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Am I alone in thinking that season 2 of NBC’s Heroes was full of turdiness? It was awful and my main problem, besides the terrible writing on the show, is that we want to see these people fly their freak flags, ya know? I want this to be like X-Men, where the characters are all fighting to save the world and the stakes are high and it’s intense. I don’t really care about the personal psychobabble that the show always seems to wallow in.

That aside, I’m still cautiously excited for the start of Season 3. Maybe it’s because it’s been so long since the end of Season 2, that I forgot just how much the show irked me or maybe because I’d like to get reacquainted with Kristen Bell, but perhaps I’m hoping that some characters will get killed off. Cough, Nicki, cough. Seriously.

The biggest issue I have with Heroes is that there are no stakes because no one gets killed off unless you are a henchmen, a cop or some third-tier character. There is no danger on the show. If they focussed on two or three characters (Peter, Claire and Hiro would be the obvs choice) and everyone else had the potential to be killed off then I’d be excited. <Lebowski impersonation>It would be like living on the edge, man!</Lebowski impersonation>

We’ll see if good really does battle evil on Sept. 22, 2008.

I don’t think I’m alone in feeling like Heroes: Volume 2 was a complete waste of 11 episodes. The plots meandered, revealed marginally little, introduced no interesting new characters, and then killed off most of them anyways. What happened to the show we all grew to love last season?

Hopefully Tim Kring and his writing staff can fix those mistakes when it comes back for Volume 3. I say this because if they don’t fix the problems, which Kring has openenly admitted, then he’s going to lose a lot more viewers, this one included.

Recently, at the Jules Verne Adventure Film Festival, they displayed some upcoming footage of the next saga and by the crowd reaction we should be in for something fun. Not much is revealed, except there is lots of Sylar, H.R.G. indicates the big bag is like fighting “12 Sylars” which could be the shadowy organization, Elle is still in the picture (more Kristen Bell is always a good thing) and the most intriguing thing of all was the ending when we see Sylar and Mrs. Petrelli supposedly working together.

So you’ve got a news story below that is essentially a look at Japanese fishermen slaughtering dolphins. The news piece is questionable in it’s objectivity, since the reporter has already decided ahead of time that slaughtering dolphins is not a-okay. I’m not sure how I feel about it, because after all there’s such a weird double standard when it comes to which animals are acceptable for slaughter.

It kind of irks me that it’s okay to kill pigs, cows and chickens but it’s not okay to kill dogs in China or dolphins in Japan. Honestly, it makes me think of that scene in Pulp Fiction where Jules discusses the only difference in which animals are okay to slaughter have to do with how we perceive their personalities. Dolphins are intelligent and cute so it’s not okay to kill them. Tuna fish are sort of whatevs, so we slaughter the shit out of them for sandwiches.

I’m by no means an animal activist. In fact PETA would probably not allow me to join their fun club, however, I do recognize that a double standard exists and maybe we should try to apply one standard across the board. All animals or no animals at all. Just a thought. Though slaughtered pig is pretty tasty.

The other thing that irks me about this news piece is the way Heroes star Hayden Panettiere just sort of shows up as one of the animal activists. OMG! what’s she doing there? It sort of smacks as a publicity stunt, albeit a crazy one at that. Who knows, I suppose if I were younger and less jaded and filthy rich from a lifetime of acting gigs I’d engage in some serious social protest.

Ah, who am I kidding. I’d probably spend all my money on booze and women and end up like Charlie Sheen.

So the proposed Heroes spinoff, that was to feature six stand alone episodes and written by some of Hollywood’s big shots like Kevin Smith, has gotten the axe from NBC.

They claim it has to do with the impending writer’s strike of doom that’s to take effect tonight at midnight.

“Looking at everything in context of the strike, we?re evaluating all of our production commitments,” said one insider. “Scripts haven?t been written yet.”

Origins was designed to provide fans with six episodes of a fresh Heroes-related show in place of repeats in the spring. If the labor situation changes quickly, the network could revisit the decision to scrap the show.?

