Heroes' Creator Got His Start Writing For Courteney Cox's Forgotten Sci-Fi TV Series
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Long before he reinvented the genre with "Heroes," Tim Kring wrote for a very different superhero TV series.
Like "Heroes," NBC's "Misfits of Science" offered up a fresh take on stories about superpowers. Unlike "Heroes," though, "Misfits of Science" was not an enduring success. Canceled after just one season in 1985 due to low ratings, the series followed the adventures of a team of superpowered "human anomalies," as they tracked down other superhuman or otherwise extraordinary individuals. Taking cues from the recently successful "Ghostbusters," the campy sci-fi series featured one of Courteney Cox's earliest roles and one of Kring's first TV credits.
Kring wrote the story for the ninth episode of "Misfits of Science," "Twin Engines." The episode saw the titular team of Misfits encountering an engineer named Lonnie, who was experiencing strange visions. It turned out that the visions were connected to the twin Lonnie never knew he had –- kidnapped motorcycle racer Dwayne Schott. Lonnie ended up taking Dwayne's place in a race before helping the Misfits track down his brother.
The episode showed Kring's flair for thinking up compelling mysteries and human drama in stories about superpowers more than 20 years before "Heroes."
Heroes was Misfits of Science for grown-ups
"Heroes" became a critical hit upon the release of its first season in 2006. The series followed several initially unrelated characters who, over the course of the first season, all discovered that they possessed superpowers. "Heroes" ran for four seasons before coming to an end in 2010.
"Misfits of Science," by contrast, ran for just one season and embraced a far more outlandishly goofy tone. In "Misfits of Science: An Oral History" by Will Harris, series creator and executive producer James Parriott reflected on Kring's creation of "Heroes." Parriott said, "I guess Tim [Kring] sort of did an update of 'Misfits,' didn't he? That's sort of what 'Heroes' was. When 'Heroes' came out, everyone said, 'Hey, that's 'Misfits' ... but better!'"
In an interview with CBR following the first season of "Heroes," Kring said, "I just barely remember what 'Misfits of Science' was even about." However, the writer went on to say, "I don't think I could have written 'Heroes' without all of the other jobs that I had before this. I think it was a culmination of a lot of my career."