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.
SCI FI Wire | The News Service of the SCI FI Channel | SCIFI.COM
So the idea is that they can't produce enough mainstream episodes to fill a whole season, but the ratings show that the public hates repeats. (who'da thunk it?) The only reason for repeats is if you missed the first showing and in today's age of A) streaming video and B) Sci-Fi network running repeats of Heroes all the time then if you miss it you'll grab it some other way.
So NBC ordered basically side stories to air next year during the main show's hiatus. This is an interesting idea, but my question is where is the blockage such that a "season" has to have repeats or hiatus weeks? If the blockage is scheduling the main stars, then this makes sense. If the blockage is sets, or writers, or producers/directors, whatever than this doesn't help. In almost every regard other than principal actors Heroes:Origins seems to me to be more resource intensive than six more episodes of the real series would be.
At any rate, it's an interesting experiment. I'll watch the shows to see what the end result is.
technorati tags:Heroes, television
Blogged with Flock