Warning: Beware of bitter, cynical, semi-bipolar nerd rant.

I love Heroes. I always will. I remember the first time it came on, it astounded and wowed me like few shows at the time. The focus of normal people waking up, discovering superpowers, and slowly coming to realize they're connected to other people like them and they have to save the world, combined with characters you couldn't help but love, well, that hooked me right in. It was unlike anything on tv, the first primetime tv show of the decade that dared to take on superheroes, and not only give it a modern twist, but also gave it a magical/spiritual/mythological undertone.

Heroes has also been one of the rare shows that has simultaneously wowed and annoyed me at the same time. I think a lot of fans feel the same way. One minute I feel like I'm soaring through the sky, the next I'm crashing into the ground. One minute I'm cheering, the next I'm going why, what, WTF are they doing?!? One minute I feel like pumping my fists through the air, the next, I feel like I've been punched in the gut. It makes for a very weird experience.

The best way I can describe it is Heroes being my choice of crack. Season One was the high and everything else was the morning-after.

Unfortunately, Heroes, which looked poised to be the next great television show, a worthy successor to Lost, heck, the next Lost, a classic masterpiece that would be remembers decades after its time, will forever be known as a one-season wonder. If you'd ask most of the fans about Heroes, they will fondly remember Season One and if you mention the rest, well, sour frowns begin to form at the sides of their mouths. Oh, those other seasons. A lot will defend the show: Look it may not be as good as the first season, but the show is still pretty good. Because even at its worst, Heroes has this strange ability to keep people glued in, to keep people caring.

Perhaps all the early fame, glory, and accolades were a bit too much for the budding show. Perhaps it was due to network pressure. Perhaps it was due to the overlong writer's strike of 2007-2008. Perhaps it was due to the fact Tim Kring never had a solid long-term goal for the show. Whatever the reason, the magic pixie dust of Season One eroded away season after season. Despite all intentions to reclaim that power from the crew, the dust continued to dwindle.

I continued to watch the show, patient, blissfully a hardcore fan. I had no expectations that the show could ever be like Season One again, I stuck it out because I generally had a pleasant experience with the show. I stuck through the wallowing mudhole that was the majority of Season Two. I kind of enjoyed (paraphrasing what Scott Mendelson described Spiderman 3 as) the hot kitchen-sink exploding mess that was Season Three Part One. I was generally impressed with Season Three Part Two where it looked like finally, finally, Heroes had reassembled its pieces, finally, it had a direction to go with. It wasn't perfect but all through the highs and the lows, I kept on, cheering, rooting, ever hooked.

Then came Season Four, which threw out everything Season Three Part Two had established in order to be a Season Two remake. No problem. I had suffered through enough personal disappoints but was generally happy enough with the show that I decided to roll with it, even if it wasn't going to be like I hoped it would turn out to be. No problem. I threw out all my expectations, all my extremely, impossibly high hopes, and braced myself for whatever it was going to be. The season promised to be a return to the show's roots, to a full season instead of weird half-season breaks called volumes, to the character-driven stories of Season One. Cool. Even if it wasn't going to be Season One, that sounds good. Should be good. Right?

The result completely and utterly destroyed my faith in the show I once defended with all my righteous geeky zeal, the show that I defended through all the convoluted plot-twists, retcon works, and headscratching new developments. Nowhere near as good as Season One or even Volume 4 (Season Three Part Two) and somewhere between the high of Season Two and the epic lows of Volume 3 (Season Three Part One), it systematically, cohesively exploded by the last episode.

Where do I even start with what went wrong? Instead of hooking us right in, the season premiere(s) wallowed in gratuitous filler. It took the whole season to discover the motivations/plans of the Big Bad and then, his motivation was flipped around at the last minute. The main characters (which took turns alternating through the episodes) were present when they shouldn't have been and never were there when they needed to be there. Sylar, the fan favorite villain that just couldn't be killed, was literally two characters at once and everywhere he especially shouldn't have been. There was the headscratching, quizzically confusing plot twist that explained why Sylar was two characters at the same time. Matt spent most of the season being Sylar's ****. Tracey, the perpetually neglected stepchild of the series, was given little to do and then, shunted off to the side when she became too inconvenient. Hiro putted around on sidequests, flipping through time like tv channels so he could save a lost love, given a sudden brain tumor, lost his memories and turned into a raving lunatic (sadly, not the first time that point happened), and to make this even more of a soap opera than it already was, the tumor was "magically" removed so he has greater control of his plot hole filling/time traveling powers. The Big Bad overstayed his welcome to the point where you didn't love to hate him, you just hated his guts so bad, you wanted him to get gone before the finale.

