While we're still lamenting the cancellation of ABC's brilliant Pushing Daisies, at least that show's demise has led to a return by Bryan Fuller.

Fuller was a lead writer on Heroes before leaving to create Daisies. He'll return in time to play a role in this season's 19th episode, and beyond.

He also recently sat down to analyze the state of his former show with Entertainment Weekly columnist Michael Ausiello. Here are excerpts from that interview:

Where did Heroes go wrong, in your opinion?
It became too dense and fell into certain sci-fi trappings. For instance, in the “Villains” arc, when you talk about formulas and catalysts, it takes the face off the drama. And I think the goal for everybody is to put a face back on the drama. You have to save something with a face; otherwise you don’t understand what you’re caring about. I thought the "Villains" arc started out very interestingly, and then became sort of muddy and dense and I couldn't get my hooks into the characters to understand their motivations.

I also started to feel confused about what people's abilities were. One of the great things about the first season is that the metaphor for their abilities was very clear. Those metaphors seem to have gotten complicated in the past two seasons. I share that concern with everybody on the writing staff. It's not like I'm coming in and saying, "This is what you need to do to fix it!" Everybody knows what needs to be fixed and everybody is sort of rowing in that direction.

Any plans to trim the sprawling cast?
People will die. And some will return. Matt’s wife [Janice] comes back. We’ll find out what happens when you have a superbaby. We're also going to tell fewer stories per episode. We're going to limit it to three or four with one big one that you can wrap the stories around. We're altering the structure of the show so that there's a very clear A story that takes up a larger percentage of the show so that that story gets traction.

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