As Heroes increasingly bores the pants off nearly every viewer that first fell in love with wooden Pete and the band of disparate heroes' attempts to stop a Vulcan-faced villain from slicing heads a-plenty, news of a rather desperate ploy to keep us all watching has emerged.

Realising that the lovely Hayden Panettiere is the stuff of many a fan's innermost erotic fantasies, it would appear that those behind the show are considering working in a lesbian storyline for everyone's favourite teen.

A source has been quoted as telling the Daily Star, 'It's just girlie fun at first but it might progress into something more serious. It depends on how viewers respond.' Granted, it's the Daily Star, but the story is also being widely reported elsewhere, too.

I'm going out on a limb here, but I'm guessing filthy-minded viewers who watch the show primarily to see images of Ms Panettiere running around in skimpy cheerleader outfits (i.e. your typical Daily Star reader) will respond rather positively while the more serious, dare I say, more cynical, Heroes fan will wonder whether this is yet another misstep for a show that has witnessed a monstrous fall from grace.

As Heroes has progressed it has increasingly struggled to mix the fantastical elements with the day-to-day lives of the lead characters and Claire Bear's new-found love of all things woman strikes me as a distraction from the more interesting plot points the show should be concentrating on.

If they do decide to follow through with this storyline and it proves to be a success (the aforementioned fans with their minds in the gutter will call for more should they catch the slightest glimpse of Claire post-coitus with another lady), I fear what might come next. Here are a few possibilities that might capture that particular audience's attention further:

Tracy, Hiro and Ando Too
In a not especially sly nod to the classic Alan Clarke film, this episode centres on just three Heroes characters as we witness best buddies Hiro and Ando falling in love with Ice Queen Tracy and subsequently falling out as she shows more interest in Hiro – his time-bending abilities make for a fun time in the bedroom. Features the classic line, 'We're having a Hero fling, we're having a blast. We're having a Hero fling some time in the past.'

Carry On Head Slicing
A special late-night, 18-only episode as this witty take on the Carry On... films sees Sylar in the seaside resort of Margate where he encounters sun, sand and head slicing, accompanied all the while by his inimitable grumpy stylings. Julian Clary makes a cameo as a bus driver with a splitting headache. 'I'll fix that for you' comes the hilarious response from Sylar.

Wey Hey! Let's Have An Orgy
Matt Parkman, fed up because he knows everyone thinks he's a deeply boring man with rather a dull ability compared to the other heroes, decides to spice things up a bit by placing the suggestion of a naughty party back at his place into the minds of all the main characters via a voicemail message (yet another twist on his ever-changing yet no more interesting powers put in by the writers).

Everyone turns up, even Sylar, and it's a massive sexfest with highlights including Hiro's freezing of time to ogle everybody while they're naked, Sylar and Peter's constant mimicking of each other's powers in a naughty bedroom game of their own and Nathan's very own Mile High club. The final scene cuts to one particular person who hasn't been invited because of his own ability but has caught wind of what's going on as he spys Nathan up in the air with Tracy. This nicely sets up the next episode entitled 'No Sex Please, We're anti-Haitian'.

If you'd like to see any of those scenes in the next series of Heroes, you're clearly a Daily Star reader and should hang your head in shame.