First Grey’s, now Heroes?

At their schedule presentation today in New York, NBC announced a 6-episode spin-off of their breakout hit Heroes, Heroes: Origins.

The limited series will feature characters not yet seen on the original show. Viewers will get the chance to vote for their favorite Origins star, who will then join the cast of the real thing in the ’08-’09 season.

Though the standard network season is 22 episodes, NBC has ordered 24 Heroes segments, which, when combined with Origins, brings the total number of heroic hours on the net to 30. Heroes: Origins will air mid-season, in order to give Heroes a hiatus (unfortunately, NBC has not discovered a way to imbue the staff and crew with superpowers of their own).

In addition to super-sizing their Heroes order, NBC has picked up 30 episodes of The Office, including 5 hour-longs, and 25 episodes of My Name is Earl.

With all the lengthened seasons, it looks like NBC is transitioning from “must-see TV” to “no-repeat TV”.

Source