Tuesday morning, following the season finale, “How To Stop An Exploding Man,� Tim Kring and CBR’s Jonah Weiland spent an hour on the phone conducting something of a post-game report.

They discussed the journey he’s taken with this show, the season finale, what effect, if any, “Heroes� had on the cancellation of his other program, “Crossing Jordan,� his newly prominent role in American pop culture and much, much more.

Here’s the portion of part two (of two) where they talk about Heroes:Origins
You can read the whole interview at
www.comicbookresources.com

Tim Kring about Heroes : Origins..

I guess all we can do is hope for the best. Good luck to you guys. So, how about we move on to some happier subjects?

Let’s talk about “Origins.” When that was announced we got a lot of e-mails for Joe & Aron concern it was a sign that the show was being exploited too much. And yes, we can see where people would get that impression and it is a spin-off, an extension of the original show, but it’s not like it’s another 23 episode series.

Right. Right now it’s six episodes, they are stand alone episodes that have a kind of, for lack of a better way of describing it, a Rod Serling quality to them. A cautionary or morality tale about various people around the globe who are discovering these abilities and it allows us to tell a million different kinds of stories. Some of them will tie-in with “Heroes,” although if you don’t know what “Heroes” is you can enjoy the show without it. If you do watch “Heroes,” then those tie-ins will be really fun to watch. Yes, it’s our concern as well that we are stretching too far and we are very sensitive to that. One of the hallmarks of the people I work with, and I include myself in that group, is we’ve very conscientious about the brand and trying not to harm it and trying not to diminish or take away anything from the mother ship of “Heroes” because everything is sort of begat from there. So, the second this feels like it’s doing any sort of damage, we’ll cut our losses.

That said, my sense is this could be a very cool additive. We’re looking at it in many respects as the 360 experience of the show. This idea where you have these other venues to go and explore various angles of the show. This is really just an on-air version of that in a way. It allows us to tell, let’s say you were interested in the Claude character played by Christopher Eccleston, on a show like “Origins” we could tell the origin story of that character and I don’t see anything wrong with that. That’s a very cool use of that opportunity.

And based on the e-mail we get week in and week out, there seems to be a lot of fan interest in more with Claude, so that idea alone could really do well for you.

Exactly and we have not completely worked out all those details, but we love Christopher Eccleston and it really is a matter of his availability as an actor, but we would have him back in a heart beat.

And another thing you’re able to do with “Origins” is to show a bit of fan appreciation or fan service. What I understand one possibility to be is fans will be able to vote for or against some of these newly introduced characters joining the mother ship, as you put it.

In some respects, yes. There will be some element of that involved. Whether it’s all of the cast or not, we don’t know yet. One of the great things about “Origins” to me is there are so many actors we’ve heard from who are fans of the show, people with big careers, which is always flattering to find these people you really admire are huge fans of the show. Well, now we’re in a position where we can say, well, we know you’re a movie star and you have numerous projects you’re working on, but how would you like to work on a single episode and be involved in the show? So, it is a way to get some of these very interesting people to come and do an episode of the show. Of course, some of the caliber of people we’re talking about are not going to or may not want to be in a weekly series, but they’ll come and do one episode, which could be really cool. I mean really, really cool. So, this idea of voting them on the show might be a good idea in theory, you can vote them on all you want, but they’re going to do what they want to do. That, to me, is one of the ideas that could make “Origins” really fun.

Interesting. This opens up a lot of interesting opportunities for you guys.

Absolutely and it’s not just limited to actors. Interesting writers, interesting film makers. Because they’re one offs, you can find people, again, who are not going to sign onto a series, but if a fabulous writer or writer/director came up to us…you know, there are many fans of the show out there who are film makers and it may be a way to entice one of them.

Suddenly I have visions of a Quentin Tarantino written and directed episode of “Origins.”

There you go. That kind of idea, exactly. It’s really fun. We also, again, we get to look at it almost as a farm system for the show so that if somebody does pop, it crosses over into the mother ship. I would not fear this. I would think there could be some very cool benefits to this idea.

And for those “Heroes” fans that still have question, don’t forget that next week (likely on Tuesday due to the American Holiday) CBR‘ll publish the BEHIND THE ECLIPSE SPRING ANNUAL #1 where Joe and Aron will answers questions only from you, the devoted “Heroes” fan. They’re taking questions through Friday afternoon so get them in fast if there’s something on your mind. Send an e-mail to Jonah Weiland with the subject line “Heroes Question” and he’ll consider it for inclusion.