NBC has finally dispatched with Jay Leno at 10 p.m., but that means their troubles are just beginning. The Peacock now has to fill up those five hours a week with something. (NBC boss Jeff Gaspin suggested they were looking for two hours of scripted TV, one hour of reality and two hours of miscellany like news magazines and repeats.) However, there are not a lot of 10 p.m.-ready programs waiting on the network’s bench right now.

For Heroes to come back, would that require budget cuts?
No, actually Heroes has already been very responsible in having a good budget, so I don’t think we’d be cutting it.

If you do not decide to renew Heroes, would they have time to do a series finale?
No, they’re out of production. They’ve wrapped production.

What does the end of this season currently look like? Is it open-ended?
I can’t give anything away about the Heroes finale.

Source

“Heroes” star Hayden Panettiere will steam up our screens with a girl-on-girl smooch in the new season of the hit US show. And the 20-year-old actress admitted she loved shooting the scenes. Her character, cheerleader Claire Bennett, goes to college and meets new room-mate Gretchen – Madeline Zima of Californication fame – who swiftly develops a major crush on the cute blonde.

Hayden said: “Claire has a room-mate who is the biggest relationship in this season because she has finally got what she had with Zach, her friend in the first season, which was a confidante and somebody who she can tell her secrets to. She hasn’t had anyone like that since then. Then this new character Gretchen comes along, and she becomes that person for me. It’s a very interesting relationship because there’s a little bit of a flirting with, ‘Are we friends? Are we more? Do I have feelings for you in that way?’ That’s the relationship so far and where exactly it’s going, I have no idea. I absolutely enjoyed playing that kind of complicated relationship. Oh, yeah. I kissed a girl and I liked it.”

Hayden admits the new element in Claire’s story has made the series more exciting for her – in fact she can’t wait to get her script each week to find out what she’ll be up to next in the superheroes drama.

The people have spoken – and they love Vampires! Not surprisingly ‘Twilight’ snagged the most nominations for the 2010 People’s Choice Awards. The ‘Twilight’ franchise stars earn six nods while it’s TV counterpart, ‘True Blood’ receives three.

Fans cast more than 18 million votes online to select the nominee slate and will also choose the winners in 35 categories. The ceremony will be broadcast live on CBS on Jan. 6, so tune in!

TV Sci-Fi/Fantasy:
Heroes

At Lady Gaga’s New Year’s Eve poolside performance at Miami Beach’s Fontainebleau Hotel, the outlandish performer wasn’t the only star on display: A gathering of single, Young Hollywood types were in attendance – with some as mesmerized with each other as they were with the singer.

According to an eyewitness:

Hayden Panettiere, 20, “was dancing, front and center” with Kevin Connolly, 35. The two were “chatting in the VIP lounge at the pool during the concert, and at the afterparty at LIV [nightclub at the Fontainebleau], they were sitting together. They were chatting all night, and they were very close to each other all evening.”

The pair even shared a classic date food: Domino’s New Pizza slices together poolside, says the eyewitness.

Lady Gaga performed four songs, including “Bad Romance” from her current album, Fame Monster. Others in the audience included Chace Crawford (“He was singing to Gaga’s songs,” says a source), blogger Perez Hilton (sporting a head-to-toe floral ensemble), former Desperate Housewives actor Shawn Pyfrom, The Hills’ Frankie Delgado, former boybander J.C. Chasez and actress Stacy Keibler.

I received a couple of emails wanting to know when “Heroes” starts up again, below is a ‘basic’ Monday night cheat sheet for shows returning the same night.

Monday, January 4
The Bachelor: On the Wings of Love premieres (ABC), 8 PM
The Secret Life of the American Teenager returns (ABC Family), 8 PM
Heroes returns (NBC), 8 pm (moves back to 9 PM on Jan. 11)
Make It or Break It returns (ABC Family), 9 PM

Alpha and Omega 3D
Opens: October 10th 2010
Cast: Hayden Panettiere, Justin Long, Christina Ricci, Danny Glover, Dennis Hopper
Director: Anthony Bell, Ben Gluck

Summary: A disciplined female wolf and a fun-loving male wolf are relocated from Canada to Idaho by park rangers. In order to return home they must work together to battle the elements as well as one another as they journey across unfamiliar territory.

Analysis: Mini-major Lionsgate dips its legs in the 3D computer animation waters with the family-friendly story of timber wolves? Just make sure the kids don’t try to pet one next time they visit the zoo. The animation here is being done by an outfit in Burbank called Crest Animation Productions which up until now has been contributing most of its output to India’s animation industry. The project marks their first major co-production and is the first of a multi-picture partnership with the distributor should this succeed. The team behind it have worked on the likes of “Open Season,” “The Boondocks” and “Brother Bear 2″ which doesn’t give one much cause for excitement.

Hayden made IMDB’s STARmeter Top 100 of 2009 list.

60. Hayden Panettiere (Last year: #23)
The petite blonde continued her success in the NBC show, Heroes this summer’s teen comedy, I Love You Beth Cooper.

