I almost forgot all about the whole waffles thing until I saw this over at Twitter: JamesProps#WaffleWednesday Don’t forget the Heroes Season Premiere Party @TheWaffleLA, 9/21! http://www.shopallaccess.co… Please RT!

Those “Heroes” writers (as well as apparently their props department) certainly have a waffle obsession. It is clearly evidenced on the show, as they are mentioned in 12 different episodes as well as once in the web-comic.

Greg Grunberg even divulged the cast & crew enjoying craft services waffles behind the scenes!

I myself am apparently an unsuspecting contributor in this conspiracy, having once prostituted personal information about myself for the sake of waffles on the newsgroup alt.1d.

But is there more to this waffle thing than just tasty breakfast treat? Some people seem to think so!

There are all sorts of rumors, some ranging from the mundane (the writers receive dividends from the “Waffle House” chain) to the fantabulous (waffles are part of a secret conspiracy to take over the world)… and everything in between, one of my most favorite being that waffles augment the powers of persons with enhanced abilities. Too bad this weren’t true, as I’m sure I have eaten enough waffles in my lifetime to at least  inherit the possibility or either “gaydar” and/or “bullshit detector”. C’mon evolution, work with me here!

So what is #WaffleWednesday anyway? There seems to be some confusion as to who created it, and more importantly, why?

• Chief Waffle Officer (a.k.a. Gillian) claims to have come up with it sometime around 2006 (she posts on 2/2/07 that it came about “a year before” the post).
• The TypePad blog “Waffle Wednesday” posted it’s first article on 9/4/06.
• And even one unofficial source claims that it began as early as March 2005 in Ontario, Canada.

 While I’m pretty sure the last article is a joke, it does seem likely that whomever created the idea of a Waffle Wednesday probably did so unintentionally, and thus did not have the foresight to notate it’s official date.

It is also plausible that Waffle Wednesday may have occurred serendipitously in time with either International Waffle Day (March 25th) or National (U.S.) Waffle Day (August 24th) to fall on a Wednesday.

Whatever the case may be, waffles somehow because the official breakfast food of Wednesdays, which seems ironic as I almost always make them on a Sunday when I’ve actually got the time. Attempting to procure waffles on a weekday(unless at a restaurant) just seems odd.. but maybe that’s just me.

In any case apparently to make it more confusing the official All-Access “Heroes” premiere party is being held at a place called “The Waffle” at the corner of Sunset & Vine in Hollywood. this is of course on a Monday.. not a Wednesday, and takes place between 6PM and 11PM. So, dinner not breakfast, not that there is anything wrong with eating breakfast foods for dinner. If you live over that way and have about $40 then you can totally make a reservation.

Of course none of this info ends up answering my initial question, as such I now officially dub this a non-blog (nlob) as nothing was truly gained by the reading of this post. However if you’d like more information regarding waffles and how it pertains to ‘Heroes” then I suggest you check out the Heroes Wiki “Waffle” page as well as the “Waffles Spoiler” page.

WRITERS NOTE: This may well be the last entry to “Shades of Gray” (a.k.a. :Heroes” Spoiler Blog). I do still watch the show – but I’ve just gotten too far behind on posts, and really no longer want to commit myself to daily or monthly blogs, because I write a lot better on the fly than when i have a “deadline”. Apologies if you were enjoying the column, and thanks for reading!

Season 4 of ”Heroes” premieres next Monday, September 21 (as you probably know). It’s a two hour premiere, which means that technically it is in fact two separate chapters. Chapter 1 – “Orientation” and Chapter 2 – “Jump, Push, Fall”. This preview is based solely on conjecture; based on casts lists for the episodes, a few interviews here and there (Greg Grunberg as always a font of unbridled spoileriffic material), and a couple of leaked photos, combined with theories I have formulated from previous episodes. As per usual.. don’t read these if you don’t want to know what might potentially happen on the show. I know I say this every time, but of course the one time I don’t someone will haphazardly read it and I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who doesn’t want to know anything until after the show… so there you go – you have your chance to run to a spoiler-free zone! Go on, now! OK, for the rest of you – spoilers 3… 2… 1… NOW!

Episode #401 (Volume 5, Episode 1) “Orientation”  and Episode #402 (Volume 5, Episode 2) “Jump, Push, Fall” – Based on the official NBC description of the episode released 8/27/09

Claire once again makes an attempt at normalcy. She attends college in Washington D.C., only to have her hopes quickly dashed with the unexpected suicide of her new roommate, Annie.

Hiro is potentially dying as hinted in the Season 3 finale. This is the source of his mysterious nosebleeds. With the help of Ando, he nobly decides to use his remaining time to do good deeds, mainly by finding other evolved humans and helping them discover, hone, and use their abilities for good.

“Angela fears that Nathan will discover his true identity (Sylar); while Matt is haunted by an unexpected visitor seeking what he is lost.” This all sounds very cryptic until you realize that it is promoted as one sentence. As previously discussed here: when Matt used his powers to create Nathan/Sylar some of Sylar’s essence transferred into him. From within, Sylar is able to manifest himself in Matt’s mind and uses this to communicate with him in an attempt to regain his body/power.

“The Company” is reformed by Angela & H.R.G. and Tracy joins. Tracy & H.R.G. investigate the motive behind a horrific murder. - My opinion on this depends on whom the murder victim is, as I do not currently know. As of now, my theory is that Tracy is in fact covering up her own vendetta murders. As again, you may recall from the end of Season 3; she materializes out of agent Harper’s overflowing sink, and then proceeds to freeze and kill him claiming him as “Number 4″. I believe this indicates that she is summarily working her way through former members of Building 26. She may join the company in an attempt to get further information of those members whereabouts. In addition it is possible by pretending to investigate murders that are actually hers, she  would try to push suspicion off of her self.

