I had intended the title of this article to be a bit facetious.  And then I rethought that, because I feel like Grunberg is threatening me.  Look, here's the God-honest truth.  I like Heroes.  Well, I did.  In fact, I loved Heroes.  Back when it knew what to do with its characters (well, at least 95% of them), when it had coherent storylines, when it wasn't using time travel as a convenient (and often forgetable) plot device, when Nathan Petrelli was alive, and when it had a convincing villian who was actually scary and wasn't just sticking around because the guy who played him happens to be a good actor.

Now?  Allow me to use a story to illustrate: this week I forgot that both Heroes and The Good Wife returned (because I am an idiot - despite having written up an entire post about when shows return).  Both were automatically recoded by my DVR.  When I realized I had forgotten about The Good Wife, I raced home after work to watch.  Heroes?  It's still sitting there.  Waiting.  Always waiting.

This frustrates me.  But I barely have the energy to care anymore.  Because the characters are lost and so far from their original personalities (and not in a good way that characters should grow and change) that I can barely stand to watch.  There are some very talented people in that cast and now I feel like they're just wasting their time.  And mine.  With so many other good shows on television these days, I just don't have the patience anymore (for example, I've recently fallen in looooove with Supernatural, which is late coming, but more on that in another post). 

The ratings for the show have dipped.  There is absolutely no denying this.  The audience is not responding to Heroes like it used to, and hasn't been for a very long time.  There were rumors floating around that this would be the final season.  And then there were whispers that maybe it would be renewed after all, because, let's face it, NBC needs everything it can get right now - even if the show is ratings-challenged.

The next chapter in the "back-and-forth/will they or won't they?" story comes straight from the mouth of Greg Grunberg.  He recently told EW that the cast has wrapped up filming this year's shortened season (only 19 episodes in total), but that the "...the [final episode] is nowhere near a series finale,” he told us at last night’s People’s Choice Awards. “It is cliffhanger-y and exciting, but it is nowhere near an end to a series that people are so invested in. It does not tie everything up in a neat bow… I don’t have any doubt that the show will be back.”

Oh, really, Greg?  *sigh*  Why do you do this to me?  I like you.  You're funny.  You're good friends with J.J. Abrams and he finds fun ways to put you in his TV shows and movies.  But I cannot abide by this.  I don't want another season of Heroes.  I don't want more ludicrous plots that make no sense and drag on.  Grunberg thinks that perhaps Heroes should pull a LOST and set an end date (as in, have next season be their last).  Yeah, ok, that worked for LOST, but it's not going to work here.  Because that still leaves Kring & Co with the dilemma of having to come up with at least another 19 episodes that people want to watch.  And, I'm sorry, I don't see that happening.

Maybe I'm being harsh.  But you know what?  I'm tired.  We need to let Heroes go.  Maybe the best way to wrap it up is to end with a two-hour TV movie that could air in the summer or in the Fall (like the Prison Break two-hour TV special that filled in the blanks in the series finale).  If they don't do this, then my DVR is going to fill up pretty fast with unwatched Heroes episodes and I'm just going to have to take my Season 1 DVD and go rock in a corner somewhere.