tim kring is a genius!

go to www.heroesrevealed.com for all the latest info and speculation!

Kring: More Heroes Will Appear

Sharp-eyed viewers of NBC's Heroes may have noticed several familiar faces in the group photo glimpsed in last week's episode, "The Kindness of Strangers," and creator Tim Kring promised that they will soon show up.

"We will be seeing the people ... in the photo," Kring confirmed during an Oct. 16 conference call with reporters. "I think all of them will be [played by the actors in the photo]. I just have to tell you, the photo has got a life of its own, because, logistically, it was so difficult to actually come up with this photograph that's used now and refers to things that are shot well in the future here. It was very difficult to get that all lined up. But, yes, the photo is as accurate as we can make it."

The photo depicted a character who appeared to be played by Joanna Cassidy (Blade Runner, Six Feet Under). Kring wouldn't confirm her casting, but said: "It did look an awful lot like Joanna Cassidy in there."

Another new character in the photo is the father of Matt Parkman (Greg Grunberg), and it's the elder Parkman who's the boogeyman in Molly's (Adair Tischler) nightmares.

The photo also featured the by-now familiar faces of Daniel Linderman (Malcolm McDowell), Charles Deveaux (Richard Roundtree), Angela Petrelli (Cristine Rose), Bob (Stephen Tobolowsky) and Kaito Nakamura (George Takei).

With the addition of several new characters so far this season—including Kristen Bell's Elle, who shows up next week—Kring admitted that some characters—even major ones—may not appear in every episode. And some characters will die—perhaps even permanently, Kring acknowledged.

"Yes, on a show like this, you have to be able to fold people in and fold people out," Kring said. "So the audience should fully expect to see characters leaving in the near future." —Ian Spelling

Heroes' Bell Offers Hints

Kristen Bell, who will join the cast of NBC's Heroes in the Oct. 22 episode, told reporters that her character, Elle, is duplicitous, manipulative and just "a little off."

Speaking in a conference call with reporters, Bell declined to divulge Elle's super power, but hinted that the character arrives with a link to several others, most notably Peter Petrelli (Milo Ventimiglia), whom she encounters in Ireland.

"I have been crossing my fingers in hopes that I would get a job soon where I could play someone who was, as [creator] Tim [Kring] likes to call it, 'a little off,' or perhaps didn't have the brightest and shiniest of intentions," Bell said. (She spoke along with Kring, the show's executive producer.) "And I think the depths at which they've written Elle, this character, she's so conflicted and sort of comes across as such a victim. It's so much fun to play with."

Bell, who gained fame in the title role of The CW's Veronica Mars, is one of several new characters introduced in Heroes' second season. As for Elle's interactions with the other characters, Bell said, "I have a lot of information about Peter's past. ... "

Kring added: "We introduce the character, and she is looking for Peter Petrelli. So I think one can assume that she finds him."

Asked if she could reveal anything more about Elle's power or the character's relationships with the show's familiar faces, Bell replied, "I can't reveal her secret power. You'll have to watch next Monday. But it's a very cool power. She has ties to H.R.G. [Jack Coleman] and Claire [Hayden Panettiere], and I think there's going to be a very interesting dynamic, I think, between her and Claire as far as what is and what is not. I think there's going to be a deeper relationship there than people are expecting. Or they're going to see maybe some parallels. She also has ties, a little bit, to Suresh [Sendhil Ramamurthy]."

Bell's first episode, "Fight or Flight," airs Oct. 22 at 9 p.m. ET/PT. (NBC is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.) —Ian Spelling

i'm so upset that i'm going to miss tonight's episode when it airs live (sniff sniff). i have things to do at exactly that time and will have to catch it on a friend's dvr later on or later this week! uggh! this season is reaching heights far above my expectations and each episode is building so much from the last leaving me with a voracious appetite for answers and new questions to follow! tim kring is a genius!!