Tim Kring sent out a “Heroes All Access” newsletter to fans and the themes and storylines of the next season sound pretty intriguing:
One of the big issues we’ll be exploring is how should a person with abilities live his or her life. Should they try to assimilate by hiding their abilities, or should they live more honestly, exposing their powers to the world?
Claire will be at the forefront of that issue, starting college in Washington, D.C., and trying to discover, as all college kids do, who she really is. But re-adjusting to normal life won’t be easy, especially when Claire is caught in the crossfire of her parent’s divorce and a mysterious suicide on campus.
Meanwhile, Peter and Nathan are trying to get their lives back on track. Peter is trying to be a hero in the purest sense – saving one life at a time. But that means cutting himself off from friends and family. It’s only when Peter makes a romantic connection with a fascinating new “powerful” woman that he’ll find out that life means staying connected to others. Nathan is discovering new things about himself everyday, mostly due to the fact that he’s actually Sylar.
Matt will have to live with the guilt of what he did to Sylar; making his attempts to live a normal life with his wife and child virtually impossible.
Noah Bennet (HRG), with the help of Tracy Strauss, Angela Petrelli and all of our Heroes, is tasked with forming a new COMPANY. But that new organization won’t be concerned with conspiracies and prisons anymore. It will be about people. Finding them. Connecting to them. And figuring out why so many of them have been seduced by another “organization” out there that treats people with abilities in a fascinating, dangerous and potentially deadly new way.
Also, when Claire goes to college, she’ll meet a “quirky” student, played by Madeline Zima (Californication). Gretchen is an “edgy outsider” who becomes Claire’s roommate, and appears in several episodes.
Heroes also has cast a new villain!
Robert Knepper continues his villainous streak.
Coming off a role as bad guy Theodore “T-Bag” Bagwell on Fox’s “Prison Break,” Knepper has been tapped as the new lead villain on NBC’s “Heroes” next season.
In at least six episodes of the series’ fourth season, Knepper will play Samuel, a Jim Jones type — charismatic but evil, with a twisted sense of humor — who will veer into the lives of all heroes.
The character had been referred to as “Carnival Barker” in the series breakdown released last month.
“Heroes” is slated to return in the fall for a “Lost”-style all-original run in a new time slot at 8 p.m. on Mondays. The sci-fi drama — which enjoys a strong online following — will share its time period with another fan favorite, “Chuck,” which will take over in midseason.
Production on the UMS-produced “Heroes” is scheduled to begin later this week.
Knepper is perhaps best known for playing a character on “Prison Break” that viewers loved to hate — T-Bag, a murderer, rapist and supremacist. On the bigscreen, he was most recently seen in “Transporter 3” and “The Day the Earth Stood Still.”
