TVSquad

Cool news for fans of NBC's Heroes: it looks like the show is going to start filming a lot earlier than it usually does.

Shows usually start filming in July/August for the fall season, but according to Heroes star James Kyson Lee (Ando), the writers strike means that the show will start filming in June, and maybe as early as May. He says that NBC plans to really push the show this year, using the Olympics to hype the show.

That's the good news. The (possible) bad news is that TV Guide's Michael Ausiello is reporting that Kristen Bell isn't signed for the new season yet.

The Saturn Award nominations are in, and many popular sci-fi and fantasy shows made the cut. Returning favorites like Lost, Heroes, and Dexter were recognized by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Films, as were newcomers Pushing Daisies and Journeyman.

With seven nominations, Lost is ahead of Dexter and Heroes, which received five and four nominations, respectively. Heroes was the big winner last year, taking home awards for Best Network Series as well as acting awards for Masi Oka and Hayden Panettiere. Both actors received nominations this year, along with co-star Greg Grunberg.

Sometimes I think celebrities should just keep some comments to themselves when they leave a TV show.

Thomas Dekker, who played Zach during the first season of Heroes and now plays John Connor on The Sarah Connor Chronicles, tells Life & Style that he thinks the relationship between 30 year-old Heroes star Milo Ventimiglia and 18 year-old Hayden Panettiere is "creepy." He says that the two dating would be like him dating a 12 year-old.

Gallery: Decker, Panettiere, Ventimiglia

And here I thought it was According to Jim. Who knew? Maybe this year.

Until then, NBC's Heroes is the number one most pirated TV show of 2007, according to a list compiled on TorrentFreak. Nearly 2.5 million illegal downloads were made of the super-hero program, with the BBC program Top Gear coming in second at about 1.2 million. Others on the list are Battlestar Galactica (706,000), 24 (524,000) and Scrubs (tenth on the list at 427,000 downloads).

Here's my question concerning all of this...why is this still illegal?

... Six welcome returns.

Every fall season I get stoked about all the new shows, with cool new premises ("A guy travels through time trying to make right what once went wrong!"-- Journeyman not Quantum Leap), and all the big changes in store for existing shows. But it's equally exciting to see which beloved actors will be returning to television. Brad Garrett coming back to television in 'Til Death last year? Cool! Patricia Heaton and Kelsey Grammer both coming back to television ... together? That's gotta be awesome, right? Jerry O'Connell on Carpoolers ... well ... ? I like the guy, but I'm not scheduling a 'Welcome Back' shindig for him.

Half the fun of a new television season is the return of great actors and actresses to the small screen. And while I could have easily done 10 or even 20 of these, I've narrowed it down to the six talents who were most welcome back in my house on a weekly basis this past year. I've even been so bold as to rank them. Feel free to agree, disagree and present your own lists in the comments.

...eight seasons to look forward to.

Ho ho ho... nothing's on... my remote is collecting dust. Pesky writer's strike. Season's greetings? Not so much. More like "seasons canceled" or "seasons delayed." Fortunately (thank the TV gods) some shows didn't get touched when the WGA hit the picket lines. Either they wrapped production before the guild walked out or in some cases, full seasons had already aired. Here's to hoping that the New Year brings a speedy resolution to this whole mess so that business can move on as usual. And by "business as usual," I mean a selection of new episodes instead of me going out of my mind deciding if I should watch a Law & Order re-run from 1998 or 2002. Angie Harmon or Elisabeth Röhm... tough decision. Anyway, in the meantime, we have plenty to look forward to.

1.) The Wire, season 5: All in the game for one more season. As the fifth and final season of The Wire approaches, I can't help but be giddy over the fact that it wrapped production before the strike got underway. With only ten episodes, can you imagine the mess that would have been created if production would have been tweaked by a mere few weeks? Similar to the predicament Scrubs finds itself, HBO's greatest achievement could have been without a series finale. The thought terrifies me. Not the case, so take a deep breath and watch all these great previews. The Wire premieres on Sunday, January 6.

I have a lot of problems with last night's season/fall finale of Heroes, most of which have already been discussed in Jason's review, in the comments section and elsewhere in the blogosphere. Why didn't Hiro freeze time again when he got into the vault with Adam? Why didn't Peter just stop time when Nathan was shot? Why was Nathan's press conference indoors when he was about to announce he could fly? What's the sense in killing Nathan and not Matt and Peter, when they can just show the world their powers? Why can't Hiro just go back in time to prevent Nathan from being killed, or why don't they just use Claire's blood (or Peter's?) to save him? And on and on and on it goes. I guess that's the problem of introducing time travel and immortality to a story. Anything can happen so it all seems ridiculous. Still, the show is a blast and I'll be back for the third volume.

(S02E11) When Kristin offered up the chance to review the Fall (Season?) Finale of Heroes, I couldn't resist stepping in to help. While this episode lived up to a lot of the promises of the season, much like last season's finale, it may have been a little lighter on the action than you'd want. There are a lot of big changes for a lot of the characters and yes, the promised "hero" death. We get resolutions on the virus plot, the Sylar/Mya journey, Hiro's quest to stop Adam, the Bennet situation, and in the end, there's enough to entice us to come back for more. It's all here and let me tell you, if Kristin was yawning and checking her watch through the last episode, there wasn't time this week. This episode is absolutely jam-packed from start to finish. "Volume Two" wraps, and as with last year we get a teaser of Volume Three. But we'll get to all of that after the jump.