BY TOM GLIATTO
DRAMA
Is Lost losing its way? ABC's groundbreaking drama, an enigma wrapped inside a riddle and then coated with Teflon to make it truly impenetrable, has begun its third season with fewer households tuning in than last. Maybe viewers are beginning to want some degree of resolution. I say: Let's stay lost. The first few episodes of season 3 show no weakening of the show's brilliant capacity for springing surprises—nutty, out-of-the-blue twists—that feel weirdly probable. The Others, we learn, live in a compound that doesn't look so different from Wisteria Lane, only it's surrounded by jungle. They even have a book club—and they're reading Stephen King. If it'd been The Da Vinci Code or Tuesdays with Morrie, you could argue that the show had jumped the shark. But it wasn't, and it hasn't: Small details remain mysteriously right. Jack (Matthew Fox), locked in a cell lit an unhealthy neon green, is shown a video of the Red Sox winning the World Series. He looks sick with nostalgia and confusion. No other show could pull off a scene so absurd yet so compelling.
Lost will go on break before Thanksgiving. So find your way to it now.
Lifetime (Oct. 23, 9 p.m. ET)
DRAMA
Best known as Dr. Reid on NBC's Scrubs", Sarah Chalke this time plays a patient, a woman diagnosed with breast cancer while only in her 20s. But the actress's gentle, humane humor is here too.
The movie—based on a memoir by Geralyn Lucas, a former TV news producer who now works at Lifetime—is affirmative and ultimately courageous, even if the patient's idea of an audacious gesture against her illness is to wear bright red lipstick when she's wheeled into the operating room. But that's how a tide advances—with tiny, overlapping waves. And that's what Chalke's performance is like as she weathers chemo, worries that her husband may be losing interest in her and struggles with doctors' opinions. "Like I have a clue," we hear her ruefully thinking to herself after one particularly frustrating consultation. "Like I'm deciding between a side of coleslaw or potato salad."
ABC Family (Oct. 22, 8 p.m. ET)
HORROR
This cheesy-funny remake of a 1978 TV movie combines elements of Carrie (telekinesis as a way of acting out for loser chicks) and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (good-humored girl empowerment slays evil). Twin sisters Sarah and Lindsey (Mika Boorem and Summer Glau) are two Ugly Bettys dropped off at college by an improbably glamorous mother (Morgan Fairchild, who was in the original). Soon they're invited to pledge Alpha Nu Gamma, the top campus sorority. What the misfits don't realize is that Alpha Nu girls are actually knife-wielding hellcats on the hunt for virgin blood to feed the devil fire sputtering down in the basement. If the flame goes out, their true hideousness is revealed. Like, their hair goes flat, as if it hadn't been touched by conditioner since the Salem witch trials.
For grown-ups whose taste runs more to gore and less to camp, Showtime starts a second season of its Masters of Horror anthology series (Oct. 27, 10 p.m. ET) with an hourlong episode directed by Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre). It doesn't make sense—something about rabid anger and oil drilling?—but the blood and organs spurt out with a defiant ugliness. Both:
"I love the tension-building," says Elizabeth Mitchell, 36, who's got an unexpectedly sexy warden-prisoner vibe goin' with Matthew Fox in her role as Juliet, the Other who keeps tabs on his cell and gives him penetrating looks. "She's kind, yet very tough," says the actress (best known as Laura Innes's lover on ER). She doesn't know her character's full story yet, but she just received the script with Juliet's big flashback. So ...? "Ooh, it's intriguing!"
CSI: Miami (CBS, Mondays, 10 p.m. ET) A woman is murdered and—this being Halloween—it may be voodoo-related. Time for rational forensic science, what say?
Breaking Bonaduce (VH1, Sundays, 9:30 p.m. ET) Season 2 of the reality show about the anguished life—inner and outer—of former child star Danny Bonaduce.
Heroes (NBC, Mondays, 9 p.m. ET) Niki (Ali Larter) suffers another troubling blackout with awful consequences.
Brothers & Sisters (ABC, Sundays, 10 p.m. ET) Mothers & boyfriends: Sally Field tries to go on a date with guest Treat Williams.
Dog Whisperer (National Geographic, Mondays, 9 p.m. ET) A third season with trainer Cesar Millan.
Kidnapped (NBC, Saturdays, 9 p.m. ET) The Cain family's white-knuckle ordeal continues, only on a new night.
Claire Forlani
The 34-year-old Brit joins CSI: NY as a medical examiner who falls for Det. Mac Taylor (Gary Sinise). Her real-life beau has a less icky job: He's Dougray Scott from Desperate Housewives.
ON THE SHOW'S GRUESOMENESS That was tough. You go into denial, to be honest, or you won't get through it. But I'm so consumed with remembering the lingo that what's in front of me becomes irrelevant.
ON MAKING SINISE SUNNY We have a real laugh, which is great—it helps with the chemistry. Part of the ongoing challenge is how much can I make him smile in a scene.
ON HER DESPERATE HOUSEMATE Dougray is the best partner I've ever had. We both shoot in L.A. and it's great to come home, be together at night, then go do work that we both enjoy. So right now it's working perfectly.
1. He's made the transition from young hunk to hulking, middle-aged character actor with aplomb. And he's got range: Whether on Jack Nicholson's trail in The Departed or on Tina Fey's case on NBC's 30 Rock, he's flat-out superb.
2. Even when he shoots his mouth off—the New York Post used to call him "the Bloviator"—he's crisply funny and articulate. But why was he telling Howard Stern he doesn't like to use condoms?
3. The guy's the most comically adept Saturday Night Live host ever—he's done it 12 times. And he'll make it 13 next month.
Manhattan stylist Ellin LaVar has a starry clientele (she's cut Whitney Houston's and Naomi Campbell's locks) and a WE reality show: Hair Trauma. So what does she think of these celeb dos?
"She changed her color to light blonde—a very '20s, Garbo look. I really like it."
"I love her. She has a lot of hair. For performing it works, but not for everyday."
"I don't like her short hair. It accentuates the angles in her face. She looks average."
"She looked more exotic with her darker hair, but I do like her with it a little lighter."
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
