In a recent interview, conducted prior to season three, Masi Oka promised an exciting season for Hiro and company.

He obviously wasn't kidding.

Here are a few highlights from the feature:

On critical reaction to season two: Every critic is different and people look for different things. So I don’t know if the critics are bashing for the sake of bashing it, but maybe it’s just like a continued - well continuing (stealing the hat) from Season 2. So I’m hoping that, you know, as the episodes progress that they could just go back to what made Heroes great with Season 1 and where Season 3 is headed towards, and then go back to seeing it as, you know, pure entertainment for the whole family.

On Hiro and Daphne: I’m very excited. We’re already shooting Episode 12 and there’s a lot of great shocks and, you know, twists and turns. With Hiro and Daphne, you know, Daphne is kind of like the quintessential nemesis for Hiro. As Batman gets his Joker, Hiro gets Daphne. That said, I see it more like a Wile E. Coyote and a Road Runner scenario except she said more than meep-meep and not as many Acme gadgets although you will see Hiro fall on his face a lot.

On Hiro and Ando: I think the writers wanted to introduce a little bit of a different dynamic between Hiro and Ando just to start things off. We will see them back to get their original selves, hopefully very soon. But I think everyone is kind of like - because this is a season called Villains, or the volume is called Villains, we wanted to kind of put in seeds of doubt in terms of every relationship we’ve had and kind of shake up the status quo.

Matt Richenthal is the Editor in Chief of TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter and on Google+.