Heroes The Tv Series

Heroes Has New Villains

Tim Kring, creator and executive producer of NBC's hit series Heroes, told journalists that the upcoming second season will introduce a few new bad guys. "There's a couple new villains," Kring said in a conference call on Aug. 2. "We're doing 11 episodes in a row that start on Sept. 24. And somewhere in that run of episodes we're going to introduce a very scary villain."

The main villain of the first season was Sylar, played by Zachary Quinto, a soft-spoken psychopath who could absorb the powers of others with special abilities by slashing open their brains. The show also featured Malcolm McDowell in an adversarial role as Linderman, an eccentric businessman with ambitions for world domination.

Kring said that season two's villians will make last year's look tame. Those who paid attention to the season finale already have a hint about one of them, he said.

"At the end of last season we gave in the season finale a premonition of someone who is a very scary villain out there, who has invaded the dreams and nightmares of this character on our show named Molly Walker, who can locate people just by thinking about them," Kring said. "[We] teased the idea that there was another villain out there. And the audience can expect to see him somewhere in the first run of episodes."

The show returns for its second season on Sept. 24 and will air in the same timeslot, Mondays at 9 p.m. ET/PT. (NBC is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.) -Cindy White

NBC's hit series "Heroes" has added six more! "Alias" alum David Anders, Barry Shabaka Henley, Holt McCallany, Japanese pop star and actress Eriko Tamura, Lyndsy Fonseca and Dianna Agron will all take on recurring roles.

Anders will play the most intriguing part, that of the ancient samurai warrior Takezo Kensei, Hiro Nakamura's (Masi Oka) childhood hero. While never seen during "Heroes'" first season, Kensei played a key part in the show's plot. Hiro spent most of the season trying to get ahold of Kensei's sword, which he hoped would help him in his quest to save the world.

In another Japanese connection, Tamura will play a Japanese princess.

Henley will play Detective Fuller, a New York police officer. McCallany will play Ricky, the ringleader of a group of Irish thugs.

Fonseca and Agron will play beautiful cheerleaders in Southern California, where Claire (Hayden Panettiere) is expected to move. Fonseca's character April is sweet, while Agron's Debbie is a mean girl.

The six join Nick d'Agosto, who recently landed a recurring role on "Heroes" next season, as well as Dania Ramirez, who was cast as a new regular.