La version longue (attention, barres de rire inside) :
CITATION("IGN")
He joked that quickly he wondered, "What was I thinking?" noting that a serialized show is "an absolute bear to do." Kring said he's also finding, "It's a very flawed way of telling stories on network television right now, because of the advent of the DVR and online streaming. The engine that drove [serialized TV] was you had to be in front of the TV [when it aired]. Now you can watch it when you want, where you want, how you want to watch it, and almost all of those ways are superior to watching it on air. So [watching it] on air is related to the saps and the dipshits who can't figure out how to watch it in a superior way."
Kring said no final ending for Heroes has been conceived, noting, "We didn't have an island to get off of." On top of that, Kring noted that "My original idea was more of an anthological vibe to it, where you regenerate the characters."
Kring explained he had thought they could almost completely replace the characters each season, remarking, "I was primarily fascinated by the origin story. Once the original story is over, and the character has no more questions about what's happening or existential drama, then the questions become just about plot, and then it becomes harder for me personally to connect to."
However, Kring continued that, "The problem is you run into a whole series of issues, where show and business run into each other. The network falls in love with characters, the audience falls in love with characters, the press falls in love with characters. And it's contractually hard to get people onboard for a brief period." As a result, Kring said, "You find yourself writing for characters you thought would be gone."
Asked if the audience reaction ever influences the stories, Kring replied, "It's never directly, because we're so far ahead of them. We were shooting episode 13 [the final chapter of the current volume, "Villains"] when we launched [Season 3]. Any feedback by the audience is irrelevant in terms of that. But bigger trends you want to follow."
Kring feels that gauging the reaction to a story "us generally not very calculable. It's the old adage, 'That's why god made chocolate and vanilla.' What one person loves, somebody else hates. It's really hard to discern 'Is that a trend or one guy's opinion?' Reading chat boards can be a study in futility, as far as that's concerned."
Kring said that he felt the shorter "Volumes" Heroes does now, as opposed to season-long arcs, allows them to tell new or more casual viewers "every couple of months, 'come on in, the water's fine.' You can hop on the train and you won't have missed too much."
Heroes is written in an unusual manner, with each writer assigned to a different storyline (usually sticking with one character or pairing of characters). Kring explained how that worked when it came to the credited writer for an episode. After breaking the story and coming up with outlines, a first draft is assembled from all the different writers' elements. Kring said the first draft, "Is usually pretty hideous and has all sorts of problems and [notes are given] on it for better part of a day. Then, the same people go back and polish scenes." At this point, when the script is reassembled, "The writer of record takes it and now owns it and goes through the entire process from their end – draft to production, then studio, then network and has to own it from there on out, taking notes and [dealing with] production issues. That writer takes it through, and speaks for the script through prep and production. By the end, that writer, I think, usually has a real sense of ownership." That being said, Kring revealed that, "This season I've written five episodes so far, all by myself."
The discussion turned to "Exodus," the volume originally planned to follow last year's "Generations," until the writers' strike occurred. Kring noted several episodes of that storyline had actually been written, before the decision was made to nix it and re-shoot the ending of "Generations" so that a deadly plague is not released. Kring said "Exodus" would have been "Kind of overblown with tanks and people in hazmat suits."
An audience member asked about Caitlin, Peter Petrelli's love interest from Season 2, who was last seen left behind in a plague-stricken future – a future that thanks to the re-shot end of "Generations," doesn't exist. Kring revealed that if the strike hadn't cut Season 2 short, the plan was, "to get to [Caitlin] around episode 14 or 15, during 'Exodus'. She was a casualty of that storyline never being told." After the long hiatus during which Heroes was off the air, Kring said, "We realized that going back to [Caitlin] nine and a half months later would have been insanity." He felt that while there would "be some people asking about it, but for most people it would have been a hard left [in the story]." When the fan asked if Peter would ever acknowledge Caitlin or express any grief over what seems to be her dire fate, Kring replied, "No, we passed it. We leapfrogged it."He added that when the idea of returning to Caitlin was brought up, they asked, "Really? Are we going to risk that? We have enough stuff to [deal with]."
There was a planned spinoff of Heroes, Heroes: Origins, that also fell by the wayside thanks to the strike. Kring said that would have been an opportunity to go back to the more anthology based version of Heroes he'd first envisioned, as each episode would have been an independent story about a new character. He said he loved the idea of Origins, but after the strike, "the only thing that became important was getting Heroes back on the air."
That being said, Kring said he was "very interested in a more standalone version of Heroes. I think the show needs to move towards that in order to survive. I think the serialized format is very challenging on network television."
Another fan asked about Claire Bennet and her ability to heal others with her blood. Kring said a plot point like that, "Gives us freedom and then it screws us up. What often happens on a show like this is you often get boxed in – you set a fuse of something that's just too easy to use. A weapon that's just too sharp. Then you have to blunt it again. You have to figure out ways to take it away, once you've put it out there." Kring said another example of that is Peter Petrelli, who got to the point where "he's so powerful that there's no challenge for the character. So now we've found ways to wipe that out and bring him back to normal again."
Asked what he would do differently, looking back, Kring said, "It's very hard to be peoples' friends and colleague at the same time you're the boss. It's a constant struggle. I was a very reluctant boss." Kring referenced all of the various places his attention has been pulled in with Heroes, including all its various cross promotions and multimedia tie-ins and said that if he could do it all again, "I would probably delegate more responsibilities earlier, so it doesn't take so long [for others] learn it."
When it comes to time travel as a plot point, Kring said, "I'd encourage everyone to avoid it. It's a minefield that will make your mind explode. It will just drive you crazy. That's been something we've tried to use with a certain amount of rules - Not being able to change the future unless you go back. That device has been one of those that's just been so complicated for us." He added that when it comes to time travel, "We are taking a little hiatus from that for the next 12 episodes," referring to the next volume, "Fugitives."
Kring said he saw "Fugitives" as a chance "for us to wipe the table [clean]." Kring revealed that the big question that storyline centers on is, "What happens when our people have to go underground and go back to being normal after two and a half years of being superheroes?"
Asked what super power he'd like himself, Kring drew laughs, answering, "Time travel, so you can go back and correct all the mistakes you've made!" Kring went on to say, "I cannot stress enough the imperfect science that making a show is." He noted that on Heroes, "We often have three different directors working on any given day," and scenes from certain episodes shot months apart, because " Actors are not available, so you drop them in later. I have crazy stories on how this big giant mess is made every week. Once you get on the assembly line and you're cranking it out at the pace that we're doing, it's kind of a miracle that more stuff doesn't go wrong."
En gros, c'est pas sa faute, il est conscient de tous les problèmes du show, mais ce n'est pas sa faute, il ne voulait pas être showrunner, c'est pas sa faute, les super-pouvoirs, c'est compliqué, et c'est pas sa faute.
Ah, et c'est pas sa faute si lui, ce qui l'intéresse dans le format série, c'est de présenter des persos sans avoir à les développer sur la longueur.
on en arrive d'ailleurs à froler le niveau zero de réflexion, c'est assez impressionnant 
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