Nichelle Nichols Joins Heroes, James Kyson Lee as Sulu?, Cast Hosts Heroes Re-Runs

Here are some Heroes news that I didn’t get to post because my DSL was on the fritz (i.e. it didn’t work) for the last week and change. First up is (pretty old) news that Star Trek alum Nichelle Nichols is scheduled for a recurring role on the second season of Heroes, according to TrekMovie. Nichols recently confirmed to TrekMovie that she will have a recurring role in the show, but wouldn’t give anymore details. This makes Nichols the third ex-Trek castmember to show up on Heroes, including George Takei and recently, Dominic Keating.

Continuing the Heroes-Trek connection, James Kyson Lee has mentioned that he wants to play the role of young Sulu in the upcoming J.J. Abrams Star Trek 11 movie. Apparently James is taking a page out of Heroes co-star Zachary Quinto’s playbook; after mentioning a year ago that he wanted to play young Spock, Quinto was able to get an audition with Abrams, and soon landed the role. More about James’ Sulu ambitions from IESB:

As we spoke with James, he said he would love to play the role of Hikaru Sulu that was made legendary by actor George Takei. At first I thought that he was kidding a bit, but by the end of the interview, it appears that he was quite serious about trying to reach out the Abrams camp.

If you’ve been tuning in to Heroes starting Monday, you may have noticed that the cast of the show are hosting their “favorite” Heroes episodes leading up to the Season 2 premiere on September 24. This started with the August 13th episode on Monday, which was hosted by Ali Larter and Adrian Pasdar. For a full list of who will be hosting which episode and when, head over to Televisionista. Here’s a truncated list:

Monday, August 20: Hayden Panettiere (”Claire Bennet”) and Milo Ventimiglia (”Peter Petrelli”) host “Homecoming” (#1.09),

Monday, August 27: Masi Oka (”Hiro Nakamura”) and James Kyson Lee (”Ando Masahashi”) host “Six Months Ago” (#1.10),

Monday, Sept. 3: Jack Coleman (”H.R.G.”) and Greg Grunberg (”Matt Parkman”) host “Company Man” (#1.17) and

Monday, Sept. 10: Sendhil Ramamurthy (”Dr. Mohinder Suresh”) and Zachary Quinto (”Sylar”) host “Parasite” (#1.18).