What will happen when Heroes returns to the airwaves tonight? Fans have a theory … or 5,000. Videotaped hypotheses, assembled at NBC's Website, range from the goofy to the dead serious. "Can Sylar be stopped? Of course he can," claims one hyperenthusiastic fan, Mischa from Rhode Island. "He's gonna be on vacation in Mexico. Accidentally drinks some water. Montezuma's revenge, you see where I'm going here?" Mostly, though, these ideas are so baroquely complicated that even a die-hard follower can't make sense of them without watching the videos a couple of times through. ("So Peter will reach into his bag of tricks and pull out Hiro's time-stopping ability — which he acquired on the subway from future Hiro!")

The real joy of the Heroes theories is watching the moments when pure, undiluted fandom destroys self-control. Troy from California gets hyped up over the idea of Peter Petrelli beating the hell out of Sylar: "Sylar's gonna go and try and kick a can of whup on him, and Peter's gonna seal up the can at just the right moment and fling it back at Sylar! I wanna see some Sylar Putty. Bring it on for me, Heroes!" And Ashley, a girl seemingly in her late teens from Pennsylvania, spends her whole video speaking not about her Heroes predictions, but about how she's found a home in the ever-widening Heroes fan community. Wide-eyed and happy, proudly sporting a Heroes T-shirt, she says, "It's really amazing to see how one show can impact that much of society in only eighteen episodes."