Don't get me wrong; I'm sure it was a fine show. But first of all, I'm just not that into cop shows. And second, years of being told "This is the best television show that has ever been on television in the history of television" has the wrong effect on me. I think people are trying to make me want to watch it when they say things like that, but what really happens is that I roll my eyes and privately declare that I'm never watching it. And then I decide to myself with no evidence that these people are probably just overexcited about the show because it's on the air right now. I mean, I remember when people said The Sopranos was The Greatest Show Ever, and it pretty clearly had serious flaws. I never hear anyone make a substantive argument about why today's Greatest Show Ever is better than Cheers or M*A*S*H or, um, Gunsmoke. Possibly that's because nobody young enough to be able to operate an email account has ever seen an episode of Gunsmoke.

Anyway, my point is this: I got through the entire Wire era without seeing a single episode. And now it's off the air, so people can stop telling me how great it is. I promise I'll try to watch the next critically-acclaimed, low-rated show. Unless it's on at the same time as something I actually enjoy.

I would like to see fewer people purposely avoiding using their powers, and more people kicking butt. Because if you can read minds or travel through time, I really think it would be neat to see you doing it. Also, since Claire is invulnerable, I don't really care about another season-long plot that's all about protecting her from hypothetical dangers.

How I Met Your Mother

I didn't watch last season, so all these "slap bet" ads just strike me as being obnoxiously in-jokey. I wouldn't watch that episode on a dare at this point.

The Simpsons

For the tenth year in a row, it's not as good as it used to be.

The Writers' Strike

Man, the producers are really losing the PR war, aren't they? Every day brings a new YouTube clip with network honchos saying silly things while the captions mock them.

Reality Television

I've seen people saying "If you support the WGA strike, you should boycott reality television." Strangely, these are usually people who take every opportunity to tell me how bad reality television is, as opposed to people in the WGA telling me what they actually want. The strike is about DVD and Internet residuals, not "Scripted vs. Reality", so if you really want to boycott something, it seems like DVDs and Internet downloads would be more appropriate.

Survivor

That huge gravedigger has two immunity idols, which seems like it's going to be a problem for the rest of the people. On the other hand, he hasn't actually won an individual immunity challenge and he seems to be getting on everybody else's nerves, so I think there's a pretty good chance he's going to get voted out anyway.

The Amazing Race

I have no problem with the way Kynt and Vyxsin spell their names. I believe people should get to use whatever name they want. You'd be surprised how many people in my circle of friends have changed their names arbitrarily. And I know goths that are far more perky than them, so that doesn't bother me either.

Prison Break

Wow, and I thought the first season was silly!

The Office

Over the offseason, I watched all of the US and UK Offices. I think it's interesting that the US version has gone on so long that all of the characters, even the background ones, have personalities and backstories so that they all get some degree of sympathy. I'm not sure the UK one went on long enough for, say, Gareth to be as interestingly deep as Dwight.

Torchwood

I would feel more comfortable with shadowy super-governmental agencies that had control of weird alien technologies if they spent more time thinking about their jobs and less about having sex with each other.

30 Rock

You know what would be great? If Judah Friedlander never got a storyline. Seriously, I don't need to know his backstory, his personal struggles, or anything about his private life. He should just be a guy who says funny things. What's wrong with that?

Ugly Betty

Telenovela!

Oh, you're not. Okay, that's fine. Go ahead and be a jerk. I'll be over here, filled with glee. I actually got to see a screener of the first episode (that's just one of the perks of being an internet television critic; I also get 50% off my semicolons at punctuation.net), and it looked pretty good.

That is, the television show in my head looked pretty good. It turns out that "advance copies" are actually in advance of special effects. So the things I watched actually involved Flash Gordon and Dale Gordon running in fear from a very pleasant looking field. And a pickup truck being stalked by a ball on a stick, which I guess could be unnerving in the right situation. My point is that it's hard to really get into a sci-fi spectacle when the vast alien landscape is represented by a green curtain and a subtitle that says "alien landscape".

Of course, I was helped a bit by getting to tour the sets, which are housed in a barn hundreds of miles from Vancouver, BC. They didn't have to blindfold us during the trip, because we had to leave at something like 4:00 am, which is like 9:00 the previous night to internet television writers. Anyway, we got to see cool set elements like this statue, which looks suspiciously like the cover of Atlas Shrugged. I assume it's going to be one of the things looming in the background, although I'm not ruling out the possibility of it coming to life and chasing Flash and Dale around. If they're not going to give me special effects, I'm happy to make up my own.

I did get a good look at Ming, though. Unsurprisingly, they've decided to move away from the Fu Manchu-style Ming from the original Flash Gordon comic strip (and awesome 1980 movie that I know is what you think of every time I mention Flash Gordon). He operates a bit more like a vicious CEO, I guess, although that doesn't mean he doesn't have a dungeon and a torture chamber. I mean, how are you going to run a planet without occasionally (i.e. "every single episode, if they know what's good for them") strapping somebody to a complicated piece of furniture and threatening them with an even more complicated doodad? That's how you keep people in line!

In fact, judging from the first episode, fans of people getting captured, escaping, and getting recaptured are in luck. And as it happens, I am in favor of that! I still prefer Flash Gordon as a serial, which means somebody ought to be in peril every fifteen minutes.

And it helps if they're being menaced by somebody who knows how to dress. Since Ming no longer sports the four-foot moustaches, he can't really carry off the giant gold lamé lapels and red robes. So they've put him in this stylish number, because we all know that people who wear collarless jackets are up to no good. That was the real reason people burned all those Beatles albums, you know.

