First of all, I’d like to thank all of you fans for watching last week. We producers only care about ratings in the same way that a gunfighter might care about the speed of his draw. Luckily HEROES ratings were excellent – and so, we live to fight another day!

Also thanks for buying the DVD and for all of your support in general.

As I hope you know, we here on the show really care about the fans. We try hard to put out a good product, and it takes the sweat and sleepless nights of a lot of talented people to do that. But, ultimately, you fans are the judge of how we’re doing – and you either watch the show, or not.

“Lizards” is the second episode of our new season. It was written by Michael Green (who is also a co-executive producer) and directed by Allan Arkush (who is also an executive producer). I loved the script when I read it. The scene that stood out for me in particular was the final Claire scene – the toe-cutting scene. Eek! That is just creepy… and because it builds on the speech by Claire’s teacher about lizards regenerating… you kind of know what she’s going to do before she does it, but you still can’t believe she’s going to.

Episode 21 is here. This one is a little bit of a quieter episode of HEROES. The key to understanding it’s place in the season is to realize that, episode 21, 22 and 23 are three parts of one story. It fact it’s less of a trilogy, and more like, Act one, Act two and Act three of a film. So, by the nature of that design, this episode is a little slower and spends it’s time getting the players into position. Next week cranks it up to a simmer and then we boil over in the finale.

John Badham came back to direct his second episode this season. Besides being a legendary director, he is a true gentleman. He is thoughtful, gracious and he grasps everything very quickly. On set he concentrates on performance direction foremost, and the actors all quite like him. Actually John wrote an interesting book about directing actors for screen. It’s called “I’ll Be In My Trailer,” published by Michael Wiese Productions.

One of the biggest ideas for this one that came from the writer’s room was to re-examine Sylar’s character. To have him have one last moment of doubt and one last shot at redemption. This would be viewed in relationship to his mother, so that we could begin to really understand how he had become the villain he was. Now, to be frank, this conceit spurred some healthy debate. I know my opinion, and some others, who hadn’t been involved in developing the story, questioned the need for it. Sylar felt like a pretty committed villain. Why would he have self-doubt? Why was it necessary to regress him to his previous incarnation? But Tim and the writers felt strongly that we needed to better understand this character, and that we had one last chance to fully round him out. They felt that Sylar had always acted methodically, killing the weak in order to become a superhuman. They added dialogue in his phone call scene with Suresh to illuminate the idea that he had no intention to kill millions of random people for no gain. This helped my issues. And any other doubts I had about the storyline vanished when we cast Ellen Green to play Sylar’s mother.

Is the source and/or meaning of the symbol that the Haitian wears and Jessica’s tattoo going to be revealed this season? Especially why seemingly unconnected people all connect to it?

I’m not sure about this one either … but I have theories… First of all the symbol is a half-helix, half of a normal DNA strand. That I know. Secondly, I’m beginning to think it’s a purposeful secret symbol that is symbolically important to some group. (A group which probably includes Linderman, Mr. Deveaux and Hiro’s father,) The placement of the symbol could (a) signify an officially sanctioned location. (b) could mark a “special” to the group or (c) Could function as a warning tag that opposing groups have thrown up.

But, be clear, these theories of mine are no more valid than any other chatroom speculation. All I know is Tim Kring told us that the symbol was important he tells us when he wants to see it in specific locations… He never revealed why.

Tonight is episode 17. It’s a beautiful and powerful episode. It is unique for us because it has one story and one story only. True, that story is told over 15 years of time – but it is, specifically, the story of the Bennet family. Matt Parkman’s story definitely progresses as well – but it is, fundamentally, about the Bennets.

Allan Arkush directed the episode. He is, of course, the other director/producer on staff. Allan, in my opinion, did a spectacular job with difficult material. Don’t get me wrong, Bryan Fuller’s script was great… evocative, chilling and poignant… But at the end of the day, the purely mechanical directorial challenge is that more than half the script takes place between 6 characters in one three-room set. Think about it -- On a purely mathematical level, having 6 people in a scene adds numerous more shots to every scene than, say, having two people in a scene… But to have six people in EVERY scene – well then… Much of the other parts of the script take place in the past where the characters we know are either recast or have to be made up to look younger. Then, to top it off – we take the set that we shoot day in and day out and burn it down. And not all just in one go – in stages!!! To keep escalating the tension and to make clear the various nuances of performance under those circumstances is quite a challenge.

Typically, but not exclusively, Allan concentrates on post-production issues with the show, and I, typically but not exclusively, concentrate on prepping the episodes and getting incoming directors up to speed. Whenever I direct, I’m unavailable to prep the next director. For that reason, I prefer when Allan directs the episode directly after mine. All of which is a long way around saying that I was not very involved with this episode personally.

