Speaking of television...

Ah! The return of television. After a long, dry summer it's finally here--season premiere week. And in some cases, series premiere week. But, although I might sneak a peek at some of the new offerings this fall, I am mainly interested in catching up with some old (and not so old) favorites. (Warning to time shifters: spoilers ahead!)

First off, ABC's Dancing with the Stars. I don't know how or why I became addicted to this show. I will not explain or defend it. I just am. The premiere of the fifth season had season two champion Drew Lachey doing co-host duties with Tom Bergeron--filling in for Samantha Harris who had just given birth to a baby girl. I never realized how important Samantha's contribution to the show was until I witnessed it being lamely performed by Drew. Don't get me wrong, when Drew was a contestant on the show I was totally rooting for him to win--but as host material...let's just say he's no Ryan Secrest. Or even Joey Fatone. Seriously, wasn't Leeza Gibbons or Lisa Rinna available?

Anyway, last night it was just the women dancing. No woman has won the coveted mirrorball trophy since Kelly Monaco in season one, but this time around my money is on the Cheetah Girl Sabrina Bryan. The guys haven't even been up to bat yet, but I think it's already over. This chick can DANCE! As long as she has a fan base to go with the judges' scores (because let's face it, this is part dance competition, part popularity contest), she's a shoo-in. I'm guessing she probably does--given that last year Billy Ray Cyrus hung in for an unseemly amount of time due to the Hannah Montana crowd.

Jennie Garth looks like she can go the distance, Marie Osmond looks great--from the neck up and the knees down. What the @#$% happened in between? It looks like she's wearing Donny around her waist...Model Josie Maran is my pick to do the first off Paulina Porizkova exit come Wednesday. Unless Wayne Newton or Mark Cuban pulls a Tucker Carlson--but I bet it's Josie.

Now to the main event--Heroes. After a fairly anti-climatic season finale, it would have been great to have a kick-ass series premiere. Unfortunately last night's episode was pretty underwhelming. A basic "what I did during summer vacation," we learned that mind-reader Matt Parkman survived the 3-4 bullet wounds in his chest and is taking care of "Hero tracking system" Molly, along with Mohinder Suresh--who is on a quest to obtain funding to stop the plague that might wipe out this race of "superhumans." Parkman is now divorced--although one can't help but wonder what about the child his wife was carrying? Will he/she turn out to have super powers, too? The powers, after all, appear to be genetic...

Claire and family have relocated and Mr. Bennett has created their own personal witness protection where Claire is admonished to be "normal" and "ordinary." Unfortunately, this is not possible for the rebellious teen and she soon attracts trouble in the form of a bad boy type who apparently has some secrets of his own. Another "flying man"--just like dear old biological Dad.

Speaking of Claire's biological father, Nathan is also divorced now--and depressed and drinking. Apparently despondent over the death of his brother, Peter Petrelli. There was one point during the show where Nathan catches a glimpse of himself in a mirror and sees a deformed visage of a burn victim. Now how is it that Nathan survived when Peter blew up in his arms, but Peter with his regeneration skills did not? For a moment, I thought maybe that Peter had acquired the shape-shifter's ability and that Nathan was actually PETER and that why he saw the deformed reflection in the mirror. That would have been a cool twist...

Turns out that Peter is alive, but for some reason locked in a crate on board a freighter. He looks none the worse for wear--not even sporting that wicked looking scar that was prominent in the Five Years Gone episode from last season. I guess that regeneration technique worked better the second time around, eh?

The most disappointing part of the episode was Hiro--who accidentally teleported himself back to 17th century Japan. This is one plot line I can do without. Right now, it just seems silly. The two new characters of Maya and Alejandro win the Nikki and Paulo (Lost) award for most annoying new characters most likely to be killed off due to fan resentment. The writing for that subplot was definitely subpar. Really heavy-handed--like Maya reading Dr. Suresh's book to Alejandro in the back of the truck? Or having the drivers makes their lewd advances TWICE? Hit us over the head, why don't you?

Hopefully future episodes won't be so heavy with exposition. The Channel This blog's review of the show called for Less Talk, More Action. And I'd have to agree with that assessment... Caught a glimpse of Chuck and Journeyman--and my interested is not piqued with either.