In case you've missed our coverage of No Heroics before, it's a fun British sitcom about a group of loser superheroes who hang out in a bar. There's Electroclash, who can control machines and has impulse-control issues. The Hotness can generate heat, but is a bit of a washout. The good-natured but simple-minded She-Force is always searching for love, with dire results. And the gay superhero, TimeBomb, can see 30 seconds into the future... which usually reveals that he'll be having sex in the men's room. They're all jealous of Excelsor, who's the only A-list superhero in their watering hole, and is basically what Superman would be like if he was real: a total dick, in other words.

According to Pearce, the show actually filmed a U.S. pilot:

Oh yes, a pilot was shot. And it turned out really well, except for the whole "not getting picked up" part.

At the same time, he definitely leaves open the possibility that the show could be shopped around to other U.S. networks.

So why didn't ABC pick up the pilot after ordering it in the first place? Pearce says it was just a matter of timing:

I don't actually think anything went wrong as such. I will say that it's probably not the best year to do a massive, cool, edgy, expensive single-camera genre-based network-comedy without huge starpower on a major American network. Kind of obvious, but true.

He says the U.S. version would have worked pretty similarly to the British incarnation, with a group of superheroes hanging out in a bar and trying to get on television. But it would have had a slightly larger scale and "less gay blowjobs." The American version would have had even more "geek detail" than the original, with more cool references, and there would have been little strands connecting the American bar and the British pub. In other words, both shows would have taken place in the same, shared, universe.

So when can we expect to see season two of the British version? Says Pearce:

That's still up in the air. Hopefully we'll shoot it very soon. Turns out the ultimate nemesis a modern cape can face is the global economic downturn. Wait: somebody should make a comedy about that! Second-tier superheroes who can't get any work so they take sit around a pub talking about their crappy lives? That sounds awesome! All I need is a name, a group of characters and some extremely dirty jokes...

Here's hoping ITV commissions a second series of the UK No Heroics, so we can see if She-Force ever meets a guy who's not half fish. And it sounds like there's still a possibility that the U.S. version could find a home — maybe on Comedy Central? It would be better than more Reno 911.

Ahearne told British entertainment paper The Stage that he plans to do a more classic interpretation of the superhero genre than is currently on British television:

“It is a new and original superhero idea which is not a send-up. All the super hero stuff that is on TV in this country - ITV’s No Heroics, My Hero - British TV is happy to do if it is a send-up, but no one has done it for real. There is a particular gimmick in mine, which I won’t give away, but it means it will be refreshed every episode,” he revealed.

But the show won’t be a superpowered soap opera, either. Instead, each episode will follow the story of a single individual from beginning to end. And honestly, after the many and meandering plotlines of this season’s Heroes, a superhero anthology sounds like a breath of fresh air. And if Ahearne can bring the same sort of sensibilities to superheroes that he brought to vampires in the Ultraviolet miniseries, we could be in for something special.

BBC1 plans Marvel comic-inspired superhero series [The Stage via Coventry Telegraph]

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io9: No Heroics isn't your average British sitcom, because of the "sit" part: Superheroes seem, probably due to their origins, much more of an American concept than a European one - Was that something that was in your mind
when creating the show? Something that could mix what you loved about the genre with a certain level of "This is what we Brits would do with them"?

Drew Pearce: That was absolutely part of the starting point. There's something so un-british about superheroism. There's a certain self-confidence that has to come with the job, and a bit of show-off-ery. That's why, in many ways, Excelsor (the arrogant, awful but very successful nemesis to our b-list capes) is representing - what a Superman or Supreme would really be like if they were British. Which is to say a bit posh, a bity of a city boy, and perhaps a bit of a wanker. Having said that, there's enough of a British tradition at marvel especially that I think it still sits in a superhero universe. It's just that there's always a sense that the big boys of the superscene are always going to be on the opposite side of the Atlantic from our gang.

And, of course, on some levels the show isn't about superheroes - it's a comedy about a group of mates first and foremost, and maybe also a show about the wanton fame-lust that has taken hold of the world in the last ten years. But I'd be lying if I said, as a comic book reader of 20-odd years, that the idea of creating your own superhero universe to play those ideas through wasn't massively exciting. Plus I got to help design our very own pub. I mean, it's kind of the best job in the world.

