It may fall to Hayden Panettiere (and co-star Madeline Zima) to save the day for "Heroes," if last night's hot, yet patently ridiculous make-out scene is any indication.

The 20-year-old actress, who stars on the floundering NBC series, plays a cheerleader/hunk of eye candy, whose main role on the show lately has been to prevent the majority-male audience from noticing "Heroes" hasn't made sense in about two years.

As the show continues to hemorrhage viewers -- more than 400,000 are tuning out after each episode -- producers turned to Panettiere for ideas on juicing things up. Who said blondes aren't smart?

Fan reaction to this all-girl game of tonsil hockey has thus far been mixed. A review of forum debates indicates some fans believe "Heroes" has finally jumped the shark, while others counter the show's incapable of shark jumping since it never had any pretensions of legitimacy in the first place.

Our opinion? "Heroes" stopped feeling fresh and novel after season one, but if Hayden and her little friend there want to keep making out, hey, that's cool. We'll watch it on YouTube.