Anyway, not that I'm telling you not to watch, but it turns out the premiere will be on DVD on Tuesday. That's pretty quick work! While you're at the store, you might also be interested in the fact that the 1980 movie has just come out on DVD. Oh, wait -- that's me who's interested in that. Sorry about that.

Naturally, you will be wondering if I have maintained my objectivity after being lured by the outskirts-of-Vancouver insiders with their insider looks at statues, costumes, and the interior of barns. I can't promise that I haven't been lured over to the dark side. But I am going to be watching the premiere, even though I've already seen the non-SFX version.

Personally, I predict that special effects will improve the experience.

USA's Burn Notice is near-ideal summer viewing. It won't even come close to taxing your brain, but it's smart and witty enough to let you turn your brain off for an hour every Thursday night without feeling guilty about it.

Star Jeffrey Donovan has a sort of cold-blooded, reptilian charisma that he uses to good effect, whether he's playing a womanizing tycoon in a certain Will Smith movie I'm mildly ashamed to have seen, or a brain-damaged police detective with a bullet in his skull in his previous stab at USA Network stardom, Touching Evil.

Here, his distant, vaguely robotic demeanor serves him particularly well as Michael Westin, a wrongly ousted spy whose good heart is buried under multiple layers of kevlar, combat, and general paranoia. Westin's calculated, tactical, improvisation-heavy approach to tackling dangerous situations is a neat touch, pleasantly reminiscent of the glory days of MacGyver. Throw in a smoldering Gabrielle Anwar as his formidable ex-IRA girlfriend, and the perpetually-worth-watching Bruce Campbell as his genially sleazy pal, and you've got a sunny, laid-back mojito of a series. It goes down easy, and it won't take too many brain cells with it.

Crave something more cerebral? Get caught up with Damages, FX's outstandingly creepy new murder mystery/legal series. Rose Byrne is a naive young lawyer who finds herself working for superattorney Glenn Close, in the midst of a thorny case involving scandal-plagued CEO Ted Danson and the billions he swindled from his employees. Meanwhile, flash-forwards to six months in the future find a bloodied Byrne in police custody, dead-eyed and haggard, and the prime suspect in a brutal murder.

Close is unsurprisingly marvelous as the Machiavellian attorney, running her firm with a ruthlessness that any respectable mafia don would envy. She plays things close to the vest, leaving the viewer perpetually guessing what's going on behind her eyes -- and, perhaps, wondering whether her jaw is going to unhinge so she can devour some hapless victim whole. If she's an unrepentant monster, why does she so clearly love her husband? And if she's not so bad on the inside, why does she go to such vicious, frightening lengths to manipulate everyone and everything around her?

Byrne more than holds her own, too, conveying all of her character's doubts and suspicions with admirably subtle facial expressions and body language. The clever writing lets ordinary objects, innocently introduced in a flashback, take on ominous new meanings when they're found at the future crime scene. The plot twists are entertaining and surprising, but Damages' real oomph comes from the fevered, claustrophobic atmosphere it creates. It's a uniquely uncomfortable show, favorably reminiscent of Hitchcock.

Need something to lighten up the tension? God bless the Brits, yet again, for bringing David Tennant back in a triumphant third season of Doctor Who, now making its stateside debut on the SciFi Channel. The Doctor's an incredible character -- funny, daring, tender, and frightening, all at once -- and Tennant plays him to the hilt. This season, he's paired with the superb Freema Agyeman, as whip-smart new companion Martha Jones, for another round of improbable adventures. Even at its worst -- let's just say "pig men," and leave it at that -- the show's still marvelously silly fun. At it's best, its thrills, chills, and great big unabashed heart (two of them, in the Doctor's case) can give even the most jaded viewer the best kind of goosebumps.

Meanwhile, SciFi's better-than-average Eureka returns for its sophomore season, displaying a surprising skill for mining the previous season's plots for intriguing new twists and sneakily intelligent drama. On the surface, it's still the amiable, accessible Northern Exposure-with-death-rays it was last year. But underneath, it's weaving some intriguing plot and character threads that all seem to be leading somewhere big.

In all, this summer's crop of scripted series seems a lot brainier and better, at least percentagewise, than the shows most networks trot out in the fall and midseason. Kinda makes me wish it could be summer all year round -- on TV, at least.

But then there's the down side. When one of us suggested that the way the character Jeff was sent off in the final episode of Coupling seemed disrespectful to the character and the actor who played him, Moffat wrote us personally to complain about our characterization and point out that he holds nothing but the highest respect for that actor.

Things are weird after you have a painful interaction like that. I suspect Phil will never watch Coupling again, despite the sheer brilliance of those first three seasons. Myself, I've let it go, mostly because I can't help but love those Doctor Who episodes. Seriously. "Girl in the Fireplace?" Best. Episode. Ever. Even if it is giving my son nightmares about robots now. (Daddy's fault.)

Now here comes along another show that proves that, emotionally scarring e-mails to TeeVee notwithstanding, Steven Moffat really knows how to write. Following up the farce of Coupling and the spooky sci-fi of Doctor Who, Jekyll is on the horror and psychological thriller side of the ledger. And it's really fantastic stuff.

The subject matter may differ, but Jekyll shows Moffat using all the tricks that have served him well in both Coupling and Doctor Who. Funny, awkward meet-cute at a dinner party? Check. Conversation between a character and a previously-recorded video of another character? Check. Weird time sequences that bounce back and forth, with plots that eat their own tails? Checky-check-check. And laugh-out-loud dialogue? Yes again.

Anyway, to the details: Jekyll is a modern take on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, obviously. However, in this six-hour miniseries the Jekyll is Dr. Tom Jackman, and early on he laughs off the suggestion that he could be the descendant of the namesake from Stevenson's book. But facts are facts: Jackman's got another person inside him, who shares his body and uses it to do all sorts of things that the upright father of two would never dream of doing.

