Fall TV: Wednesday

A lot of new shows on Wednesday nights.

8:00 -- Pushing Daisies (ABC), Kid Nation (CBS), Deal or No Deal (NBC), Back to You (Fox), America's Next Top Model (CW)

8:30 -- Til Death (Fox)

9:00 -- Private Practice (ABC), Criminal Minds (CBS), Bionic Woman (NBC), Kitchen Nightmares (Fox), Gossip Girl (CW)

10:00 -- Dirty Sexy Money (ABC), CSI: New York (CBS), Life (NBC)

At 8, "Pushing Daisies" is just about everybody's pick for best new show. And the competition is weak. I know that "Kid Nation" is supposed to be "controversial," but do I want to watch a bunch of unsupervised kids do chores? No, I don't. "ANTM" can be entertaining, but it's getting a bit tired.

At 9, it's a sea of mediocrity. I like Kate Walsh, but the sneak preview of "Private Practice" that aired last spring was awful. It had the worst aspects of "Grey's Anatomy" -- the cheesiness and insufferable characters -- with nothing to redeem it except Tim Daly. And I have no faith in Shonda Rimes's ability to listen to criticism and improve the show.

I want to love "Bionic Woman." I loved the original, and I love Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck to BSG fans), but the pilot was just meh. Too many fight scenes and Jamie's character was sort of boring. Quit moping around about being bionic! WTF?

I also want to like "Criminal Minds" because it's about serial killers! But it has that overly earnest tone that characterizes a lot of CBS dramas. Earnestness and serial killers don't mix.

Last, but certainly not least, I TiVoed "Gossip Girls" last week for the express purpose of confirming that I had no interest in a show about rich prep school kids in New York, even if it is narrated by Veronica Mars. And it was sort of . . . awesome. I might be hooked!

At 10, I'll give "Dirty, Sexy Money" a try. I'm not so into night time soaps, and the previews I've seen seem really disjointed. But I like Peter Krause and Donald Sutherland.

I watched the pilot of "Life," which features Damian Lewis -- who I loved in "Band of Brothers" -- as a cop who was wrongfully convicted of murder and got his job back as part of a settlement. Eh. In the quirky detective department, I'll take Vincent D'Onofrio's Bobby Goren (now banished to TNT) any day.

Holt and I happened to catch an episode of "CSI: New York" when we were in Asia this winter. That show is just godawful. How is it on TV, when "Veronica Mars" is not? There's no justice in the world.