On a related note, is anyone else getting tired of Heroes this season?? There’s something about it that just isn’t doing it for me.? It seems non-sensical and cliched and too convoluted and the payoffs have been few and far in between.? Just not sure about the new characters and the continued screen time of the boring ones from last season, cough cough Claire cough cough.

TV Addict has a first look at Veronica Mars, ney, Kristen Bell as she readies her arch on NBC’s Heroes.? Bell will be portraying Elle, a girl with mysterious powers raised within the corporation.? She’s not afraid to use those powers.? Stay tuned after the scene, which doesn’t really reveal that much, for a brief interiew afterwards which does reveal slighly more.

Bell makes her first appearance this Monday night.

Sorry, kiddos, for leaving you hanging for a few days, but since Monday I’ve been grieving. All I can say is why NBC why??! You had one of the hottest shows out there and you?ve gone and fell victim - as I was afraid you would ? to the notorious ?sophomore slump?, an ailment that affects so many great shows. In a nutshell, they kick off their series with a bang, leaving you counting the days/hours/minutes/seconds until the next episode, checking fan sites for spoilers, watching the upcoming previews again and again, all to try and satiate your appetite over the next six, excruciatingly painful days. (Yes, people get that hooked!)

For example, how many of you out there were dying to know where the Lost castaways were at the end of the series premier? That ?monster? in the jungle, it was all so new, so perplexing, so engaging. By the end of season one, there wasn?t a person in the country who didn?t wonder what the heck was in that hatch! Alas, as in many cases, the payoff is never as good as the suspense. Kind of like movie love?but that?s for another day?

On to the whole purpose of my rant ? NBC’s season two premier of Heroes. *Sigh* I almost feel at a loss at how to recap the events. Immediately I noticed that the stories were so abundant and convoluted that for the first time during premier week I wish I had re-watched the season finale to make sure I hadn?t missed anything. The heroes take up not where they left off, but four months later. (Anyone interested in a wager than they do a flashback episode sometime this season??) Half of the characters whose lives were left hanging during the finale are MIA ? soooo, are they dead, disappeared, done-blowed-up what gives?

We see that Claire and her father are alive and well, as is Matt, Molly, Mohinder, Ando, Hiro (although he is busy jumping through ? and screwing with ? time), Evil Mom-Petrelli, Nathan (though in deep depression over the death of Peter), oh ? and Peter, who is most definitely not dead, but crazy? Overheated, perhaps? And where is Sylar? Surely we have not seen the last of him.

Sulu and Mom-Petrelli turn out to be in cahoots, and are apparently going to be dead within the day. How do we know this? They don?t really say, other than the fact that there appears to be a new villain, whom I?m going to call Symbol Person since he/she/Sylar reminds me of ? insert Prince?s symbol/moniker here - I?d try and type it but I don?t think my keyboard has that particular key!

Bottom line is I?m worried. There are very few sitcoms left that are any good these days, and the dramas seem to be dropping off as well?with variety reality TV taking over in a BAD way (Dancing With the Stars, Singing Bee, Don?t Forget The Lyrics, So You Think You Can Dance, etc., phasing out the good old reality shows like The Mole, Temptation Island, Fear Factor and so on), well, there just isn?t much left.

Please Tim Kring bring back the Heroes I know and love!! What happened to D.L., where is Micah, where is Niki/Jessica? Why give super-hot Nathan a mountain man beard. WTF is Hiro doing? Who are these people running from Mexico? When does Kristen Bell join the cast? Ack! Now I am the one who is going to explode.

All I can say is thank God for Ted’s tramp stamp and Barney’s mysterious phone call to Marshall on How I Met Your Mother. Legen-dary!

We’ll keep you updated, but the cast and creators of NBC’s hit show Heroes area holding a press conference on the upcoming season. All the principle actors will be involved. Hopefully they’ll reveal what’s going on for Volume 2. If all the Volume 1 players return next season, then it’ll feel like a very bloated cast.

One thing that is really curious is that actor David Anders, best known as Julian Sark from Alias, has been cast as legendary Samurai Takezo Kensei. You will remember that Kensei’s sword played a large role for Hiro Nakamura’s character. The most interesting thing about this casting is that Anders is a white dude and so very not Japanese. It’ll be interesting to see that storyline develop.

