| SHOW | STARS | PREMISE | SEE ALSO | WHY WATCH | WHY SKIP IT |
| ABC's "Daybreak" | Taye Diggs | Our hero is framed for murder, has to repeat the same day over and over until he can figure out how to clear his name. | Lost in time! | "Groundhog Day" meets "The Fugitive." Diggs has a nice torso. | Repetitive. Only Bill Murray can make us want to repeat the same day again and again. |
| CW's "Runaway" | Donnie Wahlberg, Leslie Hope | Our hero is framed for murder, has to take his family and run from the law until he can figure out how to clear his name. | Lost in America! | "One Tree Hill" meets "The Fugitive." Donnie Wahlberg's brother Mark used to have a nice torso. | Running from the law is exhausting. Plus, if they keep skipping towns, how will the teenagers ever fall in love or join the cheerleading squad? |
| Fox's "Vanished" | Gale Harold, Ming-Na, John Allen Nelson, Rebecca Gayheart | The wife of a politician is kidnapped, and a devil-may-care FBI agent is determined to get her back. | Lost my wife! | Conspiracies abound, plus lots of twists and tricks pump up the suspense. | Between a possibly shady politician and a possibly cheating wife, it's tough to care about anyone here. |
| NBC's "Kidnapped" | Jeremy Sisto, Dana Delany, Timothy Hutton | The son of a rich man is kidnapped, and a professional renegade is hired to get him back. | Lost my kid! | A professional renegade is always fun, particularly when it's Billy from "Six Feet Under." | How many crime-based serial dramas are we supposed to watch this season, anyway? |
| ABC's "The Nine" |
Scott Wolf, Kim Raver, Tim Daly | Hostages of a bank robbery are bonded by their shared experience. | Lost in post-traumatic stress syndrome! | We're left uncertain what happened during the robbery, want to find out. Also, this premise might just hold our attention. | "Lost" does the flashback-based drama proud. Can anyone else really compare? |
| CBS's "Smith" | Ray Liotta, Virginia Madsen, Amy Smart, Shoreh Aghdashloo | A gaggle of criminal masterminds collaborate on sophisticated heists. | Will they pull off the big score? | Like AMC's "Hustle," except you can understand what people are saying. | More heisty criminal masterminds in action? Really? |
| NBC'S "Heroes" | Milo Ventimiglia, Leonard Roberts | Assorted freaks discover their true calling as superheroes. | It's not easy to be-hee meeee! | If you love "The X-Men" you might like it. | Melodramatic. If you think "The X-Men" is overrated, you'll hate it. |
| Fox's "Justice" | Victor Garber, Kerr Smith | Law office takes on high-profile, media-heavy court cases. | Bruckheimer takes on the law! | All of the dizzying camera work and flashy effects of "CSI" focused on splashy, O.J.-like cases. If you love "CSI" you'll like it. | Too fast-paced and melodramatic; tons of pointless CGI tricks. If you hate "CSI" you'll hate it. |
| ABC's "Six Degrees" | Erika Christensen, Bridget Moynahan, Dorian Missick | Six strangers, linked by fate, picked to... do something, we're not sure what. | Will we find out which one of them was in a film with Kevin Bacon soon? | Unique premise, but how will they keep things interesting? | A character-driven drama in which the characters aren't all that compelling. |
| NBC's "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" | Matthew Perry, Bradley Whitford, Amanda Peet, Steven Weber | Aaron Sorkin revisits "Sports Night," except this time it's about a comedy show and there's a bigger cast. | "The West Wing" of West Hollywood! | If you love Sorkin, you'll love this show; Perry and Whitford are great at pulling off Sorkin's dialogue. | Same old walking-and-talking routine. A few of the actors are not so great at making Sorkin's dialogue believable. |
| CBS's "Jericho" | Skeet Ulrich, Gerald McRaney, Pamela Reed | America is attacked by nuclear bombs, and the people of Jericho, Kansas, have to work together to stay alive. | Lost in Kansas! | Nuclear bombs in the distance! Eerie last calls from dead parents in the big city! Bonus: The mayor is Hearst from "Deadwood"! | What's not to love? It's like watching those scenes on "24" where everyone starts panicking, but with a little "Everwood" thrown in. |
| ABC's "Men in Trees" | Anne Heche, John Amos | A relationship advice expert's life and livelihood fall apart when she discovers her fiancé is cheating, so she decides to move to Alaska. | Sex in... a very small town in Alaska! | "Northern Exposure" meets "Sex and the City." Charming, quirky, sweet little storylines by SATC writer Jenny Bicks. | Can Anne Heche really compete with John Corbett as the small-town Alaska radio personality? |
| CBS's "Shark" | James Woods, Jeri Ryan | Sleazy, high-priced defense attorney gets a conscience, takes a job prosecuting crimes in the district attorney's office. | Idealistic yet brutal lawyer learns important life lessons! | Replacing the usual sanctimonious lawyers with a ruthless hard-ass played by James Woods? Sounds good to me. | Will every single episode end with a teary courtroom confession? |
| Fox's "Standoff" | Ron Livingston, Rosemarie DeWitt | FBI negotiators... in love! | Idealistic yet brutal negotiators learn important love lessons! | Livingston and DeWitt will hold your attention; kind of like "Moonlighting" with higher stakes. | How many times can we see the nutty guy hold a gun to some poor kid's head while the SWAT team moves in? |
| ABC's "Brothers & Sisters" | Rachel Griffiths, Calista Flockhart, Sally Field, Balthazar Getty | Large family sorts out its many issues. | Daddy never understood me! | Rachel Griffiths | Calista Flockhart |
| NBC's "Friday Night Lights" | Kyle Chandler, Connie Britton | New high school football coach is under major pressure to take his kids to the championship. | Don't mess with football in Texas! | Original, well-produced, smartly written. Combine suspenseful games, great music, and almost Altman-like realism, and you've got a shinier, more compelling "OC." | If you hate football, Texans, Christian rhetoric and hot teenagers, this show probably isn't for you. |
| Showtime's "Dexter" | Michael C. Hall | Ultra-creepy forensics expert murders people who've committed crimes and gotten away with it. | What's he going to do with that hand saw? | Extremely original: It's as if David of "Six Feet Under" went nuts and turned into that creepy guy who tortured him. | A hero who delights in torturing and murdering people? Thrillingly perverse, but who has the stomach for it? |
Shares