The first problems emerged with the second season that was crippled by the writers’ strike and stories that were too melodramatic (the Hiro love story) or stupid (the virus thingie). Even though the last few episodes of that season picked up the pace and the writing quality the momentum was not kept. The third season may be interesting but the convoluted plot, the over-reliance on time travel as a plot device and overly idiotic decisions from key characters has contributed to the show’s bad ratings.

Creator Tim Kring may be doing damage control by firing Jeph Loeb (yep, the comicbook writer) and Jesse Alexander as producers and a promise that the show will be retooled. But the damage looks like it has been done already. The planned Heroes game by Ubisoft has now been canceled partly owing to the bad showing in ratings.

It looks like it will take a superhuman effort to salvage Heroes.

I’m not writing Heroes off yet though. Based on the strength of the two-hour episode, this season could prove to be very exciting especially if the Heroes people manage to avoid the pitfalls they got caught in for the second season arc. The tantalizing look at how Villains will play through the season is a great teaser and I can’t wait what the Level 5 inmates will actually do.

And that cliffhanger ending with Sylar and Peter’s mom? Classic!