by Renzie Baluyut

You've probably been waiting for it all year- the third volume of Heroes finally made its premiere last night. I caught it myself, and liked it. I'm sure a lot of my friends did too. But in the business of television, buzz is good, but ratings ultimately matter. The question is: was the NBC drama able to hold up well enough against the fierce Monday night competition?

Not quite heroically enough, according to a report on TV.com. In fact, according to figures from The Hollywood Reporter, viewership of Heroes: Villains is rather disappointing- down 25% this season, based on ratings of the third season premiere last night, pulling in only 9.9 million sets of eyeballs.

Which meant one in four who saw the second season premiere last year was probably watching something else, leaving it up to the DVR to record the show, or just busy doing other stuff. Heroes overload, perhaps?

We had three hours' worth of Heroes last night: a 1-hour clip show at 8pm, which pretty much just brings us up to speed with what went down the past couple seasons, then you had Episodes 1 and 2 of the "Villains" volume: "The Second Coming" at 9pm and "The Butterfly Effect" at 10pm.

Understand, however, that in my case, I also want to catch my other favorite Monday night shows- specifically: Gossip Girl (on The CW, at 8pm), How I Met Your Mother (on CBS, at 8:30pm), The Sarah Connor Chronicles (on FOX, at 9pm). So thank Bob for DVR's.

Now that's just MY demographic. What about the rest of Monday night primetime-viewing America? It seemed that ABC's Dancing with the Stars pulled in 21.1 million viewers- more than twice the number of Heroes' viewers- at 9pm, and then CBS kicks NBC's ass at 10pm with David Caruso's screaming hot shades with CSI: Miami's 16.9 million viewers.

The biggest draw for Monday night however, seemed to have come from Monday Night Football, with the return of Bret Favre, so all around, even the other Monday night shows got hit: The Sarah Connor Chronicles only had 5.8 million viewers, Prison Break (also on FOX) also took a slight dive, and so did Gossip Girl, which saw 20% less viewers compared to last week.

Possibly impressive: comedy newcomer Worst Week garnered more than 11 million viewers last night- still at least a million more viewers than the Heroes season 3 premiere.

I'm still hoping that our heroes (and villains) would rally by next week. Sure looks like the Petrellis have some hustling to do.

Cheers, everyone!

You already knew this was coming. Tina Fey is just going to be so all over Sarah Palin.

Exactly what I thought when I first saw Governor Sarah Palin, running mate of Republican presidential hopeful, Senator John McCain, on TV at that Republican Convention a few weeks back. She does look so much like Tina Fey, doesn't she? Check their photos out right here.

The resemblance is uncanny, wouldn't you agree?

In case you didn't know, Tina Fey is best known for her work on Saturday Night Live and on 30 Rock, both on NBC. On a recent airing of Saturday Night Live, the show opens with Tina Fey (as Gov. Palin) alongside Amy Poehler (as Sen. Hillary Clinton) as they address the nation. In true SNL form, the sketch just completely bowled me over. Watch and enjoy.

Probably one of the more underappreciated shows that came out in the past couple years is the USA Network's Burn Notice. The new season came out last July 10- just after I flew back to Metro Manila from Los Angeles, and I gotta say- the show just keeps getting better and better.

Burn Notice first came out in the summer of 2007. The title refers to a memo of sorts issued by intelligence agencies that pretty much dismisses and discredits agents, operatives or other assets as unreliable, and are therefore, blacklisted from any project thereafter. So spies don't get pink slips, they get burn notices.

Our show follows the misadventures of Michael Westen (played by Jeffrey Donovan), an international covert-ops operative, who got inconveniently burned in the middle of an assignment, and is trying to figure out why he got burned, and who got him blacklisted and flagged on just about every government watchlist to begin with.

Finding his assets frozen, cut off from his network and waking up in a sleazy motel in Miami, Michael sets off to redeem himself. So he takes on just about any job he can get his hands on- small-time stuff, really, for someone of Michael's caliber- but hey, as long as it pays the bills, takes care of the rent, with enough leftover for blueberry yogurt and beer, it's all good.

So what's an ex-spy supposed to do? Get by with a little help from his "friends", that's what.

Michael then reluctantly enlists the aid of a couple of "friends": a trigger-happy ex-girlfriend, (Fiona, played by Gabrielle Anwar) who just so happens to be an IRA-trained demolitions expert and sharpshooter, and a former Navy SEAL and Military Intel Operative (Sam, played by Bruce Campbell) who's seen better days and too many sugar mommas and mojitos.

Then of course, there's Michael's mother, who's just happy to have her son back in town (after not hearing from him in 10+ years), and calls him up 20, 30 times a day, often asking for Michael to attend to some errand or help out with some problem at home.

The show is really a first-person narrative from the viewpoint of Michael, offering some interesting insights and nuggets of wisdom in espionage and covert ops. The show has an entertaining mix of action, suspense and comedy, fun and memorable characters, and ultimately a good storyline.

I just finished a Season 1 marathon, and now I'm watching the Season 2 episodes I've had recorded- and it's great stuff. Check out the Season 2 promo they had airing on the USA Network: