where multiple actresses have portrayed a character, we’ve written who we believe gave the most definitive performance in brackets. No doubt there are many characters you feel we’ve left off.

Yeah, yeah -- and the site does include a more in-depth examination of each choice. There will be debate over ones who didn't make it. I really like River Tam on "Firefly" -- but it was short-lived -- and the women of "Cleopatra 2525" and Carrie-Anne Moss as Trinity in "The Matrix" and ... well, let's stop there.  And there may be some on the list who deserve to be higher. Wonder Woman and Xena, 22 and 23? Hey, I like Leeloo and Claire bear, but not over those two icons.

Again, it can be debated (Lois Lane! "Bionic Woman!") until we're all breathless, but give the site credit for taking on the task. Here's their final list. Let the comments flow.

The 25 Women Who Shook Sci-Fi:

1) Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver, "Alien" series)

2) Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer")

3) Starbuck (Katee Sackhoff, "Battlestar Galactica")

4) Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson, "The X-Files")

5) Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton, "Terminator," "T2")

6) Princess Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher, "Star Wars" series)

7) Rose Tyler (Billie Piper, "Doctor Who")

8) Sam Carter (Amanda Tapping, "Stargate SG-1")

9) Nyota Uhura (Nichelle Nichols, "Star Trek")

10) Leeloo (Milla Jovovich, "The Fifth Element")

11) Claire Bennet (Hayden Panettiere, "Heroes")

12) Storm (Halle Berry, "X-Men")

13) Pris (Daryl Hannah, "Blade Runner")

14) Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer, "Batman Returns")

15) Barbarella (Jane Fonda, "Barbarella")

16) Sarah-Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen, "The Sarah-Jane Adventures" / "Doctor Who")

17) Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox, "Transformers")

18) Susan Ivanova (Claudia Christian, "Babylon 5")

19) Number Six (Tricia Helfer, "Battlestar Galactica")

20) Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew, "Star Trek: Voyager")

21) Willow Rosenberg (Alyson Hannigan, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer")

22) Wonder Woman (Lynda Carter, "Wonder Woman")

23) Xena (Lucy Lawless, Xena: "Warrior Princess")

24) Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner, "Alias")

25) Marina (Stingray)

-- Jevon Phillips

Photo credits: "Aliens" - 20th Century Fox. "Star Wars" - Lucasfilm Ltd. "X-Men" - 20th Century Fox.  "Xena Warrior Princess" - Reuters.

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'Heroes' land at City Hall

Phil Willon, a metro reporter here at the Los Angeles Times, just wrote up a fun item about the cast of the NBC series "Heroes" shooting a scene this morning at City Hall, which is right across the street from the paper's offices (where I'm sitting right now).

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is back in Washington lobbying for federal dollars for the fourth time in two months — little did he know that he could have saved the airfare. Washington came to L.A. City Hall early  this morning.

The cast and crew from the NBC show "Heroes" took over the City Hall rotunda this morning, which served as a stand-in for the U.S. Capitol, to film part of the season finale. A sign for the John Ferraro Council Chamber was pasted over with a "Senate Rules Committee" sign. (Few people noticed even though City Council was in session while the crews were filming.)

Instead of Villaraigosa, the feisty Hayden Panettiere -– the "cheerleader" -– was the one receiving the celebrity treatment, as were fellow actors Cristine Rose (Angela Petrelli) and Greg Grunberg (Matt Parkman).

READ THE REST

--Geoff Boucher

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Top photo at City Hall by Phill Willon. Photo of Hayden Panettiere courtesy of NBC

Fallen 'Heroes': Jeph Loeb and Jesse Alexander are fired

The last time I saw Jeph Loeb was when I moderated a panel he was on at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books in April. I remember I asked about his show, "Heroes," being faced with "a crossroads" moment in both its loss of audience and urgency, and he scowled at the mere mention of such a notion. So why am I thinking of that on this November morning?

Here's the scoop from Cynthia Littleton of Variety:

Big shakeup on the staff of NBC's "Heroes" came down on Sunday with the axing of co-exec producers Jesse Alexander and Jeph Loeb.

Both scribe-producers had been with the show since its first season and were known to have led the day-to-day production operation under the direction of creator/exec producer Tim Kring.

"Heroes," produced by Universal Media Studios, has struggled in the ratings its third season.

It's understood that Alexander and Loeb were let go because of Peacock execs' frustration with the creative direction of the show. The show is also said to have been grappling with hefty budget overruns this season that are going well beyond its already sizable $4 million per-seg pricetag.

Reps for NBC and UMS declined comment.

The show that was once NBC's strongest scripted series really lost its way, and a lot of casual fans just threw their hands up in the air and reached for the remote. This feels like the beginning of the end. Why did it happen? I thought Matt Roush of TV Guide had a good point last week when he expressed his "Heroes" fatigue: "The reality of the situation is that there aren't a lot of people, even critics, who want to work that hard at watching a show like this. I take notes as I watch many shows, but I don't expect anyone else to. 'Heroes' has become needlessly overstuffed, which isn't the same as complex."

-- Geoff Boucher

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Dark Horse, ' Doctor Who' and 'Heroes' in Everyday Hero headlines

Everyday Hero, your roundup of handpicked headlines from the fanboy universe...

The Oregon success story of Dark Horse comics is historic -- in fact, it's so historic that it will now be protected and indexed in a massive archive project at Portland State University. Two copies of every Dark Horse publication will be kept there, one in general circulation and the other in a special collection preserve.

