All in all, I think I dislike the volume about as much as I dislike volume II. In fact, I think I might like volume II better because for all of its flaws, the characters made more sensible decisions.

The decision to make Nathan a bad guy is so ridiculous and out of his weakly established character. Let's get this straight, he starts off this season thinking God wants him to be an angel and now has turned into the big bad douchebag. WTF are the creative minds behind this show thinking.

I would love to see this series get back to what made it interesting the first season. It was clear then that these were ordinary people who had jobs and school adapting to a remarkable change in their lives.

How do any of these people have money for food because god knows I haven't seen any of them doing anything that would merit a paycheck for two volumes?!

Thankfully, the previews for Lost look awesome and no matter what happens to Heroes, we'll have the better written show regarding a cast of characters who all have daddy issues.

Well, I'm on the other side of the fence this time, Pete. I must say I've missed much of this season; well, missed as in the physical "I didn't actually view the episodes", not missed as in "I am sad for not actually viewing the episodes." But I thought this wrap to Volume III was entertaining.

Frankly, I've stopped trying to make sense of the show. Cheap, very cheap, that Peter can epi-pen powers. Cheap, very cheap, that Ando has to have some superpower to rate. Cheap, very cheap, that Mohinder has powers to rate, but is largely flying on his own (does not play well with others?)

See, Heroes has indeed lost its way. It isn't about power fights, cartoon characters and meaningless deaths. I think, fairly, if you were to poll favourite characters from the series, HRG is right up there if not at the top. How many super powers has he had? Oh right. None. Ando was fun like that too, but now he's just "backup buddy", or "superpower sidekick". Cheap, sad, lame.

Where are the cops? Where is society? These characters have worked in a superpowered vacuum for two years now. Nikki was an interesting character because of her relationships to Micha, D.L. and others like Peter. Tracy has been in a vacuum all season. Matt has been interesting because of his relationship with his wife, and Molly, and where were they this season? Mohinder was interesting, yes, remember it well, because of Eden and his father, and the whole link to his story. Again, we've seen him in isolation and it's not pretty.

Anyhow, back to this episode. It was obviously written first. I mean, the Volume was written with this end in mind. It did end well. Story lines were sewn up and it's a nice package at the end. The carnage, of course, is catastrophic. So many dead Heroes. I guess I'm most glad at dead Adam; his blood was going to be the curse of it all. But there is hope.

Hope that this series gets back to its roots. The government hunting them down and locking them up? Well, okay. At least there's a big bad enemy for them all. The black president thing isn't quite in synch with the kinder, gentler man who is about to take office, but whatever.

Long and short of it? C'mon, folks. We'll take a "holy shit" moment realizing that somehow these strangers paths have crossed over yet another superpower duke-out anyday. Write to this. Write to the marvel, the mystery and the intrigue of EVERYDAY with a big of the mystical in there.

I have hope. I have a dream....

I wasn't that thrilled with this episode (not that I was expecting it to be good anyway). Most of my complaints are ones that I've said before, I'll only list some small moments I wanted to comment on:

1. Echo's cameo. What a waste of time, not to mention that anyone who didn't watch the webisodes had absolutely no clue who he was (and don't know that he had the power that the writer's ripped off for Jesse). So to them he was just some random guy. I'm pissed that they had a webseries dedicated to him to build up his story, and then had it go nowhere (not that the webseries was any good anyway ).

2. Tracy calling Hiro Pikachu. Was this necessary? Earlier in the season we already heard Daphne use the same exact nickname (I guess the writer's got bored with Sulu). Not to mention that it is very unrealistic, let alone offensive, that when you see a Japanese guy, you immediately call him a stereotypical Japanese reference. If they're going to keep doing this to Hiro, then they might as well start calling Mohinder Hadji.

3. Was Matt's vision of Usutu supposed to give closure to the character (since apparently seeing him with his head cut off wasn't enough)? Was he even that important of a character that any of us really cared?

4. Maybe Nathan's just being an ass to Peter because he doesn't have Future Peter to blame for the assassination attempt.

5. Even though Mohinder's Fly-ripoff disease is cured, the formula should technically still give him powers. After all he was in the dossier that Nathan gave the President. But I have a feeling that the writer's are going to create another plot hole and he'll be back to a powerless bitching professor. Speaking of the characters that were in the dossier, I really hope that Micah is not coming back.

