This column contains spoilers for the season (and maybe series) finale of "Heroes."

It has become very painful to watch "Heroes," to the point where I question why I am still doing it.

I don't know ... maybe it's just a force of habit that I can't get rid of?

The only thing that saved me this year was the Olympics and the fact that NBC decided to end "Heroes" a bit early this season. So instead of having to go all the way into May with the torture of this show I once adored, I only had to go into February.

I get occasional e-mail from people wondering why it seems that I am out to get "Heroes." I'm really not. I loved "Heroes" in the first season. It was an awesome show, and you kind of forgot that it was a bit of a knock-off from The X-Men franchise and several others. The characters were fun, the setup was interesting, and the stories kept your attention.

Since then, "Heroes" has been nothing more than a shell of itself. In fact, to me, the shark-jumping point was when Claire Bennet's friend, who looks suspiciously like John Connor from "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles," suddenly went from being gay to being, well, ambiguous. Once that creative element was compromised, it seemed easy to compromise the rest.

I am just like you, by the way. I don't want to see shows -- especially serialized ones -- end on a cliffhanger. But if NBC decides (and rightfully so) not to return "Heroes," I don't think this will be one of those cases.

At the end of the episode, after we experienced that worthless battle with Samuel, Claire climbs on top of the ferris wheel, similar to what she did in the first season when she would jump off large drilling equipment, and showed the world that she was a hero. That's where we ended ... and why is that not a poetic ending?

Could there be more stories after that? Of course. But do we need them? I mean, seriously, we've already seen those stories: it's called The X-Men. If "Heroes" ended there, I would be perfectly happy. Perfectly happy, not just because this show can finally be put out of its misery, but because I think the ending works.

It's not a cliffhanger, it's an ending.

I just wish "Heroes" would've stayed the awesome show we had leading up to the so-called outing of Claire's friend. I really enjoyed it, I couldn't wait to tune in each week, and Tim Kring seemed to have things rolling well. Not everything can work long term, and there's nothing wrong with that. I know Kring had to do a second season that was a bit different than he had intended, and there was network interference left and right.

So I choose to simply stick with the first season, and make "Heroes" the best miniseries there's been in a long time. Maybe you should, too.