On "Heroes" Season Three

I watched Season 3 Ep 6 of "Heroes" last night on Hulu. Season 1 was great television (well, except for the weak finale). Season 2 was much weaker, but we could concievably blame the writers' strike. I was hoping that Season 3 would return the show to form, but instead it's been...really bad.

Has "Heroes" jumped the shark? Signs point to "yes," but I'm still hopeful that they can pull this show out of the flames.

Watching this show makes me ask: "Are the writers still on strike?" It's OK to play with viewer expectations and send a character into a different direction: A hero succumbs to his character flaws and ends up hurting the ones he loves; A villain's chance encounter with fate shows her the error of her ways and she tries to walk the path of redemption. That's classic drama. Such stories are an enduring element of literature.

Unfortunately, this season is having characters radically change their motivations, goals, and personalities in an unconvincing manner for unsatisfactory reasons. I won't give spoilers, but this season has at least four major characters doing 180-degree turns for little-to-no in-plot reason. (The only reason I can see is that the producers have noticed that the show's ratings are sinking and have ordered the writers to shake things up.)

Another problem this season (and it's related to the above) are the frequent nonsensical plot twists. It's one thing to give a "big reveal" or to have some dramatic irony, it's quite another to shock the viewers for the sake of shocking them in a way that detracts from the plot.

My third big critique of this season is that a show like this needs to be grounded in some semblance of reality. We can suspend our disbelief and accept the premise that otherwise normal people have super powers. However, this season, we're not seeing the characters' normal lives at all. Where's Clare's struggle to have a normal adolescence? Parkman dealing with his wife's infidelity? Nikki and DL trying to scrape together an honest livelihood while avoiding their own shady pasts? It was the collision of "normal" with " super" that made Season 1 so compelling.

Finally, to nitpick, why is the Level 5 prison facility so easy to escape from? (I count nine escapes so far) And where are the guards-- especially when two prisoners are having a knock-down SFX fight in broad daylight?

To sum up, I haven't stopped watching yet, but this show's writing needs to get much better, and quickly, or I'm giving up.