whens the 2nd season airing eh?

TOKYO - Less than a month after being crowned  Miss Universe, Riyo Mori is hoping to land another job — a role on the NBC sci-fi series "Heroes."

"As soon as I won Miss Universe I had this big chance," Mori said in an interview Monday. "I've never acted before. I went to the casting audition and read a script in English and Japanese, and they said it was really good. So I hope I can be in the show."

Mori said the role of Yaeko would be a love interest for one of the main characters on "Heroes."

Nick D'Agosto has landed a major recurring role on NBC's "Heroes" for next season, says The Hollywood Reporter.

He will play Claire's (Hayden Panettiere) boyfriend, West, who is said to have "a very cool superpower."

D'Agosto is the second new addition to the cast of "Heroes" for next season, joining recently appointed new regular Dania Ramirez.

D'Agosto will next be seen in Picturehouse's Rocket Science, opening in theaters on August 10

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.

the flying man is missing? who is missing?

“Heroes” will not air during May sweeps next year. It will conclude its second season in mid-April, series mastermind Tim Kring said at a Thursday-morning press conference in Hollywood.

The six-episode miniseries spinoff “Heroes: Origins” will air over six consecutive weeks in late April and May - after “Heroes” airs its second-season finale, explained Kring.

Kring also confirmed that “Origins” – which will be set in the "Heroes" universe and deal with a new superpowered individual every week - will be an anthology series, a rarity in modern broadcast network television.

Kring said scripting on "Origins" had not yet begun, and that he did not yet know which, if any, of the "Heroes" regulars would appear in the spinoff.

NBC last month ordered 24 second-season episodes of “Heroes.” Kring said the series would not air a new episode every week this season, but its breaks would be far shorter than the big break that split season one down the middle.

NBC is adding former "Veronica Mars" star Kristen Bell to the cast of "Heroes." The network has hired Bell for a key multiepisode arc of the second season.

Bell will make her first "Heroes" appearance in October. She'll play Elle, a character described as a sexy, mysterious young lady who has ties to the supposed death of Peter, H.R.G.'s past and the future of Claire. Elle will kick off her arc by committing a serious crime, though it's unclear whether she's good or bad.

"This was not easy to pull off," said "Heroes" creator-executive producer Tim Kring. "But since we're an ensemble show, with many arcs playing out through the year, we found a way to jump into a small window in (Bell's) schedule."

Universal Media Studios prexy Katherine Pope also hinted that landing Bell wasn't easy, noting that "many studios (were) chasing her in both film and TV" and that she was happy that Bell "chose to star in our show."

HEROES: SAVING CHARLIE (Del Rey Hardcover; $23.95; on sale December 26, 2007) by Aury Wallington will be an original novel based on the characters Hiro Nakamura and Charlie, created by executive producer/creator Tim Kring. It is developed through a licensing agreement with Universal Studios Consumer Products Group.

"One of the more memorable relationships in Season One was Hiro's first love, the waitress Charlie. We were as smitten as Hiro by that story and seized the chance to tell the full adventure of Hiro's six months in the past. Aury Wallington was hand picked by the writers of the show for her brilliant voice for these characters. The novel is a welcome addition to the Heroes family," said Tim Kring, creator-executive producer, "Heroes."

The novel--written with the full cooperation and consultation of the show's creators--will tell the story of Japanese office worker Hiro, who, through the use of his ability to pierce the space-time continuum and manipulate time, bravely catapults himself into the past to save Charlie, a small-town Texas waitress with an extraordinary memory, from being brutally murdered by super-powered serial killer Sylar. Fans of the television series were given only a brief glimpse into Hiro and Charlie's relationship as it grew into love over six time-changing months, but their history is told here with the depth and insight that only a novel will allow.

Next week is Origins kah?