Rescuing "Heroes" from becoming a goat

A show that garnered 16 million viewers at its peak less than two years ago got 8 million and change last night. "Heroes" may be beyond rescuing, but here are a few ideas for turning the show around. They may have implemented some of these; I wouldn't know, since like everyone else I've tuned out, too.

Quit being so damn stupid. The season premiere this year was a disaster. The scene in which Hiro (Masi Oka) watched a video from his late father which had but one piece of advice - don't open the safe in my office - and then he did so anyway, only to find another video in which his late father scolds him, "I asked you not to open this safe," was like a moldering Abbot and Costello routine or something. And, of course, it unleashed a potential earth-destroying chain of events. That's our Hiro - as blithely unconcerned about our planet as our President.

(Heckuva job, Hiro-y!)

The writers really need to hunker down and avoid such silly contrivances as this. If someone in the writers room rolls their eyes at a suggestion, then don't use it.

Why can't these people be a little more pro-active? For "Heroes," they don't seem to do a whole lot that's very heroic. Everyone's on the run or moping about or playing defense except Mohinder (Sendhil Ramamurthy), the show's dullest, earnest-as-a-Hardy-Boy character, who, in another dumb move, now has powers. (If anyone can have super-powers, what's the point?)

These guys need to press the attack on, well, whoever (would it kill them to centralize the villainy?). And they can opt to do that when the show takes the next piece of advice.

Kill off a whole bunch of characters. During the first season, creator Tim Kring said he was going to kill off main characters at a wicked clip, but admitted that he had grown fond of them and his cast. As a result, no one who's killed stays away from the show for very long. For God's sake, they've appeared to kill off Nathan (Adrian Pasdar) twice and he's still around. The cast has gotten so unwieldy that a lot of the actors only get one throwaway scene in episodes, which, aside from unnecessarily mucking up the too-sprawling narrative, isn't particularly cost-effective.

(Start with this bunch.)

Eliminating a few of them with extreme prejudice (and not just bit players) will A) give the others a reason to quit whining and start taking the fight to their enemies, B) streamline the narrative back to where it might make sense to the casual viewers, C) reinvigorate a show that at this point just seems to be trying to keep all its balls in the air rather than land on a propulsive story, D) call attention back to the series, E) help NBC in its eternal cost-cutting measures, F) maybe loll viewers out of the slack-jawed somnolence with which they're watching these days and G) possibly put an end to that pretentious drivel that passes for narration at the beginning and end of episodes.

Lighten up, already. "Heroes" was initially a hit because audiences responded to Hiro's pure joy at discovering his powers. Now, he's as sad-sack as the rest of this sorry crew, and that's obviously proven to be a drag on the show. Once the characters man up and start using their powers in a forceful fashion, perhaps they can revel in their abilities rather than remain stranded on the angst-y "why me" default.

Like I said, it may be too late for the show. But these tactics might get one person to start watching it again, and given how much it's dropped in the ratings, one viewer could be pretty important.