Nathan Petrelli for President

On tonight's episode of Heroes, oddly titled "I Am Become Death," we learned that four years into the future, Nathan Petrelli is the President of the United States -- despite having less experience even than Sarah Palin.

The elder Petrelli brother started his career as a district attorney and then a Congressional Representative from either New York's 14th district (see the show's fun fake "Vote Petrelli" web site.) Now, Nathan (Adrian Pasdar) has begun Heroes' third season with an appointment to become the junior Senator from New York. (Sorry, Hillary, but the man's got your job.) In this season's premiere episodes, New York Governor Malden (Bruce Boxleitner) spotted a news report about Nathan's miraculous recovery from his gunshot wound and subsequent pseudo-religious babble, and dispatched Tracy Strauss (Ali Larter) to woo Nathan into replacing the late Gerald Dickinson.

My question is this: how many years do we think were left on Dickinson's 6-year Senate term? Is Nathan starting near the beginning -- meaning that, in order to be president 4 years from now, he obviously eventually New Yorkers flat to pursue his political ambitions? And gets elected, despite his bizarre past, and only a few years of experience in politics? (See, Sarah? Sadly, there's hope for you yet!) Or did Dickinson have just a short while left -- again meaning that Nathan runs for Prez without having done too much time in DC.

Of course, maybe the national electorate was truly smart enough to see through Nathan's plans -- only to have the voting machines manipulated by that whiny little machine whisperer, Micah (Noah Gray-Cabey).

After all, voting machine fraud is unfortunately probably not just the stuff of science fiction.



Heroes
Season 3
Mondays at 9 PM Eastern
NBC