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A ‘Heroes’ character is grounded for good

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The Web (Nikki Finke and Kristin Dos Santos were two of the first) seems to be abuzz with news that Adrian Pasdar -- Nathan Petrelli, the flying man himself -- will not be returning to “Heroes.” Yes, he was a major character from the beginning and it’s a sad day for those that still follow “Heroes” because Pasdar is a pretty good actor. It’s good that something happening on the show is still considered big news, but also a shame, actually, because it may just illustrate how much people aren’t paying attention to think that this is surprising or HUGE.

Pasdar’s Petrelli was killed off at the end of last season. Sylar did it, as he does to lots of people. Sylar was then was forced by Matt Parkman (Greg Grunberg), through prodding from Angela Petrelli (Cristine Rose), to assume the shape and life of Sen. Nathan Petrelli. Good way to keep Pasdar around though his character was effectively dead.

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So why the big whoop? It was bound to happen that Sylar would regain his thoughts and control of his body. It made plot sense and show sense. Plot sense because Sylar’s original power, which many seem to forget, is to figure things out. It started with watches and clocks, then continued with the acquisition of powers from others, which usually involved killing them (not in Claire’s case). Even being trapped thinking that he’s Nathan, his power would be working. He’d naturally be trying to figure out and fix why he felt ... wrong.

And Nathan’s still dead with no illusions of a super-powered resurrection. I thought about it for a while -- maybe they’d find someone who had the power to bring back the dead. Kind of like the healer kid that was recently killed on the show. But no. They knew this needed to happen, we knew this needed to happen.

Show sense? The TV viewing audience is saavy enough to know what trouble the show was in, and had sense to know that someone (chartacter/actor) was going to be leaving the show this season. With Nathan dead, ummmm ... well, there you go. With a new carnival of characters, Nathan hadn’t been a particularly active presence anyway, so we’ll see if it at all affects the show’s viewership. It’s been alluded to (Greg Grunberg being a source) that there could be others, and Hiro (Masi Oka) is apparently dying from his power usage, but this is probably the one that was foretold -- and the one that should stick.

-- Jevon Phillips

- Why DVRs aren’t the enemy of NBC’s ‘Heroes’
- Pre-Season 3 set visit on “Heroes”
- Review of the “Heroes” novel “Saving Charlie”
- Past “Heroes” show recaps and news

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