It doesn’t look good at the moment, anyway. Whether it’s the fault of the impending writer’s strike or the recent drop in the ratings of “Heroes,” but the show’s heavily-hyped spin-off – “Heroes: Origins” – has been yanked from NBC’s early-2008 schedule, with no suggestion as to when we might expect to see the series…if, indeed, we ever will.
This is actually rather shocking news, given how much advance publicity the network had given the show, including the signing of high-profile directors like Kevin Smith and Eli Roth to helm segments within the 6-episode commitment; it’s also really going to piss off “Heroes” fans, who’d been getting psyched about the concept ever since it was first announced this past summer. Most odd, though, is that this seems to completely fly in the face of the new status quo with networks paying more attention to the bottom line of how a series will play both in its initial network airing and when it’s released on DVD…and lord knows the “Heroes: Season 1” set was a huge sales success. This is a show that the geek community – of which I am a proud member – has been embracing all along, and it’s a given that they’d continue to do so with the spin-off, especially with those two big names already associated with it.
I’d like to think that things will change for the better when this strike is rectified, and that NBC will come to their senses and reschedule “Heroes: Origins,” but at the moment, I’m grumpy as hell.