Your talking about the show not really being about the superpowers and costumes, but instead the relationships reminded me of the writers of Red Dwarf saying similar things about that show being essentially Steptoe and Son in spaceman drag - No Heroics is, at its heart, a sitcom about people that just so happens to have "superheroes" as the "sit" part of the equation. Are you worried that audiences - or more likely, critics - are going to focus on the superheroics to the point where they miss what the show's REALLY about?
 
Well, I think different audiences come to the show with different expectations, and you can’t really pander to everyone. I just try to strike a balance between the “realities” of their personal lives and their working lives as capes, and make it as funny as possible. No Heroics is about loads of things all at once - friendship, fame, failure, fucking (all the “f”s) - but it IS also about being a superhero, and I’d hate to shortchange that aspect, even though it’s the “real” lives of the characters that I’m most attracted to. I do think the best sitcoms get funnier the more you get to know the characters, and as that happens, the “sit” aspect fades a bit into the background, whilst hopefully still providing you with enough jokes to be useful. But they’re all important parts of the equation.
Was the show a hard-sell to broadcasters? I think that superheroes are ripe for this kind of affectionate parody, but I'm guessing that there may have been some pushback in terms of budget?

It wasn't too hard a sell - it does, for once in a comedy, have a one-line high-concept pitch at it's heart : off-duty superheroes in a pub. having said that, a high concept can work against  you in comedy, and a lot of the scepticism upfront was about whether the idea can sustain. What people don't know till they see the show is that the jokes come more from character and situation than superheroism. But hopefully people will spot that as the series progresses. Or they won't.

Admit it - You pitched it as Heroes meets Coupling, didn't you?

No! Heroes wasn't even OUT when I pitched No Heroics three years ago! I swear to god when it came out, I was thinking "Oh crap. Either it'll do well and there won't be any point in us doing this, or it'll do badly and that'll hurt our chances". As it turned out, it's now just an important part of the bigger superhero landscape we're finding ourselves in. Though here's a No Heroics / Heroes Funfact: on the shoot, I nearly got crew t-shirts made up that said "Fuck The Cheerleeader - Let's Go To The Pub". But even I am not quite that immature.

How many times when pitching did you have to say the words "No, it'll be nothing like My Hero. I promise"?

Oh, not many. Maybe, you know, every single day of my life for the last two years? Roughly. I mean, basically people will always compare you with something that came before. And that's fine. Mainstream press will compare the show to My Hero. Film-ier press will compare it to Hancock or Mystery Men. Geek press will usually bring up the live-action Tick, or maybe The Specials if they're going deep. And comics people will chuck anything from Top Ten or GLA to Hero Happy Hour at it. And I'm happy to say I've seen most of those things, and what we're doing is different. We may share common concepts, but our approach is pretty much the opposite to most of the above. Though I do love the GLA. There, I said it.

The GLA? Somewhere, Dan Slott is beaming with satisfaction. Does this mean you're checking out his Amazing Spider-Man? What's on your imaginary bedside table superhero reading stack?
 
I actually love Dan’s stuff. The first 12 or so issues of She-Hulk were fucking unbelievable - probably, for my money, the funniest comicbook writing of the last ten years, and so smart to boot. (Though they lost me when Shulkie heads for space. I’m generally a little grumpy when superheroes get mixed up with either space or magic. It goes against my OCD-ness). I’ve browsed the new Spiderman stuff but not got into it yet, just cos Spiderman feels a little played out for me. I know, I know, that’s the point of the reboot. But he kind of works best for me right now as a background “quipper”, like in the big scenes of Civil War.
 
My imaginary bedside table is not even imaginary – it’s a pile of trade paperbacks and books with a lamp on top. Right now, I’m enjoying the reissue of the Justice League International stuff, which is way ahead of its time and yes, very similar in tone to No Heroics. On a similar note, the American Flagg reissues are lovely and indispensible. I adored the end of Y: The Last Man, and welled up accordingly. (Oh yeah – I cry at comics. I’m man enough to admit it.) Runaways was ace. For the splattery-superhero part of my brain Kick-Ass and particularly The Boys are getting me jazzed. Plus I love DMZ. That’s off the top of my head – I know I’m missing out favourites left, right and centre here…
So does this show represent some subconscious desire to be writing for Marvel or DC? (And if so, what do you secretly want to write?)

