'Heroes' needs help

"Heroes" just might be a lost cause.

It pains me greatly to put that in print. But the third season of "Heroes" reminds me of the third season of "Lost." I'm still watching it every week, but it's boring. And annoying.

At this point, I wish "Heroes" had been a 23-episode miniseries that ended with a big bang and then rode off triumphantly into the Shrine of Wonderful TV Memories. Because the show seems less and less like the one we fell in love with two years ago.

I'll still give creator/producer Tim Kring and his team a pass on Season 2. They were following the Season 1 template, with a slow build to big action.

In hindsight, maybe trying to do a slow build wasn't going to work for a second season. But, on the other hand, it's the formula that "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" used very successfully for seven seasons.

And Season 2 was cut short by the Hollywood writers' strike, so it was like Kring & Co. were being judged after writing only half a novel.

And, coming into this season, Kring vowed that he had learned a lesson from viewers — "how to hit the ground running in a really quick way that has a tremendous amount of adrenaline."

No argument there. But the third season of "Heroes" has too much going on. It's like a driver who begins to drift off the road, jerks the wheel back and ends up crashing off the other side of the road.

Yes, there's a lot going on. Yes, there's plenty of action. But a lot of it borders on the incomprehensible.

I'm hesitant to nitpick. But specific problems with Season 3 speak to larger issues.

Hiro and Ando have become buffoons. Mohinder's transformation into a spider-like man is dumb. Parkman's vision quest — and his turtle — are booooooring.

Trying to turn Sylar from villain into hero can't work. The guy killed dozens of people in horrific fashion. It's like bad soap-opera writing to redeem him.

Speaking of bad soap-opera writing, keeping Ali Larter on the show by having her portray a twin (triplet, actually) of her original character is something right out of "General Hospital."

And how about the twist that has Sylar turning out to be Nathan and Peter's brother? Maybe that came from "Days of Our Lives."

All of the time-jumping and alternate futures are confusing, and viewers can never be sure that what they're seeing is real. And if it is real, they're not sure if it will change or not.