adrian pasdar

(S04E03) Let's talk candidly. After all, it looks like you and I are the only ones left watching this show. Remember the good old days when Heroes was the top-rated show on NBC and all the talk at the proverbial water coolers? It feels like it was only three years ago.

It's a shame that it looks like this ratings erosion is a permanent one, as tonight was a good installment. Unless things turn around immediately, it's a pretty safe bet this will be the last volume of Heroes. They need to sneak in some stunt casting or film a live episode or whore the stars out to all the talk shows relentlessly if they want to save the show. If they want to.

(S04E02) Things are definitely getting interesting again. I'm glad Heroes went with a two-hour premiere, because it wasn't until the end of this hour that we had enough to really grab our attention again. As expected, Samuel Sullivan and the Sullivan Brothers Carnival are right at the heart of the mystery right now.

There's another mystery brewing at Claire's college. Or maybe there isn't. Could what happened with Annie be as straightforward as everyone seems to want us to believe? But now that's the least of Claire's problems, due to her little impromptu experiment.

This episode focused primarily on four main storylines, and it progressed very smoothly for it. It wasn't too confusing, and I came out if it with a sense of confidence that there's a plan for the season. I'm still not sure if it's accessible enough for new viewers, but you never know. Maybe people are smarter than I give them credit for.

(S04E01) Volume Five - "Redemption"

A new volume and new faces ... on the show, that is. At this point, I think it's a bit of a pipe dream by NBC to think they can nab new viewers. And as much as I was hoping they'd make this as accessible as possible, things are still pretty hopelessly complex. The situation with Nathan/Sylar alone is enough to make any new viewer change the channel. Maybe see how House is coping with life in the asylum.

On the other hand, Robert Knepper has joined the cast as Samuel, the leader of the Sullivan Brothers Carnival, and I couldn't be more excited. No matter how ridiculous Prison Break got over four years, Knepper was just deliciously villainous as T-Bag. And he's just as enigmatic on camera here.

Tonight's premiere is a two-hour extravaganza, including the first two episodes of the new season. Look for my review of the second hour in a separate post.

Remember when Heroes was about ordinary people with extraordinary abilities? Well, after the last few seasons of time travel, daddy issues and government interference, Tim Kring and the team are taking Heroes back to basics. They'll have regular jobs an regular lives. In other words, they remembered why we liked the show in that first season, so they're trying to recapture lighting.

So you've got our cast trying to live regular lives after all the excitement they've been through. Add in a traveling carnival with an earth-moving leader luring other people with abilities into his troupe and you have the premise for at least the start of the season.

Oh, and that lesbian-esque relationship between Claire and her new college roommate we've been hearing about. Well, have to get buzz somehow, right? And make Claire interesting. Nothing else worked so let's try girl-on-girl action.

Star Trek's new Spock isn't ready to abandon TV just yet. Zachary Quinto is slated to return for season four of Heroes.

We're still not sure if Quinto will return as a full cast member or a recurring player on the show, but he will be back.

Click through for minor spoilers for the next season of Heroes, plus major spoilers for last week's season finale (which is more than a week old so every Heroes fan on Earth should have watched it already!)

(S03E25) In my early look at this finale, I laid a pretty broad hint as to the major twist at the end of this volume, and I was impressed with some of the deductive abilities of our readers. And the fact that one of you got it exactly right. Now that we've all seen the final cut of the closing chapter of the "Fugitives" volume of Heroes, we can really look back at it and see how we think things have gone.

What was needed was to wipe the slate clean, resolve as many of the dangling plot threads as possible, and establish a tabula rasa for "Volume Five." Or as much of one as we can this far into a series. After all, these last two volumes have left some pretty sour tastes in many mouths. The set up for interesting things to come next year was definitely well done. I'm more interested in what's going to happen in "Redemption" than I was excited about what happened in this finale.

After watching the penultimate episode of "Volume Four: Fugitives" on NBC's Heroes last week, I have to say I was pleasantly surprised when a dashing young man in a FedEx uniform delivered a surprise package to my doorstep later in the week. Inside was a rough cut of "An Invisible Thread," the season finale of Heroes. Now this wasn't nearly as rough as the X-Men Origins: Wolverine debacle floating around the interwebs, but neither was it the completely polished version we'll see this upcoming Monday at 9:00 PM ET.

Overall, I found myself a little disappointed as I've been with every volume finale we've had since the very beginning. And admittedly, I might just be wanting something a little bit more than what we're able to get here. As for deaths and new beginnings, those we do get. I'll tell you this: one person who I felt certain was going to die didn't. One person who I thought as a possibility to die did ... but sort of didn't. But really did. The only hint I'll give you is Marvel's first Exiles series.

