Monday, May 14, 2007

This is What is Known as "Building Your Brand"


Many sources, including this one here, report that NBC TV series HEROES has already created a spinoff series, ORIGINS, that will run after the HEROES series ends this season.

In a six episode miniseries of standalone stories, ORIGINS is designed to showcase new characters in this HEROES UNIVERSE (okay, ugh...), the most popular of which will then be spun into the main program.

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(I believe DC Comics called this a FIRST ISSUE SPECIAL back in the day)
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This will up the regular season of episodes to 30 (24 of HEROES and 6 of ORIGINS) which means fewer repeats and fewer channel surfs away from NBC on Monday nights. Likewise, the SciFi Channel will probably be running ORIGINS as it runs HEROES on its Friday night lineup.
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I'll lay money right now that the ORIGINS DVD set will right on the heels of the show and will feature content leading into the second season as well as must-have background on the making of these standalone stories.
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I'll also say right now that I like the idea of standalone "short" stories featuring different characters every week. It allows for different genres within the HEROES universe (Okay, I'll stop. I promise) as well as "guest" directors and writers. A "mini-movie" every episode.
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(Something similar to the new BABYLON 5 DVD coming out soon, and featuring three 30 minute shorts set in the B5 universe)

2 comments:

Kelly J. Crawford said...

As much as I love the serialized nature of HEROES, I think doing stand-alone eps in the Origins mini-series is a great idea.

Unknown said...

How about Heroverse?

JDC