---
name: "Tim Kring"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/tim-kring"
roles: ["Creator","Writer"]
born: "9 July 1957"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 1
updated: "2026-09-16T22:48:48.498578+00:00"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Tim Kring

Creator and writer. Born 9 July 1957 in El Dorado County, California, USA.

## Details

- **Work:** Creator, Writer
- **Born:** 9 July 1957, El Dorado County, California, USA

## Fi1m on Tim Kring

> Tim Kring's television is about ordinary people discovering they can do the impossible, and about strangers acting on each other across the world. He is good at the discovery and less good at what follows; the first series of *Heroes* is his case for the defence.

The Tim Kring scene is somebody ordinary finding out they can do something impossible, and not yet knowing what it is for. In the first series of *Heroes* (2006) he gives that moment room. Nobody rushes to explain the abilities; the writing lets its characters be curious, frightened and a little pleased with themselves before the plot arrives with a world to save. It moved us more than a superhero drama has any right to, because the wonder is played straight and because the people are allowed to be interesting before they are useful.

He came to it late and sideways. Kring worked as a grip and a gaffer before selling an episode of *Knight Rider* in 1985, wrote for *Chicago Hope*, and created *Strange World* (1999) and then *Crossing Jordan* (2001–2007), a procedural that ran six series and taught him how to keep a large cast going for years. *Heroes* (2006–2010) made his name. What followed, *Touch* (2012–2013), *Dig* (2015), the *Heroes Reborn* miniseries (2015) and *Treadstone* (2019), kept returning to his one abiding idea, that people on opposite sides of the world are acting on each other without knowing it. "I believe the emerging story of our time is that we are more connected than we thought we were," he said of *Touch*, and it is the thesis of nearly everything he has made.

The trouble is that connection, on Kring's scale, needs a great deal of plot. *Heroes* opens with a cast scattered across countries and a mythic shape to gather them into, and for a year the gathering is the pleasure. Then the threads must keep crossing, and the later series grow more complicated without growing richer, which is the criticism that has followed him since and the reason our recommendation stops at the first run. He is better at introducing people than at knowing what to do with them once they have met. Jeph Loeb wrote and produced alongside him on two of his shows, and *Touch* tried the same idea in a gentler, more procedural key, with a happier ending each week.

Kring has said he never thought of himself as a science fiction writer, and you can see it. The abilities in *Heroes* are ordinary people's problems first, which is why the opening works. The mythology is where the writing runs out, which is why the rest does not. A new *Heroes* was announced in 2024. Our advice to him is what we would give anyone who loved the original: stop at the end of the first year, while everyone is still finding out what they can do.

## Biography

Tim Kring is an American screenwriter and television producer. He graduated from the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts in 1983 and began his writing career with an episode of the series *Knight Rider* in 1985. He later contributed to series including *Chicago Hope* and co-wrote the screenplay for the film *Teen Wolf Too* (1987).

Kring created and served as executive producer on the NBC series *Crossing Jordan* (2001–2007) and *Heroes* (2006–2010). He returned as creator for the miniseries *Heroes Reborn* (2015) and created the Fox series *Touch* (2012–2013). He has also written for *Dig* (2015) and developed *Treadstone* (2019).

*Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.*

## On Fi1m (1)

- *Heroes* (2006), Fi1m 68, Creator, Writer — [page](https://film.one/tv/heroes.md)

## Also known for

- *Knight Rider* (1982), Writer
- *Heroes Reborn* (2015), Writer
- *Touch* (2012), Writer
- *Treadstone* (2019), Teleplay, Writer
- *Teen Wolf Too* (1987), Screenplay
- *Crossing Jordan* (2001), Writer, Teleplay, Story
- *Dig* (2015), Writer
- *Chicago Hope* (1994), Writer

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© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/tim-kring