Cliffhangers, cagey characters and super abilities all power the plot of NBC's "Heroes," which airs a marathon of reruns tonight (8 to 11 p.m.) before a new episode debuts tomorrow at 9 p.m.

In a recent teleconference with reporters, executive producer Tim Kring said there's a simple reason every episode ends with a cliffhanger.

		Related coverage We do need another hero: NBC's 'Heroes' Q&A with Masi Oka

"The pilot sort of dictated it because we were introducing so many characters," he said. "It sort of dictated that we had to come back to that."

That also resulted in a smattering of seemingly disparate stories. Kring said he's keeping the cliffhangers, but the stories are beginning to coalesce.

"If you sort of look at it as kind of funnel, it starts wide and starts to narrow. And as we get to know these characters and invest in them more, we're able to sort of drop one, you know, each episode or drop a couple each episode and focus on less and less stories. Also, as these characters start to cross paths, you no longer have to tell eight stories or four stories or three stories."

Kring cited "The Incredibles" and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" as inspirations for "Heroes." But clearly there was another TV show's success that helped get "Heroes" on the air.

"Without 'Lost,' this would not have been made, without a doubt," said Masi Oka, the show's Japanese-speaking, subtitled-in-English Hiro. "Having diverse characters, having a character who doesn't speak English" is something "Heroes" can do because "Lost" had success in these realms first.

Unlike "Lost," which some fans complain takes too long to tell it's stories, "Heroes" has offered surprising plot turns weekly.

"The big complaint with a lot of larger saga shows is that people get frustrated that they have to go two and three and four episodes at a time where not much happens," Kring acknowledged. "We set out to do a show where we were going to make a different kind of pact with the audience, that if you watch our show, something is actually going to happen each week."

Something like the end of last week's episode that featured a future version of Hiro -- looking less geeky and speaking perfect English -- traveling back in time to deliver a message to Nathan Petrelli's brother, Peter (Milo Ventimiglia).

While Hiro has been the show's breakout character, others have also made an impression, including Niki Sanders (Alia Larter), a single mom/Las Vegas stripper whose mirror image doesn't do exactly what Niki does.

"For me, it wasn't about what kind of power she was getting, it was just about her dealing with her life and wondering if she's going crazy and what's happening to her," Larter said. "Where we're leading to is that there's going to be duality within my personality. So there's one side that has to conform to society's roles and laws and the shadow side that can actually live out the dark fantasies that are repressed within all of us."

Kring said test audiences, especially women, responded favorably to the Niki character.

"One of the things that has really popped for people, especially with women, is this kind of strong female character that Ali is playing," he said. "A lot of that is the sexuality of this character that I think women can really relate to, especially women who are mothers. The idea that this is a mother who can actually own her sexuality is a very powerful thing for women."

Kring said he gave Niki the powers she has because they stem from her personality.

"In the character of Niki, she was a single mother who is stretched as thin as could be and I thought, wouldn't it be interesting to have a character with the ability to literally be in two places at one time," he said. "And I chose most of the powers as a reflection of what the characters were feeling or going through."

Regarding the show's future, Kring said he has general ideas on the story for the second season (the first season appears to be pretty solidly structured), but there's no great "Babylon 5"-like five-year plan.

"We have not posited a conclusion," he said. "We're not saying there is an island to get off of or a timeframe to stop the show. So it allows us to kind of keep generating and spinning it wherever we want to go. ... The pilot sort of presented a prophecy that we will take this entire season to deal with. The second season, there will be something else that will be presented that must be turned around or stopped by our heroes."