Add Criminal Minds to the growing lists of shows I really had no interest in watching, then started watching, loved, and wondered what took me so long. I'm a pretty devoted crime/mystery nut, but after some serious Law & Order and CSI burnout, I took refuge in BBC shows and haven't much come up for air.

I assumed Criminal Minds was a L&O/CSI mashup as filtered through the FBI; I assumed there wasn't much new it could show me. Man, was I wrong. The thing that makes Criminal Minds different is the degree to which it focuses on the characters. 

The show has a sizeable ensemble cast, and as I've bulldozed my way through the seasons, I'm amazed by how much dimension and depth they've all developed. The episode where they look for the unsub who shot Penelope is particularly great in this regard. You see that, with a job this consuming, the people you work with aren't just colleagues, they're family.

The fact that such a large portion of the team is female is noteworthy on its own. The fact that those female characters  are so well written is almost shocking. The writers for Criminal Minds just don't seem to be tied down by the kind of stereotypes and gender shorthand that dominate network TV. They can be alternately strong and vulnerable, stubborn and empathetic, smart and feeling. In fact, the male characters are allowed this range as well. It continually surprises and delights me.

I'm typically a dried out old grunt who hates shows that are girly or upbeat or adorable in any way. I loathe anything beginning with "Cashmere" or "Lipstick." I think Ugly Betty is irritating beyond belief. And yet for some reason, I think Samantha Who? is just the bee's knees.

When it premiered, it was truly a come out of nowhere, midseason wower for me. I haven't been this consistently tickled by a show since the early seasons of Buffy or the Gilmore Girls. I think I've said this before, but Christina Applegate is really super funny. She's got great timing, a very expressive face, and the ability to be sort of cute and lovable without making me want to wretch.

So obviously, I missed the hell out of Samantha Who? when it disappeared due to the strike and was duly thrilled to see it return last night in the form of The Girlfriend. Sam is just starting to realize that she's got residual feelings for Todd when what she thought was a romantic dinner turns into him asking if his new girlfriend Chloe can move into the apartment that Samantha technically owns even though Todd is the one living there.

Only then does she discover that she can be evicted if anyone finds out she's subletting, so Sam temporarily moves in with the happy couple. Chloe is controlling and crazy, rather like Samantha was, pre-head injury. Todd clearly has a type.

It was great to see Sam wrestle with her old instinct to manipulate the situation in whatever way necessary to get what she wants and her new insistence on being a good person. Add to that the fact that she's up against as crazy a bitch as she herself ever was and a nice subplot where friend Dena and Sam's mom have a night of drunken makeover madness, and this was a great return to my unexpected favorite new show of the season.

Add Criminal Minds to the growing lists of shows I really had no interest in watching, then started watching, loved, and wondered what took me so long. I'm a pretty devoted crime/mystery nut, but after some serious Law & Order and CSI burnout, I took refuge in BBC shows and haven't much come up for air.

I assumed Criminal Minds was a L&O/CSI mashup as filtered through the FBI; I assumed there wasn't much new it could show me. Man, was I wrong. The thing that makes Criminal Minds different is the degree to which it focuses on the characters. 

The show has a sizeable ensemble cast, and as I've bulldozed my way through the seasons, I'm amazed by how much dimension and depth they've all developed. The episode where they look for the unsub who shot Penelope is particularly great in this regard. You see that, with a job this consuming, the people you work with aren't just colleagues, they're family.

The fact that such a large portion of the team is female is noteworthy on its own. The fact that those female characters  are so well written is almost shocking. The writers for Criminal Minds just don't seem to be tied down by the kind of stereotypes and gender shorthand that dominate network TV. They can be alternately strong and vulnerable, stubborn and empathetic, smart and feeling. In fact, the male characters are allowed this range as well. It continually surprises and delights me.

I'm typically a dried out old grunt who hates shows that are girly or upbeat or adorable in any way. I loathe anything beginning with "Cashmere" or "Lipstick." I think Ugly Betty is irritating beyond belief. And yet for some reason, I think Samantha Who? is just the bee's knees.

