Emily Deschanel, Bones, Fox
Emily Deschanel is the least known of her Hollywood family - her parents are actress Mary Jo (Twin Peaks) and cinematographer Caleb (The Passion of the Christ), and her younger sister Zooey is Elf's Jovie - but she could be its most talented member. Few move through decidedly showy scenes with such little outward effort as Deschanel does in the CSI-inspired drama Bones. As Dr. Temperance Brennan, a forensic anthropologist and novelist (inspired by the real-life Kathy Reichs) with a gift for finding clues where no one else can, she teams with law-­enforcement types to crack tough cases. This requires her to deliver lines like, "My most meaningful relationships are with dead people." Somehow, Deschanel manages to minimize their oh-gag-me corniness.

It's no fluke. Deschanel was one of the best things about the awful horror film Boogeyman, and she turned in great scenes in the indie flick Easy, playing a woman so anal she cleans her house with a toothbrush. Still, she's an unlikely choice to headline Bones; leads in dramatic procedurals traditionally go to men, due to a perception by producers and network heads that testosterone fills the screen with a more powerful presence. Deschanel kicks this notion to the curb, with a deceptive energy that comes across as a form of restless intelligence. In the process, she gets from television what supporting parts in films haven't provided: a breakthrough role.

Gabrielle Union, The Night Stalker, ABC
Gabrielle Union, with those deep-as-poetry dimples, has been a cinematic come-on for a few years now, but largely in modest roles in modestly good to god-awful films. That could change with The Night Stalker, the remake of the cult-classic horror series Kolchak: The Night Stalker about a newspaper reporter investigating deaths that seem touched by the supernatural. Union isn't the reporter out to catch demons - she's the Scully to Stuart Townsend's Mulder.