I stayed with Heroes this season even though it got a little rough to do so - I felt I had invested a lot of time with these characters so I kept with it. Now I’m glad I did. The twist with Peter near the end was great. Didn’t see it coming, although they dropped enough clues along the way. Still very disappointed in the Claire storyline - if you can call being the tagalong-with-an-attitude a storyline - and what is up with the hair??? It’s like they’re writing her in just to keep her onscreen, which is a waste. But maybe that’s the token “chick” - since they killed off her mom, Tracy, Nikki, Micah’s cousin in New Orleans, Daphne…. and the reincarnations of Ali Larter are wearing thin, but I’ll hold final opinion until we see what this one is. I’m just glad there will be (hopefully) some kind of female balance to the mix other than petulantly bitter Claire and manipulative momma Angela. Bring on the Matt Parkmans!!

I am totally onboard for next season. This season really drug in places, but seeing Peter get back some power and getting away from the government hunting heroes and locking them away coupled with the suspense around what will become of Sylar is pretty intriguing. Excited to see where they take it next year and hopefully get some action back into it. Hope they get back to heroes fighting heroes and not legions of armed gunmen hunting down the heroes and locking them away.

They should not bring Ali Larter back again.

It will be interesting to see how they proceed with the current set up.

I enjoyed the first season of “Heroes” a lot, was disappointed in season two, and stuck with it this year in hopes of improvement, but I think I’m done now. Why did I dislike season three so much?

- None of the “Heroes” did anything very heroic this year, in terms of fighting villains, saving innocents, averting disasters, etc. If it’s supposed to be a show about superheroes, then let’s see them doing some superheroic stuff! The storyline basically spent the whole season crawling up its own backside, and the heroes aren’t very interesting when all they’re trying to do is save their own sorry hides.

- Inconsistent internal logic - One thing that really bugged me about this season was watching the characters’ powers change or disappear with explanations that were either incomplete, inconsistent, or illogical within the show’s supposedly established framework.

- The whole “government hunting the heroes” storyline was a hackneyed cliche that’s been done many times before in SF and comics, and in this case, it was badly executed to boot. Also, the character of Danko, as written, was a complete waste of the usually very competent character actor Zeljko Ivanek.

- It’s basically become the Petrelli/Bennett show at this point, with occasional glimpses of Hiro, Ando, and Parkman. After introducing too many new characters in season two, the show’s runners appear to have erred in the opposite direction, concentrating too much on a few played-out, not-very-interesting characters and not developing any good new ones at all.

- Sylar. Personally, I thought the character ran his course in season one, and I wish they’d left him dead then. Having an all-powerful villain whose abilities can change any time to suit the writer’s whims and/or get them out of whatever corner they’ve written themselves into this week makes for some bad storytelling, and Zachary Quinto’s hammy scenery-chewing just makes it worse.

He might be good playing Spock in the new Star Trek movie, but I’ve gotten really tired of him in “Heroes,” and the notion that - have I got this right now? - Parkman has mind-controlled a shape-shifted Sylar into thinking that he’s Nathan seems to be an extraordinarily flimsy and unpromising premise for season 4. The last thing I want to see at this point is lots more of Sylar and the Petrellis.

- Speaking of bad acting, I’ve got two more words for you: Milo Ventimiglia. The more I see of him, the less I want to see. (I didn’t like him at all in “Gilmore Girls,” either.)

- As commenter Meg mentions, most of the female characters seem to have been written out, and though I don’t miss Ali Larter’s split-personality act, the show is poorer for it. For example, I quite liked the girl - was she Micah’s cousin? - whose ability was learning any skill perfectly after seeing it once. Lots of cool storytelling potential there, completely wasted.

I could go on, but this comment is already way too long. Bryan Fuller seems like a talented guy, but at this point, I don’t think there’s a way to salvage the mess that “Heroes” has become. Too bad, but at least it was fun for a while.

Hmmmm. I thought this was season 4. Pretty sure they said volume 5 on the preview for next season. Just a thought.

But I agree with some of what you’re saying, Dean. The whole focus on the Petrelli/Bennett connection is tiresome, but you see why they did it - to get into Volume 5 with the “new” Company’s mission of “Redemption”.

I just wish they were not so obviously pandering to the 18-year-old male demographic by killing off every female character that isn’t a) a hottie, b) an 18-year-old hottie or c) a bitchy old chick you can transfer all of your mommy rage onto (because, let’s face it, Angela Petrelli is the kind of character who would instill a lot o’mommy rage in her kids.)

Meg, I may be mistaken about this, but while “Heroes” is heading into its fifth “volume,” without going to IMDB, I am pretty sure it has only been on the air since the fall of 2006, or three TV seasons, the second being the strike-shortened one.

IIRC, the third season consisted of _two_ volumes, volume 3 being the episodes that aired in fall of 2008, and volume 4 the set of winter/spring episodes just concluded. So now, what’s coming up in the fall of 2009 will be the fifth volume (or, as the Brits say, “series”) but only the fourth season.

One more thing that bugged me about the show this past year, and then I really am done: A character with Matt Parkman’s mental abilities ought to be one of the most formidable heroes of all, especially since he’s had a good bit of time to practice by now. (Hey, it’s basically the same power as Professor X’s in the X-Men, and he’s certainly no pushover, despite being in a wheelchair.)

Instead, Parkman has been written as an easily befuddled chump who seemingly can never think more than one step ahead. Too bad for Greg Grundberg; I’ve liked him ever since he played the stalwart sidekick Weiss on “Alias,” and I wish his “Heroes” character was given better stuff to do.