Save the Cheerleader; Save NBC

“Heroes� has become, somewhat surprisingly, not only NBC’s savior this abysmal season for the network, but the year’s biggest new hit and the show that justified the networks’ reliance upon heavily serialized programs. If you miss an episode or two (as I have), you feel as if you’ve missed all sorts of character (and plot) nuance, and therefore, you’re chagrined, and vow to behave better in the future.

Tonight, “Heroes� resolves – for the time being, at least – its “Save the Cheerleader, Save the World� storyline. So it seems like a good opportunity to examine the season’s biggest phenomenon.

As previously discussed, when I first saw the pilot, I was admittedly underwhelmed. The narration was risibly pretentious. (Tonight’s begins with the stentorian abrogations, “We are, if anything, creatures of habit drawn to the comfort and safety of the familiar. But what happens when the familiar becomes unsafe?� – which seems to have little if anything to do with what has been going on or which ensues; it’s just blather to fill in some visual scenes that seem to advance the story quite efficiently without such bloviating.)

Moreover, it seemed that the female heroes were insulting stereotypes: a cheerleader and stripper? Really? Weren’t any librarians or university presidents available?

At this point, the narration is still dopey and still kind of feels unnecessary and out of sync with the rest of the show, but there’s not so much of it anymore. So perhaps your Mayor - and other critics - have effected some social good.

The show’s true heroes, who have truly rescued it from geeky, fan-boy initial impulses and have propelled it into the mainstream, have been its unpredictable storylines and its occasioinally uncanny characterizations and star turns. Masi Oka, playing Hiro, the Japanese office drone who just happens to be able to break the time-space continuum, is clearly the show’s breakout character – it no doubt helps that his character is the one who genuinely delights in his powers, so the show’s pretty fun any time he’s onscreen. But other actors have stepped up: Adrian Pasdar, who was great in an old, underappreciated show called “Profit,� has begun to channel that character’s droll jerkiness to nice effect. Jack Coleman, as the cheerleader’s father and the bagman for the evil conspiracy whatever it may be, also has a wry menace and I’m not sure any actor has made such good use of bad eyeglasses.

Meanwhile, the writers are still adding heroes, still adding storylines. They might be approaching the tipping point between weaving a textured, elaborate storyline and one threatening to collapse in confusion, but I’m not betting against them at this point.

Unlike “Lost,� whose writers apparently spend more time thinking up how not to have anything happen when cooking up future narratives, “Heroes�’ braintrust has thusfar been able to keep its momentum going. Creator Tim Kring has been able to weave his storylines pretty inventively, and bring the characters scattered around the world together cleverly – it’s like ABC’s “Six Degrees,� only with actually cool things happening. And while “Lost� has succeeded in alienating more than 5 million fans so far this season, “Heroes� numbers continue to inch upwards.

Tonight on “Heroes,� Peter, the politician’s younger brother (who really should invest in a comb), heads down to Texas, having been directly involved in the edict, Save the Cheerleader, Save the World, as good a tagline as you’re likely to hear this year (an Oscar frontrunner, however, might be loathe to employ it). This, despite knowing that if the artist who paints the future is correct, saving the cheerleader could kill him. Meanwhile, said cheerleader is preparing for homecoming, while her father, realizing she’s in danger, does what he can to help her, to little avail, of course.

Other subplots proceed apace, as well, including Hiro’s efforts to save the life of a waitress at a Texas diner who falls afoul of the global conspiracy to remove brains from sundry skullcaps.

It’s a pretty exciting episode, though not without some glaring narrative glitches – wouldn’t the cheerleaders be on the field during the football game and not in the locker room where a psychotic killer might be lurking? And the high school’s architecture seems more avant-garde – or is it just confusing? - than your average small-town Texas building. (Honestly: if anyone can figure out this building's blueprint - even Kring and his writers - and are so kind to send it to me, I will share these seemingly Moebius-Strip explications with my constituency.) And, most pressingly: Don’t the cheerleaders at that high school have any other clothes besides their cheerleading outfits?

That’s sort of the problem with serialized shows in which you have to wait a week between episodes – you have a week in which to pick their particular logics apart. But that's the great thing about a "Heroes:" You want to.

-- "Heroes," 9 p.m. (8 p.m. Central time) on NBC (Channel 4 in L.A.)