If this sounds like a bog standard horror movie set-up, you're right. But it doesn't do Jekyll justice, because of the inventive ways Moffat has chosen to tell the story. Rather than go chronologically, the story whips around, first introducing us to Jekyll and Hyde, then slowly revealing the nature of their shared-body arrangement and the rules they've (seemingly) agreed to follow. We meet their concierge (for lack of a better word), played by future Bionic Woman star Michelle Ryan. We meet Jackman's wife, played by Gina Bellman of Coupling fame. And eventually (but only at the series' halfway point) we see how Jackman came to first discover he had a Mr. Hyde inside him.

It's a fantastic thrill ride, peppered with surprise character turns, including a breathtaking scene when Mrs. Jackman is confronted with Mr. Hyde for the first time and reacts in an unexpected way, one that took my breath away and made me sit up and take notice at the electric performance I was witnessing.

Those of us who have been at the receiving end of Steven Moffat's Hyde-like wrath may want to avoid Jekyll. But everyone else should seek out BBC America and give it a look. It's, quite simply, the best thing I've seen on TV all summer.

And I have to say, it's exactly the sort of show it sounds like I'd like. A secret city in the backwoods of Oregon full of crazy geniuses? Lots of nutty superscience? Even one of those Houses of the Future you sometimes get in Tom and Jerry cartoons? I'm totally in. Especially once I hear that from time to time, Matt Frewer shows up as a mad scientist. That's the role he was born to play! And I understand that there are occasional superscience mishaps, which are something I feel television could use more of. The day we were on set, they were preparing the Cafe set for some kind of Sonic Wave Pulse Explosion, which involved air cannons full of plates, and all the tables and chairs being attached to an automatic yanking device via metal cables. They'd also rigged a toilet to explode for some reason. Well, I assume there was a reason; they might have just been bored.

The sets were very impressive, although I kind of miss the days of cheesy two-dimensional sets that require the cameras to be locked down in position. These were all fully-immersive three-dimensional sets that seem like they'd be a lot easier on the actors. The walls all moved out to fit cameras in, but it was possible to stand in the garage set and really feel like I was in a working garage. The set decorations were all relatively realistic (until you looked closely and noticed how many things were just old VCRs and that 80% of the things on the wall were taken from the same two issues of "Science and Mechanics" (The December 1954 and one from 1957 -- now that's insider information!). But there were enough grease-covered car parts to make it even smell realistic. I did like the fact that the blueprints on one of the work tables were for the basement of a mental hospital.

In fact, the most impressive set I saw during the whole trip was the new Global Dynamics set, which is two or three stories and incorporates more connected locations than every 1950s sitcom put together. If you're putting together a futuristic technology company, I highly recommend the good people at Sci-Fi set design. There's even a hidden waterfall, and you know how important that sort of thing is.

The new season of Eureka starts on Tuesday, July 10, and Season One just came out on DVD last week. I really think they'd be better served having it come out a little earlier, to give people a fighting chance to get caught up. However, I have to admit that I personally have not gotten around to seeing any of it. I bought the whole season on iTunes (because I prefer to behave legally whenever possible), but it turns out that it's hard to fit "watching television on a handy portable device" into my busy schedule. I admit that the problem might be my own laziness. It usually is.

So as far as I'm concerned, Flash Gordon is the most exciting aspect of the Sci-Fi Channel's upcoming season, narrowly edging out whatever hilarious Sci-Fi Original Movie is coming up next. (It's Supergator! Of course it is!). I was a little concerned that they'd make it too much like the 1980 film, or that they'd be afraid of making it too campy and go too far the other way. Grim-and-gritty works fine for Battlestar Galactica, but I think you want a Flash Gordon with a sense of fun.

The overall plot is about the same as usual: Flash Gordon is regular (albeit athletic) guy from Earth when suddenly aliens from the planet Mongo show up and start destroying things and taking a liking to Dale Arden. The crazy doctor Hans Zarkov is the only one who can help Flash, and things spiral out of control from there. There's a little more backstory than usual (Flash's father is missing; Dale is actually Flash's ex-girlfriend; there's an alien bounty hunter stuck on Earth and she likes the looks of Flash, and so on) but the general outline looks about right.

The set tour made me reasonably optimistic. Ming's Council Chamber wasn't as crazy and over-the-top as I had been hoping, but his Dungeon Torture Chamber looks pretty good. And I guess if you're Ming, the ruthless (and merciless) ruler of Mongo, you probably do more business down in the dungeons than in the council chamber anyway. As you can see, I've convinced myself that this is a Ming who knows his business, and his business is probably going to involve constantly capturing Dale Arden, Flash Gordon, or Hans Zarkov, and holding them in impenetrable cells for about twenty minutes until one of the other ones breaks the prisoner loose. That's my hope, anyway.

Eric Johnson, the gentleman playing Flash, has a good look for Flash Gordon. You might remember his as Whitney from Smallville. That's what they tell me, anyway. I think it's interesting that this Flash is a marathon runner as opposed to a football player, as in the 1980 movie. If I was in a mood for analysis, I'd start talking about how that indicates that this Flash is a "runner" rather than a "fighter," but I suspect there's actually going to be plenty of fighting anyway.

The important thing is that Flash is enthusiastic. Describing his attitude toward action scenes, Johnson says, "I'm a bit of a golden retriever on set. You throw a ball and I will go get it. And if you keep throwing it, I will keep getting it, because this is the best game I have ever played." I have to think that's a good attitude to have in a business where you have to do the same thing a million time in a row.