I don't *think* that's why i did it, but that's the pesky thing about the subconsious, isn't it? Though I'd have to be mental to say no if marvel or DC asked. But I write tv, and hopefully someday films, and those are what I want to make and direct. And there are already an awful lot of very, very talented comics creators and writers, so I wouldn't want to tread on anyone's toes, plus I'm not arrogant enough to think that I could. Having SAID that, if I got the chance? I'd love to have a go at Cloak And Dagger in the Marvel u. I like peripheral characters and those guys fascinate me. And in DC, I'd probably have to write something from a supervillain's perspective. As for film, there are two Marvel properties that I think, particularly as the universe gets nailed down onscreen, I'd love to see - and I'm sure they're both happening, somewhere. One is Runaways - I love BKV, and it's just so obviously, brilliantly a John-Hughes-In-The-Marvel-Universe dream of a movie. And the other end of the spectrum is Bendis' Alias. I want to see a proper, lowish budget, gumshoe movie set in the arse-end of Marvel-land with that brilliant female character front-and-centre.

Maybe I'm biased, but the best sitcoms tend to know when to get offstage - but a lot of successful genre television gathers so many hardcore fans that that becomes increasingly difficult. What're your feelings on a kind of Red Dwarf level of fanbase for No Heroics that'd see you celebrating the 20th anniversary of the show with a new special episode?

I completely agree - there's something about great sitcoms, in the UK at least, that gets out before the shows get lame. And I like that - characters you adore, unspoiled and observed for jsut a section of the life you know they're going to lead. But man, if No Heroics gathers that rabid a fanbase, it will be, as an American friend of mine calls things, "a high-class problem" to deal with. Though I saw my first bit of Don (Timebomb) fan-fic today and it was definitely a great moment. In the last couple of weeks, with the show out there in the world, you suddenly realise that you've built this universe, but that it's a lot of fun to watch other people play in it.

When you see fanfic, does part of you just think "Oh, fuck. That's a great idea. I want to steal that," or is it all "Well, Excelsior would never fuck She-Force while Batman watched and masturbated"?
 
Well, there is always a part of a writer’s snake-brain that goes “this had better not actually be better than what I’d write”. But mostly, I actually kind of enjoy the fan fic. It’s like watching your kids grow up, leave home, then have filthy sexual encounters with fictional characters. And who wouldn’t want that for their children?
 
Having said that, one bit of fan fic I got sent last week was a BIT creepy. It was an actual transcription of sexy online roleplay, where two real people made each others balls fizzy by “flirting” as two No Heroics characters. And it was quite heavy “flirting”, if you take my meaning. But each to their own, and obviously, that’ll end up in some future episode of the show…
 Kind of almost along similar lines, what are the ideas that you're unable to do on the show, because of budget or decency? Well, maybe not decency if you're about to write in characters having cybersex, but you know what I mean. Are they all going to end up in the inevitable tie-in graphic novel? Because, come on. You're going to do a tie-in graphic novel, right?
 
I’d love to do a graphic novel to tie in. There are billions of ideas for what that might be. And we’re talking to lots of people about them – because above all else, they have to be funny and properly cool and not just some crappy “brand extension”. Unless that’s the point of them, which would fit snugly into a No Heroics episode (The Hotness would KILL to have a comic, however shit it was) but that would be rather annoying if you’d paid money for the actual comic.
 
And I will say this - I really want to write a Timebomb comic so the world can see how badass he used to be, before he retired. Because believe me, that guy, when he worked in black ops? Dark as fuck.
 
Okay, last and most important question for the majority of io9 readers: No Heroics is an indie production for ITV, which doesn't make it IMPOSSIBLE to show up on BBC America over here, but maybe unlikely... Has there been any talk about US transmission or DVD release...?
 
