There is no way around it: the first half of Season Three of HEROES was as bad as Season Two had been. And there was little hope that it was going to get better. But then it did. Much of the improvement might have been the result of one of the greatest tragedies of the 2008-2009 season, ABC's cancellation of one of the best shows in the history of television, PUSHING DAISIES. But one show's tragedy is another's great fortune. Bryan Fuller, who had been a consulting producer for HEROES in its first and promising season (he was given writing credits on what is to this day by far the greatest HEROES episode ever, the brilliant Season One episode "Company Man," was suddenly freed from PUSHING DAISIES, and was made the new show runner for HEROES after several producers and writers were released from the show. The improvement in the show was not instantaneous, but it was close. By the end of the season the show was as interesting as it had been in flashes in Season One.

Whether it was Fuller or not, the show had by the end of Season Three begun to have a direction once again. Both Season Two and the first half of Three had seen the show go down a series of confusing and generally unpleasant directions. One story arc had minimal connection with what had gone before and all indications were that they were just making things up as they went along. And what they were making up simply wasn't very good. Has the show finally turned around? If the difference has indeed been Bryan Fuller's involvement, it is entirely possible. I just know that by the end of Season Three I was actually looking forward to each episode again. For ages it was simply something I watched because I had been watching CHUCK.

There has been a lot of debate about what went wrong with HEROES, about why it failed to fulfill the potential it displayed in its first season. My own opinion is that the show never took its own name seriously. The truth is that despite its title there were very, very few heroic characters. Having superpowers does not make someone a hero. Being heroic does. But most of the characters were not heroic and most of them struggled more with their own pettiness. And the writers kept taking characters down the most outrageous paths. Like the nerfing of Peter Petrelli, leaving him a defanged puppy. Or making a mess of every character that Ali Larter has played.

But I have much higher hopes for Season Four. Almost all the high points of Seasons Two and Three took place in the second half of this season, after the time when Bryan Fuller took over as show runner. The show now seems to be moving in more interesting directions, and there were dramatically fewer "oh, no!" moments. And in the struggle in the season finale, there was some genuine excitement and true heartfelt tragedy. My confidence in the show hasn't recovered entirely, but for the first time since Season One, I find that I care once again about what happens next.

Smell that? That's the smell of a once great television show going straight down the crapper. Thanks to an unbelievably awful season 3-there's really little point left in following the once brilliant "Heroes". Over the course of this extremely disappointing season, Heroes devolved from a well written, exciting, "must see" television show into a frustrating exercise in viewer patience. Despite the hope that things would improve after a sub-par Season 2, the exploits of the so called "Heroes" (who really do nothing that even remotely resembles anything heroic) yielded nothing but disappointment "weak" after excruciating "weak".

The first volume of Season 3-"Villains" was excessively convoluted and drawn out-sans anything of any real substance happening. Characters also seemed to completely change personalities and flip flop their allegiances on a dime for no other reason than to suit the writer's purposes.

Despite my hopes for an improved second volume with "Fugitives" things only got worse. With a premise that smacked of the completely ridiculous (Nathan's wildly out of left field decision to betray all of his peers and condemn them all to imprisonment for starters) "Fugitives" became a hard pill to swallow in every way imaginable. Despite a noticeable attempt to improve the show and "right the ship" in the last few episodes, the silly and hard to accept premise kept getting in the way. With the exception of the episode set in the "Coyote Sands" desert (which was one of the few watchable episodes of the season) "Fugitives" like "Villains" was a total wash.

What I found most disappointing about Season 3 of "Heroes" however wasn't its silly and laughably-bad writing, or even its complete lack of direction-instead it was how the writers took some of most iconic and likable characters in television history (Noah Bennet, Mohinder Suresh, Peter Patrelli, Matt Parkman) and rendered them completely unlikable. Noah was consistently a two-faced jerk for the majority of the season and Suresh a whiney b*tch determined to work for the bad guy. Peter, the show's "anchor" went from being the most morally grounded "hero" on the show to a selfish allegiance-swapping loser with no honor at all and Matt finally revealed himself as a totally useless waste of a character. Even Claire was not immune with her character's "all-talk, no-action" stance on things. Outside of Hiro and Ando-by season's end there were no character's left who's stories I really cared about. And even the dynamic duo's story itself seemed to grow more silly and weak by the episode. (Aren't they running out of ideas by now how to keep Hiro from having powers?) And it absolutely blows my mind that the show insists on bringing Ali Larter's characters (all five hundred of them) back to the show time and time again. I know (or knew rather) a lot of Heroes viewers who absolutely hate Nikki/Jessica/Tracy/etc.-this one included. Why on earth do they keep bringing her back when she has yet to serve any real purpose but to annoy so completely?

I find it interesting that the next volume in the series is called "Redemption". With ratings plummeting and stories getting more silly, ridiculous & repetitious each season, and faithful viewers dropping off right and left, I hope there's truly some deeper meaning in that title....

Some Spoilers: Heroes season 3 stuffs so much in one season that it felt like 2 seasons in one. The first half was better though. How Sylar was used in the first half was brilliant. While the season could have used more of Robert Forster (Jackie Brown) in the 2nd half and he should have been in the series longer. He was fantastic as the Petrali father who wasn't really dead. He's evil and can steal powers by just touching people with abilities. He has a plan to give humans powers and is trying to have a drug created that can do that.

I didn't like how key characters lost their powers though. The season would have been better if Hiro and Peter had there's for example. I like Peter more when he's just as powerful as Sylar. The 2nd half was good and had it's moments but even the season finale wasn't as good as it could have been. It was a brain twister but not even one that made sense, since Claire's blood could have just been used or Sylar's. That's all I'll say about that. But it does make you at least interested in seeing what will happen next.