The other supporting characters also look about right. Hans Zarkov has been changed from a vaguely-foreign old crazy scientist to a younger comedy sidekick, but that just seems logical. In order for Flash to walk the line between "Dashing Hero" and "Average Guy Caught Up in Events Beyond His Control," it helps for there to be someone else even more over his head.

We didn't get a look at Ming. The word is that they're trying to make this version of Flash Gordon less racist than the previous versions, so Ming (who won't be called "Ming the Merciless") probably won't be a full-on Fu Manchu scheming oriental. You can see how that kind of thing might not fly in the 21st century. They actually mentioned that Ming might be blond, but I can't promise anything. I did notice that his guards will be wearing pretty cool uniforms.

We did get a pretty good look at some of the costumes. The plan appears to involve a number of different alien societies, so I assume there will be some scenes among the people in crazy furs and and then a scene in the decadent high-society culture. That one sounds interesting, because there will be both male and female concubines being led around on leashes, although it won't be the focus of the scene or anything. I approve of that kind of detail being thrown into the background.

Now, with all that out of the way, I shall proceed to bury the lede. You are naturally curious about whether they'll be using the Queen "Flash Gordon" song from the 1980 movie. Well, we got mixed messages on that. Some people claimed they had no idea. But at least one Sci-Fi executive said that they'd found some indie band to either rerecord the song or remix it or something. The important message here is that somehow, some way, there will be a "Flash! Aaah-aaaah!" involved at some level. So there you go. Happy now?

Anyway, Flash Gordon premieres August 10 at 9:00. Personally, I'll be watching raptly, although I am under no illusion that even with the recent popularity of Sci-Fi Channel shows, my tastes are anything ilke the general public's. If they were, The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne would be on DVD by now.

So I was a little uneasy about accepting the Sci-Fi Channel's invitation to tour the sets of Eureka, Stargate Atlantis, Battlestar Galactica, and Flash Gordon. Would I be able to maintain my integrity after being wined and dined on a fancy press junket? Was I ready to become a Hollywood Insider? Well, actually a "Vancouver, BC Insider", but you get my point. I considered both sides of the question and finally decided: "Hey, I wanna see Ming's Council Chamber! I'm sure I'll be fine!"

So the Sci-Fi thing was billed as a "Digital Press Tour," which I first parsed as a Digital Tour for Press, like they were going to do a set tour via videoconferencing or something. Instead, it was a Tour for Digital Press, meaning "Online Journalists," meaning, if you sort of squint and don't insist on too strict a definition, me.

The Tour itself consisted of set tours of the four shows, along with panel interviews with cast and creative people. It all sounds clean and aboveboard, until you consider that about half the photos on the DVDs we were provided involve members of the tour posing in front of Vipers and Stargates and whatnot. There seemed to be a concerted effort to dazzle us poor digital wretches with access usually reserved for people whose efforts usually appear in actual magazines and newspapers. Which I guess is the purpose of all press junkets, which is why Earl Dittman has a career.

Frankly, I think the good people of Sci-Fi were using us in an even more subtle way. Everywhere we went, we had a video camera pointed at us as we squinted at set details and learned the backstory behind the wardrobe. See, we were being taped for SCI FI PULSE, the Sci-Fi Channel's video blog. I think the Sci-Fi Channel's nefarious scheme was to allow web writers this access primarily so that they in turn could trumpet how up-to-date and internet-friendly they are. If so, it's a clever scheme, and I salute them for it.

Anyway, it's not entirely clear to me what standards currently govern entertainment journalism. You've got people like Kristin of E! Online, who have lots of insider content and information, but every so often they seem to fall into the trap of recommending something because they know a lot about it, not because it's necessarily any good. (Note: I apparently cannot be bothered to use a specific example to back up my allegation of bias, which kind of undercuts my claims of journalistic integrity.) And on the other hand, you've got the "outsiders" like Harry Knowles, who -- wait, Harry's pretty much an insider these days too, isn't he? Okay, skip him. My point was going to be that even that style of getting seduced by celebrity is more like real journalism than the people in charge of deciding which celebs are pregnant and which are anorexic. Also, I am unable to get out of this paragraph without referencing the 24-hour coverage of Paris Hilton. Aaaand I think that's enough justification for why I went. I suppose you'd have stayed home.

So now I've just come back from wallowing in insider content, and my challenge is to generate some interesting content, because I suspect you won't be that excited by "Vipers are smaller than they look, but Stargates are larger." And since nineteen other organizations were on the tour, I have to try to come up with an angle of my own. Even fascinating little tidbits I picked up from scraps of paper left around the set are unlikely to be exclusives. I shall try to convey my own spin on things without being unduly influenced by the insider access. Although I will say that if you'd be interested in "a version of Wizard of Oz with steampunk influences, airships, and Alan Freaking Cummings as the Scarecrow," you might want to keep an eye out for Tin Man.

Stay tuned for further installments...

Veronica Mars' core audience is smaller by a factor of four or five than Jericho's, making the current campaign to send CW president Dawn Ostroff a pallet full of Mars Bars and marshmallows far more unlikely to succeed. But if you've ever watched or enjoyed the show, those unwelcoming odds make your participation all the more important. (If you've ever despised or ignored the show, feel free to stay the course.) If nothing else, the madcap campaign is turning into a heck of an entertaining story, involving a family-run online Indian grocery business out of Houston, Texas, and the purchase, to date, of every available Mars bar in the United States.

This may sound funny coming from the guy who just wrote an obituary for the series he's now exhorting you to save, but if there's even a chance to get this very smart, very dark, very funny show back on the shabby, third-rate network it calls home, I think it's worth taking. If you agree, consider dropping a few bucks toward the cause. (I did.)

