TVSquad

(S02E11) When Kristin offered up the chance to review the Fall (Season?) Finale of Heroes, I couldn't resist stepping in to help. While this episode lived up to a lot of the promises of the season, much like last season's finale, it may have been a little lighter on the action than you'd want. There are a lot of big changes for a lot of the characters and yes, the promised "hero" death. We get resolutions on the virus plot, the Sylar/Mya journey, Hiro's quest to stop Adam, the Bennet situation, and in the end, there's enough to entice us to come back for more. It's all here and let me tell you, if Kristin was yawning and checking her watch through the last episode, there wasn't time this week. This episode is absolutely jam-packed from start to finish. "Volume Two" wraps, and as with last year we get a teaser of Volume Three. But we'll get to all of that after the jump.

(S02E10) For the second to last episode of the season, I found tonight's show a bit slow. It had it's cool parts--I even have dedicated a section to them at the bottom of the post--but I looked at my watch a lot throughout the episode.

Overall, I think Heroes has come a long way since the beginning of the season. I think many Heroes viewers are just spoiled from the novelty and plot twists of the first season so they are critical when stories/characters aren't up to snuff.

But, that said, I am looking forward to the season finale. As the ads keep saying, "It all comes down to this."

(S02E09) "You've gone native. Are you kidding me?" Noah Bennet to Mohinder Suresh.

Just when you thought Mohinder couldn't get any stupider, he goes and shoots Noah Bennet in the eye. He is really in too deep with this company. And lately, he is making Matt Parkman look like a genius. (Wait, did Parkman just make me say that? Dumb joke, I know.) More on this after the jump because it basically took up the whole episode.

But before I go through all the storylines for this week, let me just say that I was so relieved that those ridiculous mascara-plague twins were absent from this week's Heroes. And just so I don't get too excited about it, I put a picture of them in the post to remind me that they are still on the show. (However, they are the vehicle to get the devilish Sylar back in the states so I suppose I forgive them on some level.)

I have to admit that I don't really get why so many Heroes fans are up in arms about this second season. I've heard everything from "sophomore slump" to "it has jumped the shark" to "it sucks!" and I don't agree with any of those viewpoints.

Has it been the intense, oh-my-God look how this episode ended in another cliffhanger thrill ride of the first season? No, but I think that's more a case of how the last season ended and how they had to set up this new season, with new plots and new heroes and old heroes in new situations. And I think that the show really kicked into gear with Monday's fantastic installment.

Heroes fans should try and pass the Heroes quiz over at AOL Television.

The quiz is designed to test the most hardcore fans of the series, with detailed questions about Nathan's campaign, Sylar's watch and Hiro's travels through time.

I took the quiz twice and could only manage to get four answers correct. Now, in my defense, many of the questions were looking for an exact number, which I think is unfair, but true fans of the series should be able to do much better.

It seems like all the geekiest blogs buzz with excitement whenever there's news about the new Star Trek movie. Yes, that includes us. The film sounds cool and all, but I think the biggest reaction I have had is when I silently nodded with approval upon hearing that Heroes' Zachary Quinto would be playing Spock. That is, until now.

Variety is reporting that Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz star Simon Pegg is going to play Scotty in the upcoming feature. Simon Pegg! Insert obligatory "beam him up" joke here.

(S02E01) In honor of the season two premiere of Heroes, we've got a live chat scheduled to coincide with the show. Come on in and make your thoughts about the show be known in real-time.

Click here to join the chat.

The full review will be posted in this space later on this evening. The full reviewcap is now posted and can be seen after the jump.

When it comes to television, Comic-Con is one enormous marketing machine for early adopting fanboys and girls. Each panel is constructed around dropping one or two spoilerific bon mots to the core fanbase so let's not waste any time and just cut to the chase. I'll follow-up with full panel reports, but in the meantime, here's the big news from Comic-Con this Thursday, July 26th.

(WARNING: Potential spoilers for all things pop culture and most things J.J. Abrams-related ahead.)

(S01E23) In honor of the Heroes season finale, tonight we're mixing things up a bit.

