Jaime Sommers | The Bionic Woman | NBC | Carpoolers | ABC

Less interesting is our final comedic entry. I will say this: Since we live in such a one-car, one-person world, I am impressed that someone would even come up with a show called Carpoolers (ABC), let alone set it in L.A., where there are none. That is certainly one of the show's defining visual gags. The breakdown is simple: Four (mostly) married men ranging in age from 20-something to 40-something share a ride to work, battle for parking, and give each other advice on love and life. Unfortunately, it's running on cruise control.

Flights of Fantasy
It feels like the sky is falling lately, and sci-fi and fantasy certainly reflect that. But this year's crop of escapism is not too gratifying.

The Bionic Woman was a fun, if goofy, '70s show in which Jaime Sommers, the survivor of a near-fatal accident, got souped up with bionic enhancements that gave her super strength, reflexes, and speed. She became a champion of justice for the U.S. government. This time out, in NBC's Bionic Woman, Jaime's a bit more ticked that her body was altered without her consent, and her reluctance to make nice with the feds is augmented by the presence of another bionic woman, who has a governmental grudge of her own. Time will tell whether this is top-notch sci-fi or more clichéd schlock.

Chuck (NBC) is the epitome of escapist dreck. An aimless electronics-store clerk accidentally views an e-mailed video file containing thousands of subliminally encoded images related to defense secrets, and now they're implanted in his brain. Naturally, the secret keepers want to get hold of him, as he is unintentionally decoding these seemingly random images. This kind of espionage parody was more fun in the '80s movie Gotcha!.