The season 3 premiere of Heroes will be, rather appropriately, super-sized. NBC will air a three-hour ''event'' on Sept. 15, consisting of a one-hour recap of the previous two seasons, followed by the two-hour season premiere. The third season may also be epic another way: there are rumors that there may be as many as 35 episodes on the schedule. It's likely that at least some of these eps were casualties of the writers' strike, which devastated the current season of the Peacock's sci-fi show: 24 episodes were ordered, but only 11 made it to air.

By the way, although it may seem like Heroes is getting ready to force-feed us another batch of newbies, an NBC insider insists that's definitely not the case. Yes, the show is introducing some new faces next season, but the primary focus, my source maintains, will remain "on the core characters from the pilot."

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Arkush says the series, which begins shooting its next 25 episodes on May 1, will return with a bang post-Olympics, with the first and second episodes airing back-to-back. "We're picking up exactly where we left off," he says. "There will be some huge surprises." One change viewers will notice is a new series regular. Though Arkush remained mum on the subject, he did talk about the types of characters that will be making an appearance. "There will be characters coming that you've heard about."

"Villains" will take center stage in the upcoming episodes, as well as the nature of these villains being set loose. "It will be really clear who these villains are," says Arkush. "These are not necessarily characters you've met already. Obviously, there's going to be a lot of Sylar." Will some familiar faces clumped into this category? "One of the things that strikes me as so interesting about the show ("Company Man") was when H.R.G. says, 'I'm very comfortable in the morally grey area,'" says Arkush. "Think about that. Just like when Nathan and Linderman were going to destroy New York for reasons they thought were correct. And who on the show seems to be able to make very hard decisions and has grown as a character? One of those people is Angela (Petrelli)."

The return of the US sci-fi drama import Heroes pulled in 3.7 million viewers to BBC2 last night, April 24.

Heroes began its second series with a share of 16% between 9pm and 9.50pm, according to unofficial overnights.

Background show Heroes Unmasked, which immediately followed the series two opener between 9.50pm and 10pm, attracted 2.7 million viewers and a 12% share.

Last night's audience for the NBC Universal series was down on the series one opener last on BBC2 last July, which had 4.3 million viewers and a 19% share.

But last night's episode, the first of 11, did beat the ITV1 opposition in the 9pm hour.