NBC’s sci-fi drama “Heroes” is casting a wide net for next season, tapping Barry Shabaka Henley, Holt McCallany, “Alias” alum David Anders, Japanese pop star and actress Eriko Tamura, Lyndsy Fonseca and Dianna Agron for recurring roles.

In another Japanese connection, Tamura will play a Japanese princess.

Henley will play Detective Fuller, a New York police officer. McCallany will play Ricky, the ringleader of a group of Irish thugs.

Fonseca and Agron will play beautiful cheerleaders in Southern California, where Claire (Hayden Panettiere) is expected to move. Fonseca’s character April is sweet, while Agron’s Debbie is a mean girl.

We also know that Claire Bennett gets a new boyfriend next season.? TV Guide did a ho-hum interview with him.? We already miss Zack (except that actor is the new John Connors on Fox’s terminator show, so we’ll deal).

We still have mad love for The Others and The Tailies, but we’d be lying if we said “Heroes on NBC is the show we least look forward to each week.” Though the show is not without it’s faults, Lost does a much better job balancing out story arcs and switching between characters and in general pacing the plot, the sprawling super hero drama has the potential to go where the X-Men movie franchise should have gone - had Brett “Mediocre” Ratner not helmed the final film installment. But we digress.

Heroes works on so many levels from the family dramas of teenager Claire Bennett and her father to the Petrelli brothers in NYC. Not to mention the fanboy glee of Hiro, the alienation, the earning to be special and the intrigue surrounding several of the other characters. Yes, we love this show, but we’re worried. Last week’s episode was the best yet. We liked that it centered on very specific characters and told a very confined story, which was a severe but welcomed departure from previous installments. It looks as if that will be the exception to the rule and not a new direction for the story telling.

Also we could live without DL, Nicky/Jessica and their son. Talk about useless characters.

Word on the street, from a SciFi Wire interview with creator Tim Kring is that an upcoming episode takes place five years in the future and that next season may not feature any of the current cast members. Grrr. Really?

“We could have new people and new storylines and new ideas and new threats and new bad guys and new heroes. So I would prepare the audience for that idea, that it’s not just a continuing serialized storyline about only these people. It’s a little more the 24 model than the Lost model.”

Also, Kring added that season two will tell a different story involving different characters altogether, except that some of this season’s characters will “live to fight again.”

So who then is the Jack Bauer of Heroes? Peter? That would be my guess. But the bigger question is why would a show change so radically in Season 2, especially after the audience has become invested in many of the characters, especially Hiro, Peter and Claire. Also the Onion AV club did an interview with Greg Grunberg where he hints his character, the affable Matt Parkman, goes to the dark side. Very sad days on the horizon for the super hero show. Hopefully this will be hogwash. What’s more troubling is not having any new episodes for the next month. Is it too much to ask the networks to all go to the 24 model and just show every darn episode in a row. Sigh.

Could “Heroes” creator Tim Kring be taking a page out of the “Lost” playbook or is this just an elaborate fan-made site? Either way it’s pretty cool. While you’re checking out the official “Heroes” site over at NBC, don’t forget to read some of the graphic novels. They provide some great back stories to several of the characters and a few times have introduced future characters like the telekinetic Hana Gitelman.

Seems that Horned-Rim Glasses man has a website for his business Primatech Papers. But the fun starts when you follow the “about us” link. By clicking on the Primatech logo a snazzy red helix will appear.

Enter this informaton into the appropriate promps.

Username : bennet
Password : claire

Click on the first file (C3001) which is the background files of former Mossad agent Hana Gitelman. AKA Wireless.

Username : bennet
Password : HGghx11a

To get to Sylar file (c3004): User: bennet / password: GGeh81zu

The passoword promps are case sensitive. There’s even an 800 number to call, much like the Hanso site from Lost. Wait, what? You’re not watching “Heroes?” Well, what are you waiting for it’s easily one of the geekiest and best shows on television.

And yes, if you thought this was a dual excuse to show a picture of Claire Bennet then you know me too well. And yes, if you think I feel creepier for doing so, then again you know me too well.