When it premiered, it was truly a come out of nowhere, midseason wower for me. I haven't been this consistently tickled by a show since the early seasons of Buffy or the Gilmore Girls. I think I've said this before, but Christina Applegate is really super funny. She's got great timing, a very expressive face, and the ability to be sort of cute and lovable without making me want to wretch.

So obviously, I missed the hell out of Samantha Who? when it disappeared due to the strike and was duly thrilled to see it return last night in the form of The Girlfriend. Sam is just starting to realize that she's got residual feelings for Todd when what she thought was a romantic dinner turns into him asking if his new girlfriend Chloe can move into the apartment that Samantha technically owns even though Todd is the one living there.

Only then does she discover that she can be evicted if anyone finds out she's subletting, so Sam temporarily moves in with the happy couple. Chloe is controlling and crazy, rather like Samantha was, pre-head injury. Todd clearly has a type.

It was great to see Sam wrestle with her old instinct to manipulate the situation in whatever way necessary to get what she wants and her new insistence on being a good person. Add to that the fact that she's up against as crazy a bitch as she herself ever was and a nice subplot where friend Dena and Sam's mom have a night of drunken makeover madness, and this was a great return to my unexpected favorite new show of the season.

Poor Brit-Brit. She tries, lord knows she tries. Yet there is something about her eerily perky, overly trained Disney Channel smile and that makes me uncomfortable and sad. She wasn't, like, oh, I dunno, MTV Video Awards bad, not by a long shot. It was just that she enthusiastically chewed the scenery in a way that couldn't help but detract from the quality of this episode of How I Met Your Mother. Britney may be a lot of things, but funny isn't now nor has ever been one of them.

Alicia Silverstone was originally cast as Stella and dropped out when she found out who would be playing her receptionist. I can't say I blame her. The story of this episode was really quite cute, and I loved the two minute date. In fact, I actually think Sarah Chalke did a much better job as Stella that Silverstone would have. She's funnier and more charming in a goofy way that's a good match for HIMYM. It's just a shame that the role and story didn't get the attention they deserved. I hope we see her again. Even though it doesn't look likely, I honestly wouldn't mind if it turned out that Stella was "your mother" in the end.

Back in the days when pilots for the 2007/2008 TV season was being picked up, back before anyone had ever heard of a writers' strike that would disrupt that season, I heard tell of two shows. One, Moonlight, was about a vampire P.I., the other, New Amsterdam, was about an NYPD detective who couldn't die until he found his true love. I thought they both sounded promising. Moonlight aired as a melodramatic, heaving bosom sort of a program that I watch but always feel ashamed about afterward. New Amsterdam got pushed back and had its production run cut. Last night, I finally got a peek at it. Everything from its color palette to the nature of its crimes are more restrained that Moonlight. This is a good thing. It's cooler, more deliberate, perhaps a little deeper. The dialogue was, like Moonlight, rather grimace inducing,and the cop stuff wasn't as interesting as one might hope. Still, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau has a great face and a nice coiled energy/ soul crushing ennui balance that I couldn't help but like. They jammed a lot of backstory into the pilot, and maybe tried a bit too hard to explain itself, but it's like a cool drink of water after Moonlight and I'm excited to see more.

I didn't want to watch Supernatural. I'd avoided the WB and its low quality teeny bopper programming. I'd lived and died for too long with The X-Files to easily accept just any show about a handsome guy(s) looking for ghosts and demons and vampires. A friend of mine binge watched after the first season, and after a fair amount of badgering, convinced me to give it a shot. Although I embarked upon Supernatural with a good deal of eye-rolling su*beep*ion, but the time I was four episodes in, I had to admit I'd been wrong. Supernatural may not have the depth of The X-Files, but it also isn't as prone to occasionally missing the mark. Supernatural is funny, creepy, tense, and usually just fantastically written. Even when the mystery of the week is a little weak, the quips give the show momentum. Plus, they devise and pace season-long arcs as well as any show I've ever seen. Every season I think, "There's no way they're getting out of this one" until the very last minute. As of Malleus Maleficarum, I'm as convinced as ever the Winchester boys are doomed, and I can't wait to find out why I'm wrong. Plus, though they're not Duchovny, but I gotta say, they're both plenty hot enough for me.