Overall I thought Season 3 was horrible. So much that no only does it pale to Season 1, but even Season 2 was much much better than this (and I had my share of issues with Season 2 ). The trailer for Fugitives looks good (but trailers can make anything look good).

Anyway, I'm looking forward to your LOST reviews as well as the updates to the site. Happy Holidays Pete and everyone else!

So, um, how exactly did Daphne get them back to the present?

Ando can speed boost her to the point that she goes back in time, not forwards.

Problem? I guess not, since the characters don't operate within their own parameters anyway anymore, why should anything else be any different?

I see your "presumably, she took a left turn" joke, but really -- why isn't anyone else pissed off about this discrepancy? Daphne's time traveling ability (based on Einstein's prediction) would ONLY WORK going one way: back into the past. This is an enormous screw-up, IMHO.

Did anyone else get the vibe of a kid running off to tattle to the principal from Nathan at the end? Other than spite, how does this jibe with his previous plan to give powers to the "right" people? I've defended the show from people who've called it an X-Men ripoff by pointing out that a lot of it is common to all superhero storylines. Now they're going head first into Days of Future Past. Will there be giant robots?

I think you're being a little kind to Noah. This was a guy who tortured and murdered a friend because he saw a picture of his own death. He was going to help Peter because it's his job. It was part of the deal he cut when he returned to Primatech. Also, Pinehearst came after Claire, and he wants payback. As to Claire, I get more that he's protecting HIS family than his FAMILY. Do you think he wouldn't sell Peter and everyone else out if it guaranteed HIS family's protection? Would he ever allow Claire to go out on her own without him tracking her down?

Meredith might be immune to her own powers, but having a building fall down on top of her might leave a mark or two. Remeber, there's plenty on concrete that won't just burn. At least Sylar's TK could protect him. However, if she and Flint are dead, their inclusion in the flashback episode now makes no sense. Why create a relationship between the two, if they're going to be killed off, separately, never having met in the present?

I'm going to make a guess that Arthur didn't completely remove powers, but only weakened them to the point of being useless. This can serve to make Hiro and Ando more of a team. Ando can soup up Hiro's latent powers to the point where they work again. I'm not sure how they can believably include Hiro in "Fugitives". He's the majority shareholder in a large Japanese corporation. He'd be missed and there would be diplomatic issues with arresting and imprisoning him.

As for Matt's comments about physics, I kept wanting to say, "Einstein didn't say that". The time dilation that would occur by approaching the speed of light would have the net effect of sending on to the future, not the past. However, this is the world of the magical eclipse, so maybe they're Theory of Relativity is different.

I'm guessing Peter's back to square one with his powers, since his face didn't heal. Right now, he can only fly and maybe has Flint's flame power.

Personally I enjoyed Season Two and Season Three, so maybe my opinion is all crazy talk, but I thought that the problem was that in Season Two they over structured it, with a really tight story, no wiggle room, that made it difficult for the characters to change or anything much to happen really, since everything was in service of an overall plot that was moving pretty slowly.

Then in this season it seemed like they decided to screw the overall plot and just write episodes, keep it coming and make things move as fast as possible, so every writer wrote what they cared about and their thoughts. It seemed to me there wasn't any overall vision, just a bunch of people writing things that excited them, so that every episode was cracking (in my opinion) but didn't make much sense when you tried to connect it with the others. And the things that suffered most were all the dropped threads (Echo, the 'twelve Sylars running free' thing that ended up being about four guys), the Super Soldier who died in 2.5 seconds, the 'light', etc) and Sylar, who every writer seemed to write in a way that suited them- Elle too, really. Half the writers seemed to want them to be slightly screwed up kids just tryin' to make it in the world and half seemed to prefer that they be evil psychotics.

If they could just find the balance again by bringing all the threads together and serving character AND plot, then maybe they could get back to what so many people think is best about the show. I think their problem is listening TOO hard to what everyone is yelling at them instead of just making something they want to make. I still think the show's amazing but I can see what other people are getting so pissed off about too. I might start to get pissed as well if they keep messing Sylar about this year again...

Arthur Petrelli was a lame villain. He should've stayed dead, and should just have showed up in the flashback episode.

If there were twelve escaped villains running rampant, SHOW THEM ALL. Don't use the graphic novels to dispose of some of them. The graphic novels are for side info that isn't essential to the primary story. That's a plot hole, right there.

