Heroes: Is Tonight’s Episode the Season or Series Finale?

Tonight, NBC concludes the fourth season of NBC’s Heroes (preview footage below). The series was a breakout hit for the network a few years back but has severely dwindled in the ratings. Will it be cancelled and will fans be left hanging?

Heroes follows the lives of a group of ordinary people who discover that they have special powers and the ways that it affects their lives. The current season’s cast includes Adrian Pasdar, Ali Larter, Cristine Rose, Greg Grunberg, Hayden Panettiere, Jack Coleman, James Kyson Lee, Masi Oka, Milo Ventimiglia, Robert Knepper, Sendhil Ramamurthy, and Zachary Quinto.

Though this season’s viewership was far below what it once was, Heroes looked to be safe from cancellation late last year. The numbers weren’t good but, thankfully for fans, most of the rest of the network’s schedule was doing worse, particularly in the all-important 18-49 demographic.

Unfortunately, Heroes’ ratings have continued to decline. In recent weeks, the 18-49 demos have fallen to new lows. The worst was a 1.8/5 rating/share. That’s a terrible performance, even by current NBC standards.

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Ultimately, the NBC execs will have to decide whether to renew, based on the show’s earlier performance, or cancel, based on the most recent ratings. It doesn’t help Heroes’ chances for survival that the peacock network is looking at as many as 18 new shows to help fill their 2010-11 schedule.

As expected, tonight’s episode of Heroes will end on a cliffhanger. Coleman recently told EOnline, “This season finale sort of breaks things open to, like a Brave New World. It feels like a season finale. I think the show deserves a series finale, even if it were a two-hour movie movie-of-the-week. Something, just something. I think that it should be wrapped up. Because when you have a series like ours, with all ‘middles,’ I think it deserves an end.”

If the show is cancelled, don’t look for the resolution to come in the near future. When asked about the possibility of filming a contingency ending, Anglea Bromstad, NBC’s president of primetime, told reporters in January that production had already finished for the season.

As fans of other cancelled NBC shows (Las Vegas, Knight Rider, Bionic Woman, and My Own Worst Enemy, for example) know, the peacock network doesn’t have a good track record for wrapping up their shows.

What do you think? If NBC cancels Heroes, will they film some kind of resolution or will they leave us hanging yet again?