The other night, Band From TV gave a concert to raise money for autism research. The band features Greg Grunberg, James Denton, Adrian Pasdar, Hugh Laurie, Bob Guiney, and others. Of course, I'm assuming that's Pasdar. It could be Sylar. Not the best sound quality, but it's worth seeing (and there are more videos here). Take a look at who joins them on tambourine near the end.

So...is Heroes back? Is it as good as it used to be? Beyond repair? Has it always been good and people are just too picky? Seems like fans (and non-fans) of the show all have opinions.

So does Bryan Fuller. He came back to the show after ABC canceled Pushing Daisies, and while I have always liked the Heroes, you can tell that the show has turned a corner in the past couple of episodes. The pace isn't break-neck anymore, the time traveling stuff has calmed down, and the storytelling is tighter. Fuller is interviewed over at SciFiWire, and he talks about how he, as a fan, was frustrated with the way the show was going. He also drops a few spoilers for fans and explains his plans for what's in store for the last episodes of the season.

OK, OK, SPOILER ALERT!

There are still a bunch of episodes left in this third season of Heroes, but producers and writers are already working on the fourth season (the show was renewed by NBC for another season earlier this week). There isn't much being disclosed about specific plots or what is going to happen to specific characters or what characters are going to make it out alive from this third season (though I would assume The Hunter will be gone). But there is one big clue as to who won't be the major character that is going to die at the end of this season, and we'll discuss that a bit after the jump.

This isn't a real surprise (to me anyway), but NBC has confirmed that Heroes will indeed return for another season this fall.

There's been endless talk about how the quality of the show has declined since the first season, and viewer numbers have been dropping this past season, but it's still a good show that draws a core audience and NBC understands this. It still has a certain amount of buzz associated with it, and NBC needs to hold on to what loyal fans the network has, especially since we don't know what the hell is going to happen with NBC's schedule when Jay Leno takes over 10pm Monday through Friday.

By the way, the Day One show mentioned in the article linked above is a new drama from Jesse Alexander, one of the producers of Heroes who was let go this season. It's about a group of residents from an apartment complex who have to band together after some sort of catastrophe. It could air on Monday nights too.

(S01E18) Now that's how you do it. Heroes was founded on the idea of this multifarious cast running all over the place and getting into trouble. We skipped all around, checking in on everyone and the hours just seemed to fly by. After what was a slower outing last week, the adrenaline kicked back into high gear. Rebel made a return appearance, if by appearance I mean more text on various computer screens ... and that is what I mean? Is it Ma Petrelli? Nathan asked her that point blank tonight.

And poor Nathan. You kind of knew the Hunter was going to be a bit much for Nathan to control. After all, Nathan is wanting to round up those with abilities for their own good as well as for the good of mankind. He wants to protect them and the world at large. In a sense, he's doing a "good" thing, if only from his perspective. The Hunter, on the other hand, sees them as a threat that needs to be eliminated. They're dangerous, and after his close encounter last week he's gone and made it personal.

(S03E16) Spoiler Warning! The scene to the right happens in this episode. But don't worry, it doesn't really accomplish much ... for Tracy. It looks like the Justice League is forming under the tutelage of "Rebel." But who is he? We've got another Heroes mystery on our hand. You know, like the mystery of whether or not HRG is a good guy or a bad guy (that one will be addressed next week) and the mystery of who Sylar's father is. And if Claire will whine and bitch this week. Okay that last one isn't much of a mystery.

We went in three major directions tonight with the plot, skipping one group of "heroes" altogether, and surprisingly not missing them. First we had more drama in the Bennett household, complete with Claire rebelling against her father. It's nice to see that fifty episodes into the series, Claire's character has really grown and evolved into a mature young woman. The same goes for Hiro, who's gone from being an immature man-child with delusions of grandeur to an immature man-child with delusions of grandeur. Hmmm, doesn't sound as impressive when you put it like that.

(S03E15) The second chapter of the newest volume of Heroes wasn't quite as strong as the first one, but it kept things moving in a positive direction. I guess the writers were wanting to keep the fugitive heroes as weak in power base as possible, based on the casualty we experienced in this episode. In a way, I can say I knew it was coming, but was hopeful that it wouldn't. While I agree that the cast had gotten a little sprawling and out of control at times thorughout the series progression, I never thought this character was a problem.