By virtue of the fact that I’m terrified of watching Ashes To Ashes, because I haven’t seen a single episode, thereby, leaving me dribbling and confused… and to the fact that I might be one of those idiots who says “Er, excuse me, but ‘Dare’ wouldn’t have been released at that point”, I decided I’d once again, take a punt on the reprogrammed and worsened Heroes (BBC Two, Monday, 20 April, 9pm). Last night’s episode was called ‘Turn and Face the Strange’, and is leading into some secret… perhaps the raison d’être for the programme thus far. Skulls and burials grounds uncovered it seems, along with yet more hamfisted chasery.

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One of the rare successes of this latest batch of Herogrammes is the addition of Danko. The actor who plays Danko (I could find his name out, but I’m too lazy) has been in hundreds of shows and films, playing the weirded out, staring maniac. In this role, a role of power struggles and too many late-nights, Danko has got himself in a death hold. That death hold is, in essence, hanging around with Sylar. There’s not many people in Heroes who get to hang with Gabe and live to tell the tale.

However, this series has seen Sylar neutered somewhat. While they’ve chucked more powers at him, and sure, added yet more things to his mystique, we’ve not really seen him performing to the best of his abilities. In Zachary Quinto, they’ve got a great little actor and it seems that they’re simply happy to have him stand in alleyways with CGI all over his face (he’s a shapeshifter now, see?).

Thankfully, for last night’s show at least, HRG managed to flex his acting muscles a bit, as we saw him completely headwrecked by this whole shapeshifting thing… and not to mention the break-up of his personal life and all that tacky-but-addictive US drama stuff. In a largely boring episode, which felt more like Buffy the Vampire Slayer or The X Files than a thrilling new sci-fi show, HRG stole the show by completely cracking up, nearly showing us all what his wife’s brains look like and killing a cop. Yessir, HRG is a frazzled man.

Sadly, it’s not enough. Once, we would have been jammed on hooks, stressed and twitching at three different, scintillating (and brilliantly ridiculous) storylines, some of which would skip through space and time, revealing events of the past, knocked off course by interfering super-hero people. Now, it’s all linear, Point A to C via B guff that we can find elsewhere and better. Hiro and Ando have been stuck in some woeful Laurel and Hardy role and Parkman is constantly on the verge of crying. He’s more tearful than Dave Spikey’s face.

The show concluded with a shot of all the Petrelli’s in the middle of a desert digging up some skulls in some kind of burial Area 51 ground. Of course, she “has something to tell” to all and sundry… but you know something? I’m not sure I care anymore. Sure, it might tell us where all this started… but the way it’s wrapping up makes me think that it’s going to be a really stupid or boring reason.