There's going to be a live chat during the show so you can post your "I hate the reviewer" comments in real-time! The full review will be posted in this space later this evening (the review is below).

22 episodes ago the season began with a bang. Will we be seeing one tonight?

Click here to join the chat.

(S01E22) This episode got off to a quick start picking up right where we left off last week with Peter Petrelli on the verge of combustion. Peter nearly had Claire shoot him as they had previously discussed, but fortunately, he seemed to gain control of his newly absorbed power.

Which brings me to this question: Why is it Peter can absorb powers by standing next to someone, but Sylar has to "rip your head open" to quote Claire? I'm sure someone will let me know in the comments. I'm guessing it's not just a personal preference.

Peter's involvement from this point forward was fairly limited, but we can see from the previews that all hell is going to break loose next week, and Peter and Sylar will have their much anticipated standoff.

(S01E21) Every week I walk away with a bit of a headache after watching Heroes. It's not a bad headache by any means. It's more of a sensory/information overload kind of a thing since each episode is filled to the brim with so many details.

That being said, the show is so entertaining, I find the discomfort completely worth it.

In an interview with Popgurls.com, Heroes producer Bryan Fuller discloses that, yes, the character of Zach on the show was indeed gay and they were going to follow the story through, but then negotiations with the actor's (Thomas Dekker) management got "ugly."

Fuller says that Zach was going to come out on the show and actually help Claire "come out" about her superpower, but then reps for Dekker said that they didn't want to make the character gay because it might hurt his chances of getting the role of John Connor in the new series The Sarah Connor Chronicles. So they took out a line that would have said that Zach was gay and never really got into it again, though in everyone's mind the character was still gay. Fuller, gay himself, says that he was hurt and insulted by the entire "debacle."

They had whole episodes revolving around Zach planned, but then his reps pulled him from the show completely.

Yesterday we told you about the controversy surrounding the change that NBC was making to the character of Zach, Claire's friend on Heroes that seemed to be gay. Now, creator Tim Kring has sent an e-mail to the web site that posted a long piece about the controversy that we linked to yesterday.

You can read his full e-mail at the link above, but it seems that he's saying that they did try to make the character gay, but that they didn't want to pursue that any further after some discussions with NBC execs. He says it was "too complicated behind the scenes to push this issue further," which I think is interesting. Some of the comments after the article show that some people are ticked off at this decision, especially if they have some plot where Zach's sexual orientation is changed because of the memory wipe he experienced in the fall finale. I can't imagine that happening. It's my guess that they'll just simply not mention anything he has said to Claire before or any other hints to Zach being gay and just leave it at that.

It's hard to say how long Thomas Dekker will stay with the show, since he has signed on to play John Connor in the Terminator series next fall.

[via TV Tattle]

...Six Creepy Killers.

Murderers, psychopaths, homicidal nut-jobs, and guys that like to eat fingers. Killers, they come in all shapes and sizes, all forms, and they're all over TV. We love to hate them and in some cases we hate that we love them. But you can't avoid them because more often than not, they lead to some great storylines on many of our favorite shows. Here's a look at some of the big ones from 2006.

1.) Sylar [Heroes] - Mild-mannered watch maker turned super-powered brain craver, Sylar has been removing the pink organs from folks on Chandra Suresh's list on Heroes all season long. He looks calm in that picture, but that was before he grew in the scrappy beard and donned a trench-coat. His ability to absorb the powers of those he kills is creepy enough, but actually seeing him get angry is definitely unnerving. Just look at what he did to Eden in the show's mid-season finale. I wouldn't recommend standing in front of a plate-glass window if this guy is on the other side of it.

Monday is the mid-season finale of Heroes, and Access Hollywood has about five minutes of clips from the upcoming episode. The clips include two scenes with Peter- one with Claire and one with his brother, another clip includes Hiro and Isaac, and there's also one with Mr. Bennett and Sylar. There's nothing terribly revealing in these clips, which makes me wonder whether there's going to be any action in this mid-season finale. The scenes just show characters having conversations with each other and the plot advancing forward.

Check out the clips here-- warning: the video is a little jumpy if you use a Mac.