Heidi MacDonald has the story on her blog, the Beat: "The library’s Dark Horse collection will include everything they’ve produced, from books in 24 different languages to Aliens stickers and Hellboy lunch-boxes. The Beat spoke with Portland State University Librarian Helen Spalding, who explained that even a Buffy marquee statue can be useful to academics. 'The key rings, action figures, mugs and tee-shirts are all rich research material for examining marketing, gender roles, and many other topics,' she said. The idea for the collection was sparked a few years back when Spalding saw DHC Publisher and PSU alumnus Mike Richardson speak at a university luncheon. 'They’re an important Portland institution, and the University is really engaged with the community and the alumni,' Spalding said, 'so it just made a lot of sense that we work together on this important collection to our mutual benefit.'" [Publisher's Weekly] ... If you want to learn more about the fascinating contours of the Dark Horse story, check out a major piece I wrote earlier this year during a visit with Richardson (pictured above) and his team in Portland.

Now on with the rest of today's handpicked headlines...

"Heroes" needs a heroic effort: Jeff Jensen isn't ready to give up on the floundering NBC series "Heroes," which hit a series low of 8.2 million viewers on Oct. 6 (waaay down from its peak audience of 16 million) and has lost so much of its urgency. Jensen writes that "NBC's No. 2 drama won't ever reclaim its status as a ratings powerhouse, but it can regain its creative glory — provided producers start fixing things now. In order to speed things along, we present our five-point plan to save Heroes...from itself." Those five points: 1. Retire Some Capes 2. Make The Heroes Smarter 3. Get Back to the Heroes’ Roots 4. Get a New Bag of Tricks and 5. Find a Big Vision – And Set an End Date. Sounds easy enough! [Entertainment Weekly]

To Serve Man: Wait, there was a show called "Twilight Zone" and it wasn't about a Tiger Beat vampire in Washington state? Yes, kids, a long time ago a fellow by the name of Rod Serling hosted an unsettling and cerebral show about creepy creatures, twist endings and the slippery nature of reality. Sci Fi will air a two-day, end-of-the-year marathon of the grand old show and they want your vote on your 10 favorite episodes. Remember, as with any popularity contest, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Tucker Stone has an essay on the fuzzy logic that applies these days when it comes to labeling comics books for violence and sexualized content. He writes: "The mature readers/explicit content tag may have once been there as a warning to the parent or the queasy, it may have been there to keep the non-comics-shop-haunting evangelicals at bay, but that was then. Now? It's a neon sign, a greasy guy in a trenchcoat, and it's beckoning the reader down the street, and around the corner — and he's saying 'You want some gore? I got you some gore. I got it right here.' For whatever it's worth — that cat ain't lying."  [Comixology]

Who's "Who"?: Grant Morrison would love to write a "Doctor Who" movie but, sadly, nobody has asked. "That would be fantastic to do,” he said. “I’ve got quite a good story for Doctor Who. I think it would have to be quite definitive, especially because the recent series have had a few really strong definitive stories, such as ‘Human Nature,’ and ‘Silence in the Library.’ A couple of those I thought just nailed the character so completely, and that’s what you have to aspire to: a definitive, iconic, almost ultimate Doctor Who story.” [Splash Page blog, MTV]

The Great Sulu-Kirk War of 2008 continues. Here's a press release that came in today about a George Takei interview with "Entertainment Tonight" that will air this evening: "Takei talks to ET exclusively about his "Star Trek" co-star William Shatner's now-infamous YouTube rant about not being invited to his wedding, 'It's absolutely baffling to us because we did invite Bill and we didn't hear from him! But it wasn't surprising because it's true to his history. He's never responded to an invitation. Every time there was something happy to celebrate amongst us, he never showed up.' Shatner says in the YouTube video that Takei has a 'psychosis,' to which Takei responds, 'I think his stability is quite questionable. Bill likes to be the star of the show. He likes the attention focused on him. It's a big, shiny, demanding ego. It's all typical of Bill.  His ranting and raving is just silliness.'" [Entertainment Tonight]

And, finally: Check out our very own Denise Martin's guide to "Twilight" Halloween costumes...

-- Geoff Boucher

2008 photo of Mike Richardson of Dark Horse shot by Robert Durell/Los Angeles Times; Zachary Quinto of "Heroes" photograph by Chris Haston and courtesy of NBC. TARDIS image courtesy of the BBC.

Comic-Con: 'Heroes' reborn with 'The Second Coming'

Viewership may have fallen, and audience support may have waned, but at Comic-Con, NBC's "Heroes" is still as big as as it ever was. It's also still humble. 

When the cast -- the entire cast -- came on stage to huge applause in Hall H, many of the actors were also filming the crowd with personal cameras. Greg Grunberg was one, and he also visited with a few fans at the back of the line for the panel, many of whom weren't getting in.

And speaking of growth, one of the first things moderator and executive producer Jeph Loeb said to the assemblage was that the show was in "236 territories around the world," and that it was popular because of the Comic-Con fans. "And we came here to thank you."

Loeb, being the cheerleader that he is, then led a section-by-section cheering contest. Then he offered this promise for the new season: "Each and every one of you ... you will want to talk about it."

After the cast filled the stage, Loeb jabbed at other ensembles, making sure the audience knew that everybody from the cast showed up, not just one or two stars.