Unfortunately this theory is flimsy at best. First of all why would “The Company’ be investigating murders of normal humans, unless it was obvious the murders were done by enhanced human ability. And then assuming it is obvious, why wouldn’t H.R.G. pick up on the fact that Tracy is a suspect (unless he is trying to trick Tracy into revealing herself)?

However if this theory is correct – Building 26 (known) employees still alive include H.R.G. himself, Bob (Danko’s former assistant), formerly unnamed Central Commander, Dan from Internal Affairs, Danko, Agent Donner (one of the agents Sylar frequently impersonated), Agent Taub (another agent Sylar frequently impersonated), Rachel Mills, and a handful of previously un-named agents and techs. Zeljko Ivanek (who plays Danko) is scheduled to guest in the premiere, but as far as I can tell none of the other (so far advertised) episodes. I wonder if he is in fact the murder victim?

“Peter uses his powers for good, but is soon called upon by an old friend” – I think it is important to note the phrasing “uses his powers for good, but” portion of the statement. Peter is notorious for meaning well, but then somehow accidentally become or aid the thing/person to be avoided. Therefore I am taking this as a very crafty hint from the writers, that once again Peter will attempt to “help” only to have things go awry.

“While the heroes adjust to their new surroundings, a mysterious carnival clan, led by ringleader Samuel, sets their sights on familiar faces.” – Again note the use of the term “familiar faces”. It may just be their way of making a blanket statement about familiar to us, the viewers, meaning our cast from the previous seasons. But is it? Perhaps the new character, Samuel, is familiar with some of the faces as well; esp. if he is in fact the “old friend” of Peter’s the above statement refers to. He would probably at least know of Peter, Nathan and Angela.

I initially got excited about this circus concept, hoping that it meant yet another return of Eric “The Puppet Master” Doyle. He has been getting some Graphic Novel/Webisode action during the off-season. However I follow David H. Lawrence XVII on Twitter, and as far as I can tell he has yet to make mention of filming any “Heroes” episodes yet. Then again, you never know he could be saving it as a surprise.

Other notes of interest based on the guest stars list :

• Ray Park – I would wager as a member of the carnival, given his acrobatic skills.  
• Madeline Zima – as Gretchen. Gretchen is one of Claires new friends at college, and reportedly the girl-on-girl kiss that Hayden Panitierre alluded to a few months ago in an interview.
• Dawn Olivieri as Olivia the Tattooed Lady (yay song reference). Obviously, one of the other carnival members.
• Zachary Quinto – yes as a guest star! I know this is a total downer for fangirls (myself included), but it seems at least for these episodes Sylar is being played mainly by Adrian Pasdar as Nathan/Sylar. ZQ will likely only make appearances in memories and  in Matt’s visions.
• Rachel Melvin as Annie. Claire’s roommate who commits suicide.
• Jimmy Jean-Louis as the Haitian. I assume as always, part of “The Company”. Probably helping out with H.R.G.s investigation.
• Ashley Crow as Sandra Bennett. H.R.G. and Sandra still have a messy divorce battle impending (as hinted somewhere that Claire divides her time between them this season). So we’ll probably still see her on occasion, no clue if she has any other role to play aside from Claire’s mom and caretaker of Mr. Muggles. BTW – because I don’t think  I mentioned it before – Mr. Muggles is an invincible dog. I think he inherited Claire’s power when he drank her blood. So far he has resisted a number of attacks, and also as apparent in potential future timeline Volume 3 (the same one where Gabriel has a son) apparently looks just as young and behaves just as spritely in the year 2011 as he does in year 2007 (4 years is a decent chunk of change in dog years) which is similar (as we know) to other people with rapid cellular regeneration (like Adam Monroe) whom never age.
• Lisa Lackey as Janice Parkman. She’ll be around a bit more, now that Matt is aware he ha a son. Whether or not she and Matt actually reconcile remains to be seen.
• Assaf Cohen as Hesam. Hesamis one of Peter’s EMT/Paramedic coworkers. He lectured Peter once about Nathan (assumingly unaware of the existence of evolved humans) mistaking it for a more hardcore approach to the Patriot Act. In other words he thinks the government was hunting/rounding up immigrants and minorities. Reportedly he is of Iranian descent. Not sure where this plot-line may go, unless they revert all the way back to Season 1, unaired pilot episode and bring a terrorist faction back into the story.
• Saemi Nakamura as Kimiko Nakamura. Yeah, like me you probably forgot that Hiro even had an older sister, right? She took over Nakamura Industries when Kaito died, so that Hiro could concentrate on his other endeavors. So far she has not demonstrated any enhanced abilities.

I know it’s still 52 days to go, but here I am already with potential theories and spoilers.

But before we do all that I just wanted to apologize for slacking off at the end of last season. I totally had unfinished drafts and everything (maybe I’ll still even post them, we’ll see) but I dunno. I just lost my mojo/momentum and couldn’t seem to get it back. It wasn’t for lack of interest in the show, believe me. It was more I just took on too many projects at once and got burnt out.

As always with my Heroes blog. Seriously don’t read it if you don’t want to know. Not to toot my own horn or anything but I have like a 75% accuracy rating on being able to anticipate the plot-lines of the show. You’ve been warned!!!

Yesterday E! Online posted a huge spoiler article (original source: http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/watch_with_kristin/b138042_heroes_spoilerpalooza_triangles.html)

HeroesSpoilerpalooza: Triangles, Carnivals and Death

Thu., Aug. 6, 2009 12:45 PM PDT by Natalie Abrams and Carrie Borzillo-Vrenna