And then there's Claire Bennet, the show's token blond fanboy-bait. After Season One and before Season Four, I tolerated Claire's presence. I put up with her whining and her tantrums, her self-pitying stance on superpowers (Why oh why do I have to be a freak? Why oh why can I heal instantly? I'll never fit in. Never! Woe is me.), towards her general bratty-ness towards her family. I put up with her other superpower to suck the life out of everyone around her. I tolerated her even in her worst state when she became even more annoying than Heidi Montag.

After Season Four, Claire makes me physically ill. I can't look at her on the show anymore without bile threatening to come out of my throat. Why? Because her role in Season Four was little more than fanboy pinup. Her storylines never amounted to much, yet she hogged the spotlight from the rest of the characters. Then there was her continued bratty-ness and whining about how she's a freak. Then there was the fact that for some strange and unexplained reason The Big Bad wanted her for his plans. Then there was her continuous ****ing about how her family lies to her and treats her, rightly, as a child. Then there was the most insulting and forced lesbian romance to come out of this side of the planet since The OC perfected the same ratings-grab years before with little success. As if all that wasn't enough, it gets even better in the finale, where she pulls off such a logic-missing cliffhanger stunt that serves as the most desperate and sad attempt for another season I have ever seen. Claire has now surpassed the fan community-despised Maya on how much I hate character. She has surpassed Abby Sciuto of NCIS on my hatred for a main character. I don't think I ever despised a character in anything, not the Ewoks, not Jar-Jar, not Grievous, not the Robot Twins in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, not Maya, as much as I despise Claire.*

*(May I point out that I bare no ill will or resentment towards Hayden Paniettere.)

All the flaws that I put up with throughout the years, all the flaws I choose to ignore in support of a favorite show, finally grated on me throughout Season Four and by the last awful plot-twist of the season, my love for this show finally shattered. All The magic of Season One long gone, it destroyed any good faith the show kept for several seasons. Enough is enough. I have had enough. I can't take anymore. I won't. I can't stomach anymore.

Really. And I'm really, really easy to please. I'm easily amused. When I get hooked into a show, I'm hooked, and when trouble comes, I still stick around. I say this because if even I'm jumping ship from a show, then something is terribly, terribly wrong.

Why is all this important? Why should you/I care? Because I recently heard that despite Heroes' ratings troubles, it looks to be getting a fifth and final season.

I would like to say I'm surprised but really, I'm not. Heroes still has a hard-core fanbase that will stick with it come hell or high water. The show has franchise value and by that I mean a whole wealth of action figures and merchandising media NBC will gladly milk off of. Not to mention NBC's programming/ratings troubles after the whole Leno-Conan debacle that left it with more holes in its primetime hours than any plotholes Heroes can ever provide. Even at its worst, Heroes is a good bet for NBC. It's only logical with all the internal and outside support it would get a final season.

And you know what? I say good for them. More power to them. As much as it seems as like I hate Heroes from what I said above, I really don't. I never will. I stuck through for four years and I don't regret that. Heroes always found a way to surprise me, even with the little things, and even at its worst, it always was an interesting show. I'm more of a disheartened, sad, disappointed fan, an ex-lover lamenting a bad break-up.

On the other hand, I don't know if Heroes truly deserves a Season Five (especially if it's renewed, it puts Chuck, a geniunely amazing, hilarious, and better show that didn't waste two seasons puttering around in jeopardy) and if it was another network, a renewal wouldn't even be considered right now. But Heroes should get another season, if not for me, but for the amazing, talented, wonderful cast who give their all for this show even when they too are led in the dark, for all the die-hard fans who deserve some closure, that deserve a reward for their devotion.

+I will say towards the fans and don't take offense to any of this, but there are those who believe that Heroes will get better during the last season, that somehow it can still be as great as Season One, even if it's just a 13-episode order. To this, I say, please don't get your hopes too high. If anything, I just think the season will serve to just wrap up loose ends one by one. Peter will not get his full powers back. Sylar will (hopefully) remain good. And everyone will be themselves.

I must reinforce that I bare no ill will towards the show in general and wish the best towards everyone involved. I will always be proud to say I'm a Heroes fan. I'll buy all four seasons on Blu-Ray maybe one day. But no matter what happens to Heroes, whatever NBC decides to do, I'm not going to be a part of it.