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Hayden Panettiere will join Alicia Keys, Justin Timberlake and Lebron James to pay tribute to philanthropic teens at the inaugural Teen-Nick Halo Awards.

The celebrities have been paired up with the teens based on their own charity interests Keys will present an award to a person involved in an Aids education organisation; animal rights activist Panettiere will work with a volunteer for an ocean research advocacy group; Timberlake with the founder of a scoliosis education support group, and James with a community improvement project worker to keep teens away from drugs and gangs.

This could be bad news for “Heroes” fans. Real bad news. Sources at NBC have told Airlock Alpha that the inevitable is finally happening: Networks executives will ask “Heroes” producers to wind the series down, according to rumors, possibly with an overall finale by May.

“There isn’t much happening with this show in terms of audience, and giving it a ‘final chapter’ feel is something the network is considering to help allow the show to go out with a bang,” said the source, who asked not to be identified.

NBC, however, has denied such conversations are taking place. “There have not been any discussions about this being the last season,” according to a network spokesman.

“Heroes” began in 2006 as NBC’s most buzzed show, and wowed both audiences and critics through the first season. However, Season 2 took a slow start creatively, likely not helped with the departure of producers like Bryan Fuller (who had left to run “Pushing Daisies” on ABC).

While the audience stuck it out in the beginning, that started to change by mid-season when the audience erosion began. It finished its second season with a 6.6 rating/10 share, however, second only to “Lost” among averages of overnight ratings from The Nielsen Co. for network genre shows.

However, by the 2008-09 season, “Heroes” fell to fifth among network genre shows, with a 4.7/7 average, down nearly 29 percent from the year before.

This year after seven episodes, “Heroes” is averaging a 3.6/5, more than 23 percent off from last year, and 45 percent off its pace from the second season. It’s currently averaging as NBC’s lowest-rated outing on Monday behind the 3.7/6 average of the now-canceled “Trauma” and the 4.4/7 of “The Jay Leno Show.”

Of course, in the “Jay Leno” instance, his numbers were artificially boosted by an 11.0/18 premiere the week before the fourth season of “Heroes” started, and fell to a 3.8/6 the following week, and has hovered just above the 3.0 household rating mark ever since.

“Heroes” might not be the only one saying good-bye this season. With NBC looking for a firm finish in fourth place among all the networks once again, the new guard coming in is looking to really change things up, including possibly a completely revamped lineup that could include the reduction of hours devoted to “Jay Leno.”

According to this source, “Heroes” is just not part of that mode.

“To keep a show like this going despite its numbers requires some nostalgic connection to it, and while there are a lot of people here who were part of bringing ‘Heroes’ to the air, they are not in the decision-making capacities,” the source said.

One thing to stress, however, is that no final decision has been made yet, and likely won’t be made until closer to mid-season. The source was not even clear if a wrap-up directive had been issued to “Heroes” quite yet. If it hasn’t, it will.

“I don’t think this should surprise anybody,” the source said. “The writing has been on the wall for some time.”

None of this has been confirmed by NBC quite yet, and should be treated as any rumor would.

Hayden Panettiere may seem like she’s the perfect package, but that’s not the image she’s trying to get across. Yes, she plays the cute cheerleader on Heroes, and always looks great when she’s photographed, but Hayden insists that she has her flaws just like the rest of us.

“Look, I never pretend to be perfect. I will never in a million years say I’m perfect and don’t make mistakes or do silly things or what people would consider inappropriate, of course I do,” the Heroes hottie told Hollyscoop exclusively at the Whaleman Foundation event at Beso in Hollywood. She added, “I am not perfect and I did not stand up on a podium saying, ‘Vote for me! I want to be your role model!’ It’s very flattering and its wonderful to be involved in something where younger kids and adults want to look up to me, slash know what I’m doing everyday and have that inspired them to do something whether it be the ocean or anything else. It’s exciting and flattering, but I would never want anyone to hold me to that standard, to hold me to being perfect or flawless in any way because I definitely have my flaws.”

Hayden definitely has her act together when it comes to maturity. She is only 20-years old and she has such a successful career and spends her free time helping the environment. She was also sweet enough to give us some tips on what we can do to help the environment, which is something very important to her.

Hayden told Hollyscoop:

“Well, first of all its about helping the whole planet; with conserving electricity and all of the above. Its also things such as talking to your friends about going diving or going online to research things. I grew up in NY on the Hudson River, we never went diving or scuba diving so I did not know a lot about oceans until I got involved with this; until I saw what an incredible and beautiful place it is. You can’t truly devote yourself until you see it. When you are walking down a dirty street you won’t think twice about throwing a gum wrapper on the floor, you think ‘What is this one gum wrapper going to do its already dirty’; but if you walk down a clean street you will think twice about it. So we want people to know and realize that they can make an impact.”

We love all the tips from Hayden! Not only is she a style icon, but she’s a great role model when it comes to doing your part to clean up the planet. That may not be perfect, but it’s pretty darn close!