Now that the producers of LOST have suggested that serialized stories ought to have an end point, and have set one for themselves, will Heroes be the next to follow suit?   Of all the television shows to attempt to nail the LOST formula, Heroes has undoubtedly been the most successful, mostly because it feels like it is going somewhere, is it though?  While many have applauded the series' willingness to give answers, not many have addressed the fact that this torrent of information has to slow down at some point if the show wants to remain a fresh, long running success for NBC.

Heroes has told its story at a pace which would suggest that it is going to end in one season.  By the end of season one we will have a battlefield completely laid out before us with known quantities of good, evil, and a few wild cards to spice things up.  What many want to know is, can the show follow up with a story that is going to be equally interesting?

There is only so far you can go with a cycle of shocking disclosure before you becoming a cliche of the act.  While Heroes seemed to be capitalizing on what many saw as LOST's weakness, and in the process draw favorable comparisons from its progenitor, no one was asking the question of just how much information there was to disclose to begin with.  Fiction is a field of infinite possibilities, for sure, but the device of 'shocking revelation' can quickly lose its charm when there is no story to be told.

It could be that the producers of Heroes are functioning on an ideal length for their creation, or not.  The typical schema is to run a successful show until the ratings drop to an unrecoverable low and then put it out to pasture.  Sort of a "Run em till they drop" mentality.  Now that LOST has changed the playing field for show-runners, one can only guess how far off a similar announcement may be for Heroes.

- Jon Lachonis, BuddyTV Senior Writer
(image from NBC)