You were just looking for crowns in all the wrong places.

I was pretty exited when I discovered that Slate was publishing a Fall TV Issue. Love Slate though I do, their television coverage isn't the most expansive, and I felt like it took a while for Troy Patterson to find his footing after Sufergirl Liz Penn moved on to film review. Besides, I watch a lot of TV. More articles from a source I love about those very shows? Sign me up.

The very first article I clicked on was Matthew Gilbert's "Too Many Heroes: The Plague of Cast Overpopulation." The title gives away at least one of the shows Gilbert will single out for his criticism, but he also briefly touches on the massive Grey's Anatomy cast. And there, my friends, is a missed opportunity.

It's simple: Heroes makes its massive cast work; Grey's doesn't. Gilbert claims that the cast overpopulation has turned Heroes into a mess: it's just too difficult to follow. Maybe years of watching soaps has prepared me for this challenge, but I don't find a damn thing difficult about the overlapping plotlines. I've watched a fair number of twisty and complicated shows in my day, and Heroes has to be one of the most deft at integrating the characters and plotlines in a way that is engrossing and rewarding for the audience.

How do they do it? That's pretty simple, too, actually: most episodes don't feature every character, and they regularly kill off secondary and tertiary characters (goodbye, George Takei!). Gilbert ignores the former and suggests the latter is a flaw. He alleges that, "In the last few seasons, Lost, 24, The Sopranos, Desperate Housewives, and Heroes have all goosed their ratings and left fans buzzing by rubbing out a character or two." I don't or no longer watch a fair number of these shows, but I will tell you this much: I have seen every season of 24, and killing off a character is not a recent development. If anything, the show's willingness to kill just about anyone (except Jack, of course) is its claim to fame.

As for the rest of it, what, exactly, is wrong with goosing the ratings or leaving fans buzzing? Why shouldn't a show with too many characters, as Gilbert feels, get rid of a few? Especially a show whose major arc involves a serial killer. A ratings stunt, maybe, but Sylar was pretty much killing off a character an episode, not too mention those taken out by the other heroes or Bennett and The Company.

If anything, Heroes has to deal with its massive cast a lot more intelligently than other shows that boast larger groups. He mentions Brothers & Sisters, er, and GA. All of these shows link their characters through a single point: family or work. Heroes uses both and often neither. The cast is more geographically and generationally expansive, and, yes, the writers do use family and work to bring the characters together, but they also rely on the show's overarching mythology to bind them into working toward common goals and against a common enemy. They never have to stick together simply because they are family, and they never have to run into people they'd rather not see because they all work in the same place. It is their abilities that bind them, in the end, and how the show weaves characterization and ability together is not only clever, it's reminiscent of the genius that went into the first three seasons of Buffy.

Of course, when it comes to dealing with the negatives weigh down a voluminous population, Heroes has an ace in the hole: the graphic novel. Why waste screen time on reams of exposition and backstory? Put it in the novel! Want to introduce a new character? Give 'em their own novel or even multi-novel arc! And, if you want, you can kill 'em off there, too (bye, Hana!). Big cast or no, the novel streamlines things for the audience.

Heroes has two things going for it: the forward momentum of the plotlines (minus a handful of gaffes, e.g. most of the stuff that goes down with Hiro) and, yes, its many characters. We never spend too much time on anyone person or ability, so we get the impression that any time we do spend is going to be exciting and important. The opposite is true for GA: every character is shoehorned into every episode, but the writers have lost their ability to balance the focus between the different characters and their arcs. As a result, last season saw mass character assassination and egregious "twists" to the point of turning viewers off of watching the show.

So, think it through next time, Mr. Gilbert. Of course we're going to find someone to hook onto. The subtitle might as well be Parade of Pretty People who can do Cool Shit.