The fourth series (or volume, if you like) of Heroes started Stateside last night, and, in many quarters, it was fighting for survival. Actually, it’s the second part of series three that was curtailed by the writers’ strike. There’s a fairly strong argument out there that says the series has become too messy, too over-reliant on time travel and struggling under the weight of the sheer number of characters. Hope are high for volume four, and it’s been suggested that things will calmer and a lot more linear. While I was looking around for reviews of last night’s series-opening episode, I came across this on io9.com, which made me chuckle. It’s 63 Reasons To Give Heroes One More Chance and provides quite a compelling argument to why we should still be watching it. As one of the people who had lost interest, it’s made me excited again. So what does the article suggest? Have a look over the jump…

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In among all the jollity (18. Sylar will keep taking his shirt off! We hope; 26. Christopher Eccleston will be in every scene this season. (Okay, he’ll be invisible, and he’s also taken a vow of silence. But he’s there somewhere. We promise!; 40. Potential for Nazi zombie subplot; 41. Possibly the only show that regularly features telekinetic underwear fights) there are real nuggets of preview lovliness: 4. The bad guy is named The Hunter. At least that’s a proper supervillain name, as opposed to “Bob.” Or “Knox.” It’s a step in the right direction. Maybe; 8. Sylar’s taking another road trip, but this time he has a young totally-not-gay “apprentice” named Luke. Much better than Maya; 11. Supposedly we’re going back to basics a bit, with actual characters living their lives and holding down jobs. Until they get hauled off to Super-Gitmo, that is).

So it’s more rooted in real-life and has more politics. And it seems that there are a much more clearly delineated boundaries in terms of who’s a good person and who’s a bad person. I love dramas where the characters aren’t just good or bad, but I really do think Heroes needs to calm down a bit.

Perhaps series three-and-a-half might do the job.