I just received the first script of Volume 5. It's a humdinger. We start shooting one week from today, June 8th. I'm looking forward to getting back. The new Company will not be what anyone expects, but it will be desperately needed. There's a whole new threat out there.

So, let's get right to it, shall we?

Where to begin? Liverpool, Paris, London. If you're thinking Liverpool doesn't belong in such august company, you would be wrong, at least as far as my family and I are concerned.

We went to Liverpool for a Beatles' pilgrimage and wound up falling in love with the city and its people. Expecting a grim, post-industrial city of abandoned row houses (in truth, they do exist) we found instead a lovely mid-sized city of culture, history (some ignominious -- the town prospered from the slave trade for a time) and fabulous green, open spaces just outside the city center. Some of these spaces have names like Penny Lane and Strawberry Field (singular, not plural, thank you very much.)

Last week, Liverpool honored the fallen from the 1989 Hillsborough tragedy, in which 96 people were killed and hundreds injured at a football (soccer) match. It had nothing to do with hooliganism, by the way, it involved a narrow tunnel and a barricade that gave way. 30,000 people filled Anfield Stadium last Wednesday to pay tribute. Organizers had expected around 10,000. Everything in the city came to a complete stop at 3:06 pm, the exact time at which the football match was halted on that fateful day.

No real entry this week, folks. Getting ready to go on a trip with my wife and daughter to London and Paris! I can feel the tears of pity well in your eyes for me. We need to get away, I can tell you that. It's been a long time. If any of you are in England, I will be at the Memorabilia Event at the Birmingham NEC on Sunday the 29th of March. And then on April 11, I'm doing "An Evening With" in London (see www.wolfevents.com). Come by if you can!

Thanks to all of you out there who offered your birthday wishes over the weekend. It was very kind and I really appreciate it. I am now at the age when birthdays occur approximately every 19 days. Years have become long weekends. I remember so clearly when my sister was old enough that it was deemed safe for me to go out in a rowboat as long as she accompanied me. She was 14.

When I was 22 and a senior in college I briefly dated a 26-year-old. She seemed so much older and more worldly than me (she was). Now I'm shocked when 26-year-olds are weaned and can walk and talk all by themselves. Soon it will be me who needs assistance with the walking and talking. More the walking than the talking.

I want to quickly address the "walk away and shut up" comment from last week. It was a tongue-in-cheek remark that I assumed most readers would understand and find humorous. We all know what happens when you assume.

I should have given the comment some context. I did not mean that there should be no criticism of the show. I was not referring to reasonable viewers who feel the show is not as good as it used to be and wish to register their complaints. I was referring to the new cottage industry of Heroes bashing that has sprouted up both online and in mainstream media.

Those of us who make the show, and there are several hundred people involved, work hard to create a compelling, entertaining show that holds up week to week. If someone feels it has failed to do so, he or she has every right to say so. And contrary to what some might think, viewers are not taken for granted, nor do the producers and cast care only about ratings. The makers of the show care deeply about its fans.

What I object to, and what I should have stated more clearly, is the recent phenomenon of serial complainers who get ever more personal and nasty. They say they hate the show yet continue to watch, week after week, with the sole purpose, it seems, of coming up with new and nasty things to say about the show, the cast, the writers, etc.

It is these folks to whom I have extended an invitation to put down the poison pen and simply stop watching.

As I have stated before, I think this volume will be rewarding to viewers, solid fans and fence sitters, alike. A show like Heroes shoots far in advance to meet its production requirements. It adjusts course like an ocean liner, slowly. I feel that we are moving solidly in the right direction. And I invite you to join us.

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

Jack

So, here we are. The end of 2008. What a fantastic, awful, exciting, terrifying year it was. If you only lost half your net worth, you're doing pretty well. On the bright side, in a month we will have a new cast of characters in Washington. Not a moment too soon.