If nothing else, think of it as an advance payment for the highly entertaining public mockery that Phil will doubtlessly unleash upon me as soon as he sees this.

UPN and now CW chief Dawn Ostroff deserves sincere thanks for having the guts to stick with this show for so long, in the face of ratings whose gains were modest and glacial. But that courage seemed to shamefully desert her in the end, and the show wasn't so much cancelled as given a cowardly back-alley execution. The CW hemmed and hawed about the show's fate right up to the upfronts, and beyond; when cornered by upset reporters, Ostroff made some obnoxiously vague noises about maybe possibly doing some sort of a kind of spinoff that may or may not involve the same creative principals. Maybe. If the network felt like it.

Word is that the network fears unleashing the wrath of the show's devoted, rabid, (and occasionally deeply obnoxious) fans if it just comes out and declares the show dead. Gee, given its thoughtful, courteous treatment of one of its most fiercely beloved and critically acclaimed shows, I really can't imagine why.

Still, oft-cancelled creator Rob Thomas -- sadly operating under the assumption that he had a decent shot at a fourth season -- gave viewers a superb finale, one of the series' best episodes in years. After a season of network-mandated experimentation with the show's format, breaking the show into a series of mini-mysteries, Thomas and Diane Ruggiero's final episode had their super-smart heroine's pursuit of justice unfold into trouble and tragedy far beyond her initial scope. Veronica Mars was never afraid to let its title character be too smart for her own good, causing serious damage to her own life and others in her desperate need to get back at anyone who tried to mess with her.

That sort of depth and complexity extended to the series' whole sprawling cast of vivid characters, and never flagged during the show's otherwise uneven (but always watchable) run. Even the best, most noble characters did illegal, immoral, or just plain terrible things, and even the very worst could be startlingly human and decent when you least expected it.

And oh, could Veronica bring the funny. Season Three alone saw the writers using an eleven-year-old girl with wildly optimistic notions of romance to sweetly, snarkily chide the show's relationship-crazed fans. And the finale, after a string of glaring, no doubt network-mandated product placements, had one character responding to news of a Matchbox 20 reunion by declaring, "Rob Thomas is a whore."

It takes a pretty damn good show to unite Stephen King, Joss Whedon, Kevin Smith, and yes, right-wing crazypants Bruce Tinsley in praise. Veronica lacked the budget, and the wild visual and narrative pyrotechnics, that make the likes of Lost and Battlestar Galactica so buzzworthy. Like the consistently strong performance of star Kristen Bell, the show was good in subtle, unassuming ways, letting its intelligence and sheer darkness creep up on you. But for characterization and storytelling, I'd rank it easily side by side with Deadwood, The Wire, and BSG among television's very best.

The show didn't end on any egregious cliffhanger, but there's definitely more of Veronica Mars' story to tell. The CW may have scotched Thomas's chances to tell those stories on TV -- they seem to have filched his ambitious notion of a four-year flash-forward and handed it off to the inane One Tree Hill -- but there's been rumblings of a possible movie version, a la Serenity. Having Joel Silver as the show's producer certainly can't hurt that possibility.

But even if the show's big sleep doesn't prove to be more of a short nap, I'll still be content. I never thought the show would last a season. Instead, the show's small but loyal viewership got three, packed with winning characters, brain-busting whodunits, and consistent entertainment.

Trouble was Veronica's business. And business was very, very good.

Now, before I defend my thesis, I need to point out that I'm going to talk about the show. That is, to explain why nothing is happening, I'm going to have to describe some things that have, in fact, happened. If you haven't watched the current season yet and you're worried that reading about what has happened will ruin what meagre enjoyment you hope to squeeze from the show, I encourage you not to read on. Also, you should maybe consider watching the shows when they air like everyone else. Just a thought.

Okay, let's recap the situation. Season Five ended on June 6, 2004, with Steve Buscemi getting killed in retribution for his misbehavior over the season. That was a pretty good story arc, if you ask me; Tony had to deal with his conflicting loyalties to his cousin and the Family, plus it had the aforementioned Buscemi.

Then there was a break of just under two years until Season Six started on March 12, 2006. There were twelve episodes, mostly about Vito being gay. There was also some stuff about AJ being an annoying loser and Christopher getting married and a dream sequence. Remember the dream sequence? Man.

Then they took another hiatus from June 2006 until April 2007 and started "the rest of Season Six". That's what we're watching now. And my basic objection is that this season isn't about anything. Or at least, it's not about anything I care about. Anthony Jr. has established himself over the last six seasons as an uninteresting character and it's way too late to try to make me care about him. We've already had a storyline where the Sopranos have to deal with a kid who starts acting educated and I didn't care about it the first time.

I do not believe, as the claim in my first paragraph puts it, that they are "ratcheting up the tension". I think what is happening is that they're "playing out the string". Even when something potentially interesting happens, like Tony killing Christopher, it's drained of all tension and excitement by the circumstances (a car crash? So much for the protagonist making decisions that drive the plot) and the results (Tony... goes to Las Vegas and takes peyote?). Remember the scene where Silvio drove Adriana to the spot where we knew he was going to kill her? That scene, without dialogue, was more dramatic than this whole "season". And it had more tragic results, if you count the airing of "Joey".

I believe the problem is in the enormously long breaks between seasons. I also believe that "Season Six" is obviously two seaparate seasons and the only reason they won't admit it is because they already said it was the "final season" before they figured out a way to end the show.

I'm still going to watch the final two episodes, because I've come this far. But my expectations are so low I'll be happy as long as the last episode isn't a 70-minute-long AJ dream sequence.

