Editorial
Legends of Next Fall

The final finales of the current TV season have yet to air, but suddenly I find myself anticipating something other than the end of Lost. That's because the networks announced their plans last week for the Fall TV season, and there'll be plenty of fantasy and science fiction waiting for us on the other side of summer. In addition to the new series, almost all of this year's crop of shows are coming back, with only Jericho suffering a nuclear strike. (And truthfully, after the death of my favorite lead character in the season finale, I wasn't entirely sure whether I was going to be back for it next year anyway.)

Here's what ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC and The CW have in store for us:

Bionic Woman (NBC): Having reimagined Battlestar Galactica, David Eick now reinvents the 1970s hit. Michelle Ryan (EastEnders) plays Jaime Sommers, a struggling bartender who is given new life after a devastating car accident when cutting-edge, top-secret technology turns her into something more than human.

Cavemen (ABC): If you enjoyed the popular GEICO commercials in 30- and 60-second doses, get ready for a half-hour comedy series about sophisticated cavemen who have somehow remained unevolved over the last hundred thousand years. Three brothers—played by Bill English, Dash Mihok and Nick Kroll—live in modern-day Atlanta, where they struggle to overcome stereotypes.

Chuck (NBC): Zachary Levi (Less Than Perfect) stars as a nerdy computer whiz who finds life pretty boring until an old friend who happens to be a CIA agent sends him an e-mail that embeds the world's greatest spy secrets into his brain. Suddenly transformed into the government’s most powerful weapon, he finds that the fate of the country lies in his unlikely hands.

Journeyman (NBC): Kevin McKidd (Rome) inexplicably begins traveling back into the past to change people's lives for the better—though sometimes he only manages to make things worse. During his travels, he reconnects with Moon Bloodgood (Day Break), the ex-fiancée he lost in a mysterious plane crash, and tries to save her armed with the knowledge of the present.

Moonlight (CBS): Alex O'Loughlin(The Invisible) stars as an undead private investigator who uses his vampire powers to help the living. After being bitten 60 years ago by his bride, Amber Valletta (Hitch), he is repulsed by those vampires who view humans only as a source of food. While fighting his adversaries among the undead, he has to decide whether he dares to fall in love with the mortal Shannon Lucio (The O.C.).

New Amsterdam (Fox): After Nikolaj Coster Waldau (Kingdom of Heaven) steps in front of a sword to save the life of a Native Indian girl during a massacre in 1642, she casts a spell on him that saves his life and confers immortality ... which will last only until he finds his one true love.

Pushing Daisies (ABC): Lee Pace (Wonderfalls) has a very special gift—the ability to return dead people briefly back to life with just a simple touch, enabling him to help a detective crack murder cases by asking victims to name their killers. From director Barry Sonnenfeld (Men In Black, The Addams Family) and writer-producer Bryan Fuller (Heroes, Wonderfalls, Dead Like Me).

Reaper (The CW): In this supernatural comedy-drama, a slacker (The Loop's Bret Harrison) learns that his parents accidentally sold his soul to the devil before he was born, forcing him into a new life as the devil’s bounty hunter. The show also stars Ray Wise (24) as Satan and Tyler Labine (Invasion) as his best friend.

A season that might have been

In addition to these eight series, there are two other shows waiting for us a little further down the road as midseason replacements:

Eli Stone (ABC): When mercenary attorney Jonny Lee Miller (Trainspotting) begins hallucinating visions of pop stars and dead relatives, he learns that he might have a higher calling. His doctor thinks it could be the result of an aneurysm, but Eli discovers that he has a destiny to become a spiritual prophet. So instead of defending evil mega-corporations, he fights for the little guy in his law firm's new pro-bono department. Also starring Natasha Henstridge (She Spies) and Victor Garber (Alias).

The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Fox): Lena Headey stars in a story that picks up from the end of Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Thomas Dekker (Heroes) stars as John Connor. The series will also introduce two new Terminators—a female model, played by Summer Glau (Serenity), and a male, played by Owain Yeoman( The Nine).

These alone will make for an interesting new season, but I always find myself thinking about the potential season that could have been. Here are the other series we've been tracking that for one reason or another will now air in limbo instead of on your television.

Area 52 (NBC): Paul Reubens (Murphy Brown) and Matthew Lillard (Scooby-Doo) were to star in this half-hour sitcom, about a group of government employees who keep watch over an alien. Reubens was to play the alien.

Babylon Fields (CBS): Amber Tamblyn (Joan of Arcadia) lives in an apocalyptic world in which deceased people have been resurrected and are trying to resume their lives. Tamblyn was to play a young woman who was abused by her father and teams up with her mother to kill him, only to see him come back from the dead.

Demons (CBS): Ron Eldard (Ghost Ship) performs exorcisms as an ex-Jesuit priest/psychologist who battles demons.

I'm in Hell (CBS): Jason Biggs (American Pie) is Nick, a Wall Street genius who's killed in a BlackBerry-related car accident. Since hell is overcrowded, he's assigned to "hell on Earth," a new life devoid of all the trappings of his previous existence.

Life on Mars (ABC): A present-day car accident mysteriously sends a detective back to the 1970s in an American remake of the BBC series. Rachelle Lefevre (What About Brian) stars in a show honchoed by David E. Kelley (Ally McBeal, Boston Legal).

Them (Fox): Rachel Nichols (Alias) stars as a worker for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., who defends the planet against an extraterrestrial sleeper cell.

Some of this last batch might end up being part of a future TV season, but even without them it will be fun spending the next five months trying to guess which of the others will soar and which will crash and burn.

Until then, we can all live in the hope that this season of vampires, immortals, time travelers, terminators and cavemen could be one of the best sci-fi seasons ever. Which I'm going to enjoy, because sometimes that anticipatory hope ends up being more satisfying than any possible reality.