Well, interestingly enough, the show has just been signed up by BBC Worldwide for distribution. So it’s not IMPOSSIBLE that it might end up showing in the states, and other companies. But I just make these things - I don’t know how all the complicated legal stuff works…

I won't spoil for you exactly how the Hotness' strip-club jaunt turns out, except to say that it turns out those spiky stripper heels are really painful when applied to your soft bits. (And the Hotness is a bit soft all over, really.) Halfway through the show's first season, it's pretty clear that No Heroics gets better the raunchier it gets. The second episode's highlights were pure raunch, especially the bit where Timebomb got a furtive blowjob in the bar's bathroom. And She Force meeting her biggest fan — who has a life-size cardboard stand-up of her with a "peep hole" cut in the crotch area. The show is pitched as a sort of Cheers with superheroes, but it really shines as a superhero sex farce.

The rest of episode three is hilarious, but not quite as insane as the strip-club hijinks: Electroclash has to mentor a superpowered juvenile delinquent, who helps her score drugs. And She Force meets a sexy new man, who is just as too-good-to-be-true as you'd expect. It's all pretty great stuff, but the strip club sequences, and the clever satire on the "superhero bad boy" phenomenon, are the high points.

Most superhero movies these days are absurdly focused on the hero's personal struggle, to do the right thing or vanquish a bad guy who used to be the hero's friend or whatever. The costumes and powers are secondary to the heroic travails. But No Heroics is probably way closer to the reality of superhero life: it's really all about the costumes and the glitz and the fame, and it's a huge status chase. The heroes hang out in their bar and compete to see who gets on television the most (there's a giant chalkboard), and the Excelsor (the super-dick whose image is tattooed on Vicci the groupie's thigh) rules the roost, torturing everyone else along with his snickering clique of sycophants. The whole thing reminds me of Warren Ellis' Nextwave mixed with Giffen and Dematteis' Justice League. With a healthy dose of Tom Sharpe, especially Wilt.

Probably the funniest bit, apart from the clip above, is the part where the super-strong She-Force is beating up a bobble-head supervillain while getting dumped over the phone. The supervillain keeps giving her advice: "You sound needy! You shouldn't have put out." And then it turns out that She-Force's date with this guy consisted of "pizza and a handjob." And yes, almost all the humor in No Heroics is on the level of teen sex comedy jokes, which totally works for me, especially when it's mixed with career angst on the part of a group of D-grade superhero wannabes.

The natural temptation, with a comedy about superheroes who hang out in between saving the world, would be to create a bitchy ensemble of heroes who hate each others' guts. But show creator Drew Pearce says he's going the opposite way, creating a comedy about characters who actually like each other and using actors who are friends offscreen:

Two kinds of sitcom stick out in my mind. You have the one that makes you cringe and keep watching because you can't believe how awful the person at the core of it is; and there's the one where you want to come back and hang out with that group of people again. You need that when you are watching week after week.

Instead of the Central Perk coffee shop, the characters in No Heroics hang out in the Fortress, the heroes' social club/bar where they go to unwind. The walls are lined with the unfulfilled dreams of past heroes, but there's also a sense of cameraderie to go with the snarkiness.

Hero characters include Alex aka The Hotness, who can generate heat with his hands (and use it to microwave his lunch) and Don aka Timebomb, a gay Spanish retired superhero who can see 60 seconds into the future. Then there's the "rotund" Jenny aka She-Force, who always picks the wrong guy to date. And Devin aka Excelsior, who's at the top of the superhero pecking order and very smug about it. All of the characters are constantly jostling for attention and fame.

Most encouragingly, Pearce says he's going to avoid any excessive campiness:

Superhero comedy is seldom, if ever, well done in live action. The best superhero comedy is The Incredibles, and that's a cartoon. There have been some good attempts, such as Larry Charles's The Tick and Ben Stiller's Mystery Men, and a film called The Specials. All had good ideas but fell at the campness hurdle. I was interested in a British take on superheroes, and I think that take was to undercut it and hang out with the unfulfilled of that world; to exercise a kind of 'judo logic', where their weaknesses are actually their strengths.

[The Independent]