Meredith and Flint's fates are up in the air IMO. They've shown resistance to flames (Flint even mentioned this fact once). But knowing how this show's been going lately, they'll probably follow the path of the Irish chick Peter left in the virus future. Which is a shame, because I thought Meredith was too good for that. Flint was kind of annoying after a while. I wish Mohinder had killed him with that microscope during the Eclipse.

I was all excited about Echo DeMille from the webisodes, and he didn't do anything. Pity.

There was so much they could've done with the first half. You had Sylar, Adam, Elle, and twelve new bad guys. But instead you kill Adam and Elle for no reason, Sylar is a fake Petrelli the entire time (also pointless in the end), and it was all action, very little plots that made sense. Pity.

I think I'd have to say I enjoyed season 2 more. It's major flaw was that it required certain characters (cough Peter cough Mohinder cough) to behave insanely stupidly, but most of the other characters were OK. Elle and Adam were interesting additions. The Sylar/Maya arc could just have been dumped since it was primarily done due the Zachary Quinto's schedule. Just have Sylar show up at the end. The main idea of the virus plot was pretty solid. Nathan and Matt worked well together. Some state Hiro was trapped in the past too long, but really they had to establish Kenzei/Adam's rise and fall, so it had to be extended. They also wanted to keep the "surprise" about Adam's identity. I'd say its main problem is that there should have been more from Adam's point of view, because we never actually saw him doing much back then until he became a bad guy. We were just told about it.

With Season 3, character and plot shifted so violently that nothing cohesive materialized. I will say I like non-powered Peter better than powered Peter. Nathan's season 1 redemption is undone in a fashion that just makes him look like an idiot. Has a lack of power really been the world's problem? Nothing of Parkman's season 2 tendencies to abuse his powers were followed up on, despite the fact that it would have fit the arc's supposed theme. None of the characters introduced amounted to much. Hiro's failures far outstripped his "success" in the last episode.

I'd have to agree with SilvRS about it lacking a cohesive vision from the writers. I pretty much stated the same thing in one of my comments on the previous episode. It seems the most interesting angles were cut off without any reason. How could they not recognize the sheer awesomeness of the Noah/Sylar pairing? It could have been a great spinoff or at least a mini-series.

1. I agree, but I think that means that some of the regulars will need to be demoted to supporting cast or further thinning needs to occur. I doubt there will be much room for "normal" people in Fugitives, especially if you're referring to people unaware of those with powers.

2. I'm not sure how to get back to the "underground" feel now that Nathan's let the genie out of the bottle. I suppose a logical case could be made that Primatech would have needed govermental (even international) contacts to cover up their actions, especially if it's true the President had no prior knowledge. It's possible the Primatech allies might work to discredit Nathan.

3. I think you're desire for the webisodes and comics is somewhat unrealistic. Far too many people only watch the show and that's where NBC makes its money. The show alone has been pretty disjointed and confusing. Adding these outside elements will probably alienate more viewers since they won't know these other characters.

4. Nathan was one of my favorite characters in season 2. There may be some mental instability. After all, he's been through tremendous physical trauma twice in a four month period. He also has the factor of being the most "normal". While flying might be wish fulfillment, it's not always useful in a conflict (especially indoors), nor would it change one's perspective the way reading minds or seeing the future would. I'm not sure jealousy is a good motivation since it's clear Arthur had very little use for Peter and Sylar's got enough mommy issues for the whole cast.

I'd always hoped he'd take over Primatech similarly to how he took over Pinehearst. He' tell Angela that her generation had screwed things up and become corrupted. He'd try to run it better, but still run into the problem of what to do with a nice guy who can blow up like an A-Bomb or a child who could burn down a city block with her mind because she didn't get ice cream. His plan for Pinehearst made sense, in that someone would try it. Maybe even Nathan would. It's just that he became obsessive awfully quickly.

5. I think by "make sense" you're referring to weakening the powers, which may have already occurred. Even with his full power, they've added the wrinkle that a speeding Daphne can overcome Hiro's time freeze. We've seen cases with the Haitian and Puppet Master where someone strong enough can resist them. As for Peter, you can say his brain is his biggest limitation, but I don't think he'd stand a chance with a power he's had for 5 minutes against someone with years of experience. I'd probably look for a logical reason for him to lay low. Possibly his control issues will return.