For that reason I’ve chosen, this time, to use this blog to interview episode 17’s editor, Donn Aron. Donn is one of three excellent editors we have on HEROES. Each editor rotates through the episodes, working on every third show. Donn cuts his show together from the vast amount of film we shoot. And he toils with the film continuously, making it work through all the stages, working first with the director, then with the producers and Tim Kring, then taking and implementing notes from the studio and network – all the while finessing the material and making it better and better. He also lays down a temporary sound and music pass with the film – which is not the final version, but which serves as an important guide to the music composers and sound designers. Donn’s film cutting is excellent, as is his sound work.

The main thing I remember about episode 12 is that it took FOREVER to get done filming. It had lots of small scenes in specific locations which couldn’t be scheduled with other work. There were also numerous conflicts with actor schedules between other episodes that were shooting at the same time. Also, we had to get several of our cast to New York for the Macy’s Parade, Regis and Kelly and the Carson Daley show, etc. There was also a situation where many scenes in this episode also appear partially in other episodes. The bomb sequence that concluded episode 11 recurs here but re-visualized and with new elements – including the dialogue with Nathan and the introduction of Christopher Eccleston – but Chris Eccleston, who’s from England, had issues with getting a work visa in time which delayed shooting his shots… The final scene where Peter walks away from the hospital on the NYC Street also plays in episode 13 – not enough work for two nights, but too much for one…. There are two scenes of Claire and the Haitian at the oil derrick in this episode and one in episode 13 - which is a distant location – we had to shoot all three in one day, in the eight hours of available November daylight (i.e. that’s FAST!!!)... The museum scene with Hiro and Ando was shot at the L.A. Natural History Museum – which was only available from 6 PM to 6 AM... The crew shot until dawn and then many (including the director) had to go directly up to the PrimaTech paper company to film scenes from this episode and episode 11. There was one brief scene of Hiro and Ando running out of the museum in day NYC which didn’t schedule with anything. We started filming the padded cell with Ali Larter – but there were problems with the set that caused us to have to stop and re-work it. Hayden Panettiere got sick, etc. etc. – All of this resulted in the episode shooting many partial days and having many “hold” days -- we were actually finished with most of episode 14 before we had12 completely finished.

Last night?s was episode 11, which in some ways is the end of the first chapter of the first season. After last night we stop airing new episodes until late January.

It?s actually amazing that we?ve gotten that many episodes on the air in a row. I?ve worked on a lot of TV and - on any show that premieres in late September or early October - I?ve never seen one that got more that 9 on the air. Most 1 hour shows on TV shoot for eight shooting days? more or less 10 working days. A new episode airs every 7 days. The math of all this catches up to you, until there?s less and less time per episode to edit, do music and sound effects and visual effects. Add to that the fact that HEROES usually shoots for 10 or 12 days and it gets even worse.

Everyone who works in post production kicked butt on this ? I?ll single out Donn Aron the editor - he did an amazing job in a short amount of time ? and did some particularly inventive things in Peter?s dream sequence and in the scene where Matt interrogates Peter? Look for all the hidden jump cuts and speed-ups as the two guys try to read each other?s minds?. Hats off also to Lori Motyer the co-producer who is in charge of all things in post production. There was less than a week from the time Allan Arkush and the editor locked picture for Lori to color time the show, on-line it, oversee the sound mix and the visual affects and make sure that it physically got finished

Hey guys, sorry it?s taken a couple of extra days to post this. As we speak, episode 4 aired Monday, Episode 5 airs next Monday and we are in the middle of shooting 2nd unit on episodes 9 (which I?m directing) main unit of episode 10 ? A HUGE new scene we?re adding to episode 7 and Episode 11 starts on Tuesday.

It?s been hectic? but great.

It?s such an amazing feeling to be working on something that you fully believe in, and have it be rewarded by having the fans dig it too. Believe me, myself and everyone else on the show appreciate that you guys are watching and enjoying what we?re up too. It makes all the hard work worth it.

And it has been hard? A show like HEROES, as you hopefully can tell, is a big complicated undertaking? That combined with the fact that the math of the air dates starts to catch up with you means that it gets a little crazy right about now. Think about it, it takes us (an average) of nine or ten shooting days to film every episode. But those are working days, Monday through Friday? So it takes 12 to 14 calendar days to make an episode. But, once we air, there?s a new episode on the air every 7 days?

We started filming in July and everything felt quite leisurely. By the time an episode finishes filming there will only be 5 weeks until it airs. That?s not a lot of time to edit it, do music, sound effects, visual effects and color correction.

So, we?ve been picking up time by filming weekends. I?m doing a couple of 7-day weeks in a row, and so are many others? It?s cool, but you get fried.