I wanted to enjoy the new TV season of nerdy shows, I really did. But there's not a lot to love here.

The first season of Heroes was great fun, I even managed to get Ken to watch it despite his aversion to nerd TV. The fresh naive characters and the pleasure of self discovery were great. Sure, there was some scary bad stuff, but mostly it was joy to watch people learn their powers. Particularly Hiro. By contrast the second season is one giant bummer reel, lots of depression and scary crap and no joy. Hiro, the most fun character, is exiled to some stupid feudal Japan adventure that seems entirely irrelevant. The new character Monica is the only breath of pleasure in the new season, but then she's mostly about troubles, too.

But if Heroes is midly dissatisfying, the new Bionic Woman is horrible. There was some hope that Eick could use his Battlestar Galactica magic to retread another cheesy old scifi show. But terrible casting and stupid plots (Islamic terrorists in Paraguay? Really?) make for awful TV. The one clever thing in the game is an undercurrent of feminism and body ownership; if they can ever elevate that theme beyond an occasional throwaway line it might be sorta interesting. But first they need to fire their lead actor.

At least I still have Mad Men. The third season of Prison Break is sort of working, too.