According to TV Squad, Season 2 of NBC's Heroes will include a lesbian cheerleader named April. As AfterElton.com noted, it's good to see that despite de-gayed last year, Heroes is game to try again. We don't have additional info on who will play April the Gay Cheerleader (and the second season doesn't start shooting till mid-June), but we're always happy to speculate!

NBC's "Heroes" was this season's breakthrough hit. But can it break the Emmys' science-fiction hex?

The network's studio arm naturally wants a clutch of nominations for writer-producer Tim Kring's series about a group of ordinary people who discover they have superpowers. In a bid to secure key nominations, NBC is blanketing trade publications with ads for the show, sending out a DVD mailer to all 12,000 TV academy members and also offering a free iTunes download of the season finale, just as it did last year for the comedy "The Office."

Yet actually wangling a statuette in the best drama category may prove a lot tougher than saving the show's self-healing cheerleader (Hayden Panettiere). TV academy voters often snub the sci-fi and fantasy genres, which they appear to believe are less deserving of institutional recognition than more realistic fare.

Case in point: Fox's hit "The X-Files" was nominated four times as best drama but always lost out to shows such as "ER" and "Law & Order." Other Emmy also-rans include the hits "Star Trek: The Next Generation" (which lost out to "Picket Fences" in 1994), "Quantum Leap" (bested by "Northern Exposure" and "L.A. Law"), the original "Star Trek" (the 1968 Emmy instead went to "Mission: Impossible") and "The Twilight Zone" (losing out to "Hallmark Hall of Fame" in 1961). A number of other highly regarded sci-fi series, including Sci Fi Channel's critically acclaimed "Battlestar Galactica," have never even been nominated as best drama.

That may help explain why NBC executives are playing down "Heroes' " comic-book appeal, emphasizing instead its more traditional dramatic elements.

"I know intellectually [the series] lives in the sci-fi area," said Laura Lancaster, senior vice president at NBC Universal Television Studio, which makes "Heroes." "But for me, it goes back to the characters." Lancaster cited as an example the show's focus on the tense relationship between Nathan and Peter (Adrian Pasdar and Milo Ventimiglia), brothers who just happen to have extraordinary powers.

"It's beyond being a genre show," Lancaster said.

Maybe so. But industry prejudice runs fairly deep against anything that even smacks of the genre. Although science-fiction has proved its popularity with viewers over the years, executives tend to view the format as a purely escapist haven for geeks, filled with props like phasers and other goofy, futuristic paraphernalia. Therefore those shows are not as "serious" as other types of dramatic series.

Brad Adgate, senior vice president at New York ad firm Horizon Media, said that Emmy voters might be turned off by the "campiness" associated with some sci-fi efforts, as well as "the perception of an over-reliance on special effects instead of dialogue." Indeed, a look at Emmy drama winners in recent years (e.g., "The West Wing" and "The Sopranos") shows how voters tend to prize well-wrought scripts over special effects.

Still, he added, " 'Heroes' could get a nomination" because of its high ratings and its perceived "uniqueness" — there's nothing else like it on the schedule.

That's what NBC is banking on. Mired in fourth place in the ratings, the network is doubling down on its new hit, adding a spinoff for a total of 30 "Heroes"-themed episodes next season. A DVD of the first season will land at the end of the summer. And an Emmy for best drama could go a long way in hooking new viewers.

"I absolutely feel like there's room for growth," Lancaster said of the "Heroes" audience

starlet Hayden Panettiere -- a.k.a. "Heroes" cheerleader -- went off to make "Fireflies in the Garden" with Julia Roberts, Ryan Reynolds, Emily Watson, Ioan Gruffudd, Willem Dafoe and Carrie-Ann Moss after wrapping production of the NBC hit series this year. Taking on the film, about a family struggling to cope with a devastating tragedy, meant she had to table plans to make a feature with her younger brother, Jansen, this summer. Now he tells us it's on again.

Hayden Panettiere Moves from "Heroes" to Big Screen

"We were actually planning to do a project called 'Play Room,'" notes the 13-year-old Jansen, who stars in Nickelodeon's TV movie "The Last Day of Summer" airing July 20. "Now we're going to probably do it around next May."

Jansen -- who co-starred with Hayden in the 2004 Disney Channel Original Movie "Tiger Cruise" with Bill Pullman -- says "Play Room" is about "a dysfunctional family. We play brother and sister, and what they do is go up to the play room and tell stories to each other to try to get as far away from their life as they can."

In "The Last Day of Summer," Jansen plays tween-aged Luke Malloy, who's dreading going to middle school so much he wishes Labor Day would last forever -- and gets his wish. Now in the 10th grade in real life, Jansen says playing the part brought back his own fears of going to middle school. "I didn't get as scared as Luke, but I had butterflies and was a little nervous. Everyone tells you, 'Oh, it's horrible, you get so much work, you get teachers from the Black Lagoon …' I've already been through that, so I knew what it was like."

So, Tim, how are you doing this morning?

Well, that's really a day-to-day question! [laughs] But, today is a good day.

I would think so. It's ironic you picked up the phone right when you did because the on hold music was Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World" and you literally picked up right as he sang, "And I think to myself, what a wonderful world…" which seems rather appropriate considering the world building you just completed with the first season of "HEROES."

Wow, how odd!

Last year, "Heroes" was the smash hit of Comic-Con, and this year promises to be no exception, but...

We're giving you two ways to strut your stuff in front of millions of fans and win great "Heroes" prizes in the process.

Heres How:

Create your own Heroes music video of your own Heroes comic book. The winning entries will be presented at the 2007 Comic-Con convention in San Diego!

Don't waste a minute. Get started on your very own masterpiece now.

How do you stop an exploding man? Apparently, the best way is to fly him up as high as he can go, and let him explode to his heart's content.

Certainly not the most implausible way to end the first season of NBC's hit show "Heroes," but fans were left wondering why Milo Ventimiglia's character of Peter Petrelli -- who can absorb the powers of other heroes he comes in contact with -- simply didn't fly himself away when he started to go nuclear. Instead, it was up to his character's brother, newly elected congressman Nathan Petrelli (Adrian Pasdar), to use his own flying ability to rescue his brother -- and the rest of New York City.

"You know, theoretically, you're not supposed to be thinking about that," series creator Tim Kring told TV Guide's Matt Webb Mitovich and Michael Logan. However, Kring did prove correct many theories following Monday's airing that Peter was so distracted by the fact he was about to explode that he didn't have the energy or the attention span to use an of his other abilities.

Of course, that's trying to find a way to explain an action from a story standpoint. But from an entertainment factor, Kring admitted that he was much more interested in having Nathan -- who had become somewhat of a bad guy on the show in recent weeks -- to save the day.

"Yes, I will admit that there's a very tiny window of logic there, but what can I say?" Kring said. "It requires the proverbial suspension of disbelief."

The BBC is rumoured to have paid around £400,000 an episode for the second season of the critically acclaimed American series Heroes - even though it is yet to show the first.

The new deal is thought to represent a five-fold increase in the amount the BBC paid for season one of the glossy high-concept drama, which will air on BBC2 in the summer.

Licensed from US network NBC, Heroes, the highest-rated new series on American television, chronicles the lives of ordinary people who discover they possess extraordinary powers.

The Sci Fi Channel, which had first-run broadcasting rights to season one, was forced out of the bidding as the price for the second season rose.

Season two will now air on both BBC2 and digital channel BBC Three from next year.