Jeff Zucker has HEROES hoisted from the ceiling, bound with chains, dangling over a buzzsaw carefully balanced over a pool of hungry piranhas…

“Hahaha!  Fools!  This will be the end of you!  But before I feed you to my pets, let me tell you my nefarious plan, in full detail…  First, I will clone Jay Leno…”

Last night, NBC aired the season finale of HEROES.  There is a lot of talk that this might be the end of the show.  If this is the case, then I would have to say that it went out with somewhat of a whimper.

Sorry, but it’s true.

The once mighty show has seen a sharp drop in viewership since it’s auspicious beginnings.  Their once loyal fans appear to have grown ambivalent over the show’s direction.  It seems many just want the show to go away before it taints their enjoyment of the season one DVD set any further.

Will NBC oblige them and take this show out to the shed?  Or will they make us sit and watch them whine for another year about how they are different and don’t fit in?

Is there a third option?  How about they let this show go out with the dignity of a real ending?

If you haven’t yet seen the episode and would like to, you can watch it here after the jump and get some of my thoughts on the future of the show, if there is one.

As always, this will only be up for a limited time. Courtesy of hulu.

Presenting the 4th season (series?) finale of HEROES. “A Brave New World”

There you have it.

They can finish it here, I guess.

The scene at the end with Claire’s leap from the Ferris wheel was basically how it began, so at least you’d have a little bookending.  And Charlie is well on her way to having lived happily ever after, so Hiro can stop obsessing.  You can also sleep at night believing Sylar is finally reformed… for real, this time.  Oh, and Nathan is still dead.

Yeah… okay.

That’s not a way to end a show like HEROES.  They so got the PUSHING DAISIES treatment…  “Okay you’re done.  You’ve got 5 minutes to wrap up all the loose ends.”

But is this really the end?

For my money, I say HEROES will be back.  NBC is in a tough spot, having to fill up a bunch of new hour slots with content, and outside of CHUCK what have they got?   A HEROES return would at least lend a little continuity to NBC’s drama department.

But is this the continuity they want?

Who cares?  HEROES is still one of NBC’s most powerful brands.  It’s still a tentpole series for them, despite the drop in ratings.

Also, the teaser for season 6: “A Brave New World” hints at a story that could serve as a swan song for the series, even if it is a bit X-Menny.  The point is, they have something to sell that only becomes available once every few years and that is the end of a flagship show.

I can’t imagine that even Jeff Zucker would squander such an opportunity.

I would like to see HEROES given the opportunity to finish.  Season 1 was some of the best TV of the decade and this show deserves a proper ending.  They earned it on the power of that first season.  It deserves to go out with a bang, and not the whimper we are currently left with.

Do them right, guys.  Let HEROES have the ending befitting of it’s place in pop culture history.

So, what do you think?  Give it one more year or put it out of it’s misery?  Would you even watch it if it came back?

I probably would.