You would think this would make me the perfect audience member for Heroes. And through November 2006, you would have been right. I was with the show through its eleventh episode, the one that aired on December 4, 2006. Then NBC yanked the series off the air for seven weeks, and I ... found other things to do with my time. I haven't watched an episode since -- despite liking the show -- and had decided I may wait for the season one DVD to come out and revisit the whole series at once. I think of this as the television equivalent of reading a graphic novel.

Heroes is not the only serial I've skipped because of hiatus. When I found out that Lost was pulling their six-episodes-and-out stunt last fall, I deleted the season pass from my TiVo. I am under no obligation to make sure a show stays on the air -- especially when it scampers off the schedule whenever it pleases in some weird, Nielsen-fueled perversion of The Rules.

I like my serial TV like I like my serial comics -- to come on a steady basis. However, serial comics tend to do two things that serial television series do not: they rarely go on hiatus, and they like to do serial story arcs that contain a resolution. Contrast that with the odious TV practice of wrapping up a lengthy narrative stint with a cliffhanger.

(There are exceptions: each season of The Wire, also known as "the Platonic ideal of television shows," boasts self-contained season-long story arcs. It also calls back to previous seasons and lays groundwork for future ones. This is because The Wire is written by novelists -- some of whom know a thing or two about balancing sprawling narrative against brisk pacing -- and, again, it is the Platonic ideal of television shows.)

(I am also hopeful that Brian K. Vaughn will whip Lost into shape, since his pacing and plotting on Runaways, Ex Machina and Y: the Last Man have shown that he knows how to balance the need for short-term narrative gratification against the sustained satisfaction of a series-long story arc. But not quite hopeful enough to restore the season pass on my TiVo.)

Although comics geeks have not taken over the nation -- only its cinemas -- it is nice to see that we're not alone in disliking long hiatuses and fatuous cliffhangers. Networks are now avoiding the hiatus strategy and planning on running uninterrupted seasons of Heroes, Lost, 24 and other new shows. I love this news. I love it mostly because I am gullible enough to think that finally, finally, someone who works in scheduling has realized what we viewers have been saying all along: we watch TV on our convenience, not the nets'. It's our time you have to respect, not the other way around. And if you're going to parcel out a story in installments, make sure you remember the cardinal rule for the audience: we're not going to wait around forever, no matter how good the story may be.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go check to see when the Heroes DVD comes out. I have a feeling I'll be back next season.

Often the upcoming TV season involves networks trying to capitalize on the format of shows that were a hit in the previous season. For example, after the success of Lost, sci-fi mystery shows with big ensemble multicultural casts were de rigueur: Invasion, Threshold, and Surface all appeared the subsequent fall, though none of them garnered the same following. Even Heroes, the current season’s breakout hit, took a page from Lost (on that note, be sure to read this joint interview with Heroes creator Tim Kring and Lost creator Damon Lindelof, who previously worked together on Crossing Jordan).

This year, the copycat effect seems surprisingly absent. The only network using the Heroes format as a jumping off point is NBC itself, which has commissioned a six episode spinoff, Heroes: Origins. Shows seem to be focusing on smaller, more intimate casts. Content’s another story: while cop, lawyer, and medical dramas remain the staples of what passes for television creativity, sci-fi and geek-oriented shows seem to be stronger than ever.

Friends often ask me what they should be watching, so I’m compiling a list of all the shows that I’ve been able to watch clips for (TVWeek has assembled a great collection of them). The list below isn’t comprehensive, and of course, it’s only based on a very small sample of the shows in question—I haven’t read the scripts or seen the pilots, though in some cases, I have heard “buzz” from those who have.

Once the season gets closer, I’ll probably refine the list based on reviews, buzz, and the episodes that I do get to watch. I’ve tried to keep these initial impressions short.

Monday

Sam I Am (ABC): A woman suffering from amnesia finds out that she was a bitch. I forget: have we overused amnesia as a premise?

The Big Bang Theory (CBS): Nerds befriend a beautiful woman. Ha ha, geeks are funny. Surprisingly enough, this concept may actually have been better when it was a reality show (Beauty and the Geek). I hope it stays on long enough for Jason to completely mine it for his dissertation and not a second longer. And it’s an awful title, unless intentionally meant as a sex joke.

Aliens in America (The CW): A family completely freaks out when the exchange student they host ends up being Pakistani. Could be funny and incisive if done well, or crude and groan-worthy if not.

K-Ville (FOX): I would use the Crockett and Tubby joke, but Hot Fuzz beat me to it. Anthony Anderson did a memorable turn as kingpin Antwon Mitchell on The Shield. Now he’s purloined Michael Chiklis’s shtick as a walking-the-line cop. Unfortunately, he just looks like he needs a hug. It’s all right, big guy—we’ll always have Hang Time.

Journeyman (NBC): I’ve heard little to nothing about this pilot, but the clip struck me as interesting. A San Francisco reporter can go back in time to help people. Early Edition, in reverse. Creators worked on The West Wing; let’s hope the good seasons rubbed off on them. It’s taking up the post-Heroes spot, where NBC is betting that sci-fi will play better than Studio 60 did.

Tuesday

Cavemen (ABC): The Geico commercials become a half-hour sitcom and thinly-veiled race parable. Turning ad campaigns into television may be the most brilliant idea ever concocted by network executives after having devoured their lackeys’ brains. If only they’d thought of it in time for the Budweiser frogs. From what I’ve seen, still funnier than The Big Bang Theory and Carpoolers.

Carpoolers (ABC): Four dissimilar (and yet strangely stereotypical) guys share a commute and clichéd banter about life. For those of you keeping score at home, there’s the stand-up honest guy, the whipped guy, the token black guy, and Jerry O’Connell. Plays more like a commercial than even Cavemen.

