AP News

The producers of Heroes have let go lead Adrian Pasdar. Some reports have them killing off his character, Nathan, except they've already done that. (More than once, come to think of it.)

I liked Pasdar and thought, back when Heroes was good, that Nathan added a little spice to the show, being neither a good guy or a bad guy (a corrupt politician who was being used but maybe wanted to do good).

I would have been bothered to hear they're getting rid of him then. Now that the show stinks and will probably be gone soon anyway, it's hard to care.

This week's episode, by the way, didn't have Nathan, but promised the return of Mohinder. Oh well. The plot was Heroes' version of Back To The Future Part II--Hiro went back to a scene from the first season that already had time travel, and did some more time travel to make things work out.

Of course, the whole episode made a hash out of whatever lesson we learned the first time around. But no big deal--Heroes regularly backtracks on its promises. I suppose the producers figured they might regain some of the first season mojo.

At least they returned to the most charming, beautiful character that they ever offed too quickly--Charlie. She'd make a good regular, though Jayma Mays is busy starring in movies and Glee. It's the days of "Save the cheerleader, save the world," and Hiro went back to stop old-Sylar from killing Charlie (which he'd tried to do earlier and failed--maybe he should have stopped Sylar before he became powerful) without changing the future. Of course, if he'd just stuck around in the hospital, he could have been cured and then gone back (when you're a time traveler there's no rush), and even taken Charlie to the present to save her, rather than relying on Sylar's abilities.

He does save Charlie (and at first she turns on him, but this being Heroes, turns back again in a few minutes) and believes he doesn't change the future, even though he tells Sylar what will happen. Meanwhile, Carnival Guy is hanging around, doing very little till the adventure is over. Better he'd never been there, though it's the only thing that ties this to the fourth season plot.

There was an awful lot of Japanese spoken in this episode. In fact, on top of Hiro and Ando, in what must be a record for American television, three separate non-Asian characters spoke it. Since it was subtitled, the CC was essentially off during these moments. But then Hiro said something that wasn't translated, and the CC said "speaking Japanese." Except Hiro was saying, in accented English, "Great Scott!"

We also see old-Noah dealing with a fellow agent (and Isaac--truly was old-home week). I'd forgot Noah's old cover was he sold paper. I guess if he's fired from the show, he can do a lateral move to The Office.