The days of Heroes being a blockbuster in the ratings are long over. The ratings of this season’s episodes have been even lower than last season’s, which were pretty bad on their own. That, along with some discontent over storylines, has led to a lot of online speculation that the show is coming to an end. If that’s the case, fans won’t be too happy to know how season four is ending.

When asked if this season of Heroes was going to end in a satisfying way or with a cliffhanger, actress Dawn Olivieri (Lydia) told Digital Spy, “I would probably go cliffhanger, because that’s how you do it these days, right? As for satisfying, I’m not sure. There’s definitely gonna be a few surprises that we’ve been filming recently and it’s gonna stir up some trouble. There’ll be a lot of buzz, for sure.”

When asked if she thought that the rumors were true, that the show would be cancelled soon, Olivieri replied, “Everybody talks about it losing momentum and not being so great in the ratings, but honestly, this show makes so much money for NBC that I don’t see it going anywhere. It’s had No.1 DVD sales every year it’s been on — internationally — and I don’t think it’s going anywhere. I think it’ll keep going.”

Is she correct or just being too optimistic? Based on the ratings to date, it looks unlikely that NBC will cancel Heroes this season. Though the ratings are far from what they once were and Heroes rarely wins its timeslot, you have to put things in perspective.

NBC is doing terribly in the ratings. They’re doing so badly that the 18-49 demographics for Heroes are among the network’s best. Though NBC could certainly do some budget-trimming to keep costs lower, it seems highly unlikely that NBC will let Heroes go because of how poorly the rest of the schedule is doing. Also, NBC-Universal produces the show so they make additional money on the DVDs and syndication.

What do you think? Will Heroes stick around for another year? How low can the ratings go before the network pulls the plug? If you’ve stopped watching, what could get you to come back?

Image courtesy NBC.