6. I think this is kind of related to your "more normal people" item. How do you balance being a husband/wife/father/mother/friend/lover when you can do these things. This is where Matt's ex-wife can work. Can a relationship be based on trust when someone can read minds and know if your telling the truth. I'd also like to see the "heroes" actually come down on different sides of an issue where each has a legitimate argument. This was the problem with Villains because giving out powers was deemed bad and everyone on that side was unlikeable. This could also be related to Nathan in Fugitives. Don't turn him into a Nazi throwing everyone into concentration camps, but deal with the real concern of what should you do with someone who can change history on a whim.

7. Agreed, but I'd probably keep around fewer originals than you would or at least reduce them to recurring. Give the new people their own stories. Don't make them part of the Petrelli/Bennett/Nakamura world. I think Monica's season 2 story worked because of that, but the writers became too concerned with having a "save the world" plot. What's wrong with just trying to make the neighborhood a little better? Everyone doesn't have to show up at Kirby Plaza in the last episode to stop Sylar.

8. I think that after 70 years of the superhero comics, there probably aren't too many new powers to come up with, just new wrinkles on old ones.

9. Teams aren't all that important to me, but they would be a reasonable consequence. I guess you could say Matt/Daphne/Hiro/Ando formed a team of sorts.

10. Agreed. I think the firings may have been due to there being too many cooks.

11. I'm not that big on the powers themselves having consequences, as such things tend to get ignored as time goes by because the limitations don't serve future plots. For example, the X-Man Nightcrawler used to have limitations on teleporting "blind" and when carrying other people. I don't think that's been the case in years. However, there should be consequences to public displays.

Suggestions, suggestions.

Let's start out with a reality check about this series: it started out as a whim. If you look back on the beginning of Season One, Hiro reads a newspaper about the nuclear explosion occurring on a certain date. I remember seeing that date (sorry, I can't remember what it is exactly) and calculating that it was in two episode's time. The initial purchase of episodes carried only that many spots...it wasn't really designed with a long-term series viability in mind.

But as it happened, that first season was so fresh, so original, that it got extended to a full season. The first plot thread, "Save the Cheerleader" was as far as Kring and friends had originally planned it out. Genius! It captivated us all!

What came afterwards was a hastily threaded together end of Season One, which was being done on the fly but came up with some brilliant moments. Company Man being one of them. They had to wrap it up in a finale, and tie everything together in a plaza...well, the whole thing hadn't been designed for that, but they pulled off some last minute magic...lots of plot holes and a bit disappointing, but enough of a wow! factor to keep us coming back for season two.

To be a fly on the wall...well Mohinder on the wall...at NBC: "Folks, we have a hit here, what can we do to make a lot of money off of this one?" Graphic novel tie-ins, corporate committee decisions (let's get some Hispanic characters so this plays well...), and bringing back the Season One cast with a bunch of new characters (Monica, sadly...) with a lack of creative control.

Mercifully, the writer's strike put a stake into the heart of Season Two. Time to regroup and come back with something better, but again, we're improvising...there is no plan.

The corporate minds are, of course, listening to the fans. Including the 12 year old who wants really cool special effects, and flashy fights, and super powered goodness. Some of us are just chasing the dragon of "Save the Cheerleader", the intrigue of Isaac's cryptic paintings, or WTF moments like Claire putting her hand down the garborator...some of us see potential for this series to find its footing again, and become a legendary series.

I'm losing / I've lost hope. Where is Prison Break? Oh, another great concept limited series... Lost will be in the same shape after this season...gone forever.

Talk of a new cast, new powers, logical character development...you are talking about a new series altogether, and a fresh start. NOT going to happen; these actors have CONTRACTS and they aren't going anywhere soon. This is about making money, folks.

Now, let's talk humour. What must it feel like to be Sylar? "DAMN! I used to be able to hear so well!" That must be frustrating. Or to be Peter? Same boat. What ever happened to his invisible friend?

I do miss the hope and innocence of this series...

Let's remember what made this series tick in the first place: everyone sympathetically moving to save a teenage cheerleader from doom at the hands of an evil man. No virus, no nuclear explosion, no formula...just a very simple endeavour that EVERY viewer, from soccer mom to working dad to adolescent boy, could relate to...

Only one week until LOST returns. Finally!! Any predictions for the upcoming season (besides the fact that it will be awesome)?