Broken Frontier

The Hollywood Reporter has caught word that the next season of Heroes, the NBC show's second, will see the addition of a minimum four new cast members.

NBC's "Heroes," which wrapped its freshman season with an explosive finale Monday, is rumored to be introducing at least four new, mostly international, characters next season, among them a sexy boyfriend for everyone's favorite cheerleader, Claire (Hayden Panettiere).

Also potentially joining the cast of characters on "Heroes" next season are a 28-year-old black mother, a surrogate for Niki's (Ali Larter) son, an Irish mobster and a twentysomething Latina. It is believed that most of these characters will only do arcs on the show rather than become regulars.

In other Heroes news, the BBC has reportedly paid  around £400,000 an episode for the rights to the second season. What makes the news all the more remarkable is that the network still has to air the first one (scheduled for summer).

The new deal is rumored to represent a five-fold increase compared to what the BBC laid down for the Season One episodes. The BBC won the bidding war over the Sci Fi Channel, which had first-run broadcasting rights to season one. Season two will now air on both BBC2 and digital channel BBC Three starting in 2008.