Cane (CBS): Why is that even when Jimmy Smits is playing a Cuban-American mobster, he still sounds like he’s running for president? (Hint: you can tell them apart because evil Jimmy Smits has a goatee). And if Nestor Carbonell is there, how can he be on the island?

Reaper (The CW): I vowed to never watch The CW again, after what they put Veronica Mars through, but this Kevin Smith-directed pilot about a slacker who discovers that he’s a bounty hunter for the devil looks surprisingly decent (which, I’m guessing, means it won’t last long). And Tyler Labine, you may have played second fiddle to Ryan Gosling back in the Breaker High days, but you’ll always be first in my heart.

New Amsterdam (Fox): A handsome, brooding immortal (wahhh, I can’t die until I meet my soulmate) works as a New York City homicide detective. See Moonlight.

Chuck (NBC): Dramedy about a computer geek who’s drafted into top secret government work. The first maybe twenty seconds of the clip made me laugh out loud, but it started to get a little stale and sophomoric after that. Probably worth a watch. It boggles my mind that Josh Schwarz (The O.C.) is running both this and The CW’s Gossip Girl (which see).

Wednesday

Pushing Daisies (ABC): Hands down my pick for best upcoming series. Lee Pace (Jaye’s brother from Wonderfalls) plays a man who can temporarily bring people back from the dead, a skill he uses to help police solve crimes (think Raines but better). Created by uber-genius Bryan Fuller, who also created cult hits Wonderfalls and the similarly morbid Dead Like Me and subsequently worked on Heroes. This clip strikes the perfect balance between creepy and hilarious. Of course, having now singled this show out, it is now doomed to failure.

Private Practice (ABC): Goddamnit, ABC’s going to get Tim Daly his own series one way or another, though I wish they’d bring back the short-lived Eyes instead of shoehorning him into this Grey’s Anatomy spinoff. Cast also features Taye Diggs, Alias’s Merrin Dungey, Veronica Mars’s Chris Lowell, Judging Amy’s Amy Brenneman, and Grey’s Kate Walsh (who, ironically, played Daly’s estranged wife on the aforementioned Eyes). Though for some reason I instinctively wanted to dislike this, one of its chief writers is Buffy vet Marti Noxon, and the clip was actually somewhat amusing. And I still like Tim Daly, god help me.

Dirty Sexy Money (ABC): The clip doesn’t really give you much to go on, but two words: Peter Krause. Oh, Peter, I hope ABC treats you better this time.

Gossip Girl (The CW): Seriously, for this you cancel Veronica Mars? Admittedly, Blake Lively is hot enough that she should be considered a weapon of mass distraction, but the two minutes I saw of this show, about spoiled high school girls in New York, made me for the first time actively consider doing shots of Drano.

Back to You (FOX): Kelsey Grammar returns to TV, leaving behind his iconic role as an overbearing blowhard of a psychiatrist to play an overbearing blowhard of a TV anchor. I’m glad they put the laugh track in—otherwise, I might not have known it was supposed to be a comedy. Seriously.

The Return of Jezebel James (FOX): Indie film queen Parker Posey plays a woman who can’t get pregnant, so she tries to convince her sister to do it for her. From Amy Sherman-Palladino, who created Gilmore Girls. I like Posey, and though I’ve never gotten into Gilmore Girls, Sherman-Palladino is by all accounts, quite talented. The clip didn’t set me on fire but it might be good. (Oh, and what’s with the laugh track fetish, FOX? Drop it.)

Bionic Woman (NBC): Remake of the seventies series (itself a spinoff from The Six Million Dollar Man), masterminded by David Eick, the Battlestar Galactica producer whose name is not Ron Moore. I like the clip shown here, but I fear the inevitable Lindsay Wagner cameo. That NBC has hired Jason Smilovic (Kidnapped, Lucky Number Slevin) to work on the show means that I’ll be watching.

Life (NBC): A cop who was wrongly imprisoned (Damian Lewis) gets a second chance to come back to the force. Lewis was slam bang awesome in Band of Brothers, and this preview strikes the right note, but can an “edgy” network cop show survive in this age of The Wire and The Shield?

Thursday

Big Shots (ABC): This drama about the trials and tribulations of four high-powered CEOs has a good cast, including The Practice’s Dylan McDermott, Alias’s Michael Vartan, and Sports Night/West Wing alum Joshua Malina (though Malina’s so adorable, it’s hard to imagine him having a mistress). The punchline of this clip sums it up nicely: “Men. We’re the new women.” I think that they’re hedging this show to appeal to both sexes, and as a result, it will probably attract neither.

Canterbury’s Law (FOX): Lawyer drama about a female attorney who takes on risky and unpopular cases, starring Julianna Margulies (ER). Snoozerama.

Friday

Women’s Murder Club (ABC): Desperate Housewives, except they’re solving crimes instead of perpetrating them.

Moonlight (CBS): A good vampire becomes a private eye. This show was better when it was called Angel. Or Nightwalker. Or even Forever Knight. Why is it that whenever a vampire wants to redeem himself, he gets typecast as a detective? Look, vampires can be whatever they want. Where are all the shows about vampire doctors and lawyers? Here’s my pitch: Blood Bank, a heist drama about a noble vampire thief who plans to rob a blood bank so he never has to feed on humans again. There, how hard was that?

Sunday

Viva Laughlin (CBS): A musical drama, produced by Hugh Jackman, who will also appear in several episodes, about a man who founds a casino in Laughlin, Nevada. Even Jackman doesn’t believe he’s straight anymore. Based on a British series, Viva Blackpool; British remakes have been hit (The Office) and miss (Coupling) when transplanted to America, but this might be quirky enough to make it.

Life is Wild (The CW): A mixed family moves to South Africa. Supposed to take 7th Heaven’s spot as the “heartwarming” show on the network. They would have been better off keeping Everwood, the fuckers.

The Sarah Connor Chronicles (FOX): I’m guessing this will be the most talked about show of the season. Taking place between Terminator 2 and Terminator 3, it deals with the stories of Sarah (Lena Headey) and John Connor (Thomas Dekker) trying to avoid the deadly robots and avert the apocalypse. Dekker was good as Claire’s friend Zach on Heroes, but the clips I’ve seen him make him more whiny than anything else. Summer Glau (Firefly) does look great as their mysterious protector.

Lipstick Jungle (NBC): Someone described this as Sex in the City meets Sex in the City. Nuff said.

Midseason/TBD

Cashmere Mafia (ABC): High-powered women try to juggle careers and family, with an impressive cast: Lucy Liu, Miranda Otto, and Frances McDormand. Apparently women are also the new men.

Eli Stone (ABC): A lawyer (Jonny Lee Miller) starts having hallucinations after finding he has an aneurysm, and begins to believe he’s a prophet. Also with Natasha Henstridge (Species) and Victor Garber (Alias). Clip was promising.

Miss/Guided (ABC): A high-school guidance counselor (Judy Greer) goes to work at her old high school. The clip was amusing, and Greer (Adaptation, The Hebrew Hammer) has genuine comic flair; she’s always a pleasure to watch.

The Rules for Starting Over (FOX): A comedy about newly single 30 somethings re-entering the dating scene. By the Farelly Brothers (Dumb and Dumber, There’s Something About Mary). You get what you pay for.

With three series in a row now cancelled in six episodes or less, I think that officially makes the Fox network Ike, and poor Tim Minear Tina.

From three-time Fox victim Tim Minear, veteran of such excellent short-run DVD box sets as Firefly, Wonderfalls, and hopefully The Inside, at some point, and unsuspecting newcomer Ben Queen, Drive is pretty much everything you could want from a weekly hybrid of Lost and Cannonball Run -- or, for the baggy-pants and angst-rock set, The Fast and the Furious. It blends the compelling characters and solid acting of Lost with the fun, fast-paced intrigue of Heroes. Then it adds a bunch of really cool-looking cars (and, OK, a minivan and a Taurus) going impressively fast in a highly exciting fashion. What's not to love?

Big Damn Hero Nathan Fillion, best known as Captain Mal Reynolds from Minear and Joss Whedon's Firefly, keeps a steady hand on the series' steering wheel as Alex Tully, a nice guy with a nasty past and a desperate need to find his kidnapped wife. Watching him rediscover his long-suppressed inner badass is genuinely awesome -- and more than a little bit scary. Kristin Lehman is also good, if somewhat eclipsed in the awesomeness department, as his uneasy partner, a woman with a well-justified grudge against the mysterious people controlling the race.

The core cast of racers -- 42 teams in all, six of whom we've seen thus far, five of whom seem to be the regulars -- are an interesting and highly watchable bunch. They include a terminally ill astrophysicist and his unsuspecting teen daughter; a pair of Katrina refugees (the only really underdeveloped characters in the first three hours); a twitchy new mom who's abandoned her infant son to flee from her abusive husband; an AWOL soldier and his preposterously hot wife (who is anything but underdeveloped); and a thuggish ex-con, paired up with the affluent, surprisingly gutsy half-brother he's only just met.

Peter Jackson vet Melanie Lynskey's particularly good as the minivan-driving mom, lending both sweetness and shadow to a character who seems to have scary, unplumbed depths. Dylan Baker and Emma Stone are also superb and charming as the father and daughter; it's unfortunate, given Baker's guest-star status and his character's condition, that he doesn't seem likely to stick around for the long haul (assuming the series gets one).

Heck, even the minor, one-off characters are a treat. Minear and Queen smartly pack just about every speaking role with top-flight actors, including Wonderfalls alum Katie Finneran as Fillion's sister, Kingpin star Yancey Arias, Paul Ben-Victor, Amy Acker as Fillion's kidnapped wife, and the wonderful Richard Brooks -- Firefly's indelibly creepy Jubal Early -- as the cop tracking Fillion.

As befits a racing-themed series, the story keeps moving at an enjoyable clip, smoothly shifting gears from one storyline to the next, and adding in enough bumps and sudden twists to keep things interesting. The series' first three hours have built a real sense of narrative momentum, dropping clever hints that the folks controlling the race may have their own stakes riding on its outcome, and are intervening to help specific drivers win, lose -- or die. It's a great premise, and with Minear and Queen ably behind the wheel, it shows no signs of running out of gas just yet.

Here's hoping Drive gets to cross any sort of finish line, since ratings for the premiere seemed a bit lacking in horsepower. Of all of Minear's series to date, this one seems like it should have the best chance of success. It's got the everyday characters, easily followed storylines, and fast-drivin' action your typical Red Stater should love, with enough sly wit, self-aware flourishes, and character development to ensnare the average Blue Stater. It's not the sharpest thing Minear's ever written, and it's certainly no Deadwood or Battlestar Galactica. But it's wry enough to have characters deliver a hokey moral-of-the-episode speech -- then berate themselves for saying something so incredibly corny.

So drivers, here's your next checkpoint: Your couch, next Monday at 8 p.m., with the channel tuned to Fox. If you don't show up, Drive might get eliminated -- and you'll miss your chance to enjoy what could be the next buzzworthy, immensely fun TV show.

Need catching up? Brave the sordid, pothole-ridden, hillbilly-infested highways of MySpace to see previous episodes in their entirety.