The following are the shows this Fall 2007 season that are truly worth your time (and space on your TiVO hard-drive).

No. 1: Pushing Daisies

This Wednesday night ABC dramedy comes from the mind of one of my all-time favorite Cult TV gems, FOX's cancelled "Wonderfalls." And speaking of that lovely show, "Daisies" features none other than Lee Pace, who played Jaye's brother on "Wonderfalls."

Quirky and spirited, the best part of "Pusing Daisies" so far is the chemistry between the two lead characters. What makes this show different is that the two leads can never consumate their relationship (because doing so would result in the female character's death), so the romantic tension will forever remain just that - romantic tension.

No. 2: Heroes The first reason why you must watch this show is because it had one of the best pilot seasons for a sci-fi/fantasy show ever last season. The second reason? Kristen Bell ("Veronica Mars") is going to show up as a guest star! Eee!

No. 3: Brothers and Sisters Soapy, yes. But oh-so-delicious? Yes to that, too. This gem of a drama has the best ensemble cast on TV right now. It might not have the best writing (an illegitimate daughter! An evil mistress! A pension fund scandal!), but it does its job.

Instead, do what many of us are going to do anyway: Spend a majority of your time this summer in front of a computer or TV screen instead of soaking up vitamin D. But why not make the most of your voluntary indoor, air-conditioned seclusion by catching up on the 2006-07 season’s best TV shows?

The following are the three best TV shows from the previous TV season that are returning this fall. They are each easily accessible through reputable online Web sites, with all three offering episodes free for your streaming pleasure. Since most non-network TV shows aren’t nearly as easily accessible, just wait for those on DVD.

Heroes
Stream all season one episodes for free online at www.NBC.com; download the first season for $42.99 from iTunes
Key performance: Jack Coleman as “Noah” “Bennet’ Zach Quinto as “Sylar” Key episodes: “Company Man,” “The Hard Part,” “Homecoming”

“Heroes” memorably blew the cult TV community (and TV critics) out of the water last spring and fall with multilayered plotting, well-paced story arcs and memorable characters. Not to mention pretty special effects and a great score.

One part “Lost,” two parts “X-Men” and a little bit of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” (super powered cheerleader, hello!), “Heroes” established a winning blend of action and real human drama, but in a science-fiction context, just like the best shows in the genre. But it’s episodes such as “Company Man,” which showed the poignant backstory of best-dad-ever Mr. Bennet that made “Heroes” the show to see in 2006-07.

“Heroes” is poised to take the “Lost” and “24” throne of geeky serialized dramas next year – if it hasn’t already. So what are you waiting for?

Brothers & Sisters
Watch all season one episodes online for free at www.ABC.com; reruns at 9 p.m., Sundays, on ABC
Key performance: Besidess Sally Shield’s Nora Walker, Matthew Rhys’s gay sibling character Kevin Walker
Key episodes: “An Act of Will,” “Family Portrait,” “Game Night”

Brothers and Sisters was the most instantly-addictive dramedy of the last season. The cast is mouth-wateringly awesome, with Calista Flockhart as Kitty Walker, Rob Lowe as her boyfriend, “Six Feet Under’s” Rachael Griffiths as Sara Walker, not one but two “Alias” alumni, and best of all, Kevin Rhys as the non-stereotypically gay brother.

The plots aren’t anything to write home about; between the mistress storyline and the incredibly-mundane hedge fund plot, I’m surprised I’ve enjoyed this show as much as I have – but the characterizations are gold and the cast chemistry is riveting. And with Marti Noxon as a former executive producer, there’s a dark edge to keep things interesting. With “Grey’s Anatomy” jumping the shark and “Desperate Housewives” all but irrelevant, “Brothers and Sisters” should fulfill all your soap needs comes fall 2007.

Friday Night Lights
Watch all season one episodes online for free at www.NBC.com, or for the non-streaming crowd, buy season one for $39.99 from iTunes
Key performance: Kyle Chandler as Coach Eric Taylor
Key episode: “Pilot,” “Crossing the Line”

The most critically-acclaimed TV show of the past season (take that, “24”), “Lights” struck a nerve with viewers with its documentary-style filmmaking, its American heartland setting and its realistic situations.

The series is based on the movie of the same name, and in hopes of not boring you with the plot details, visit TV.com Wikipedia.org if you want to learn more. Just know that this is the most hear

Still, even if VM makes a surprise last-minute return, it wouldn't be the same show for several reasons: a) much of the writing staff and crew have already moved on to other projects, including potentially the show's creator, Rob Thomas; b) if it comes back, it will be as the much-touted FBI version of the show; and c) it would only come back as a mid-season replacement, which means we wouldn't get to see Veronica Mars and Logan until January of 2008, and by that time, most of the fanbase would have already moved on.

So, it's safe to say, the show the cult-TV community fell in love with is gone forever. (Some say it was gone forever at the end of season two, but I disagree).

In honor of its passing, I will list the five reasons why the TV landscape will forever miss Veronica Mars, the greatest piece of feminism on TV ever.

The Ten Reasons Why We Will Miss Veronica Mars

1. Veronica Mars, the marshmallow

Why is Veronica Mars the greatest single female character in television history?

• Unlike Buffy Summers, Veronica Mars doesn't need superpowers to survive the hell that is high school.
• She proves that with self-sufficency, research, hard work, motivation, and just a touch of sarcasm, a person can accomplish anything.
• A girl doesn't need a boy in her life, and thus a TV show with a female lead doesn't need a romance as the driving plot force.
• A girl's best friend doesn't have to be a girl. It can be an African American mechanical engineer and basketball star, or a Latino leader of a biker gang.
And finally...

• Pain doesn't need to bring a person down. It can be used as fuel.

2. The mysteries: Who killed Lily Kane? Every drama has one of two simple classifications: a stand-alone show, or procedural, where every episode has a self-containing arc; or a serial, where every episode builds on the previous one to build an ever-growing storyline. Veronica Mars, in seasons one, two, and most of its last season, season three, fits comfortably into the latter: This show is very, very much a serial drama. The first and second seasons were built upon a long, 22-episode-long mystery arc where Veronica and team slowly etch away at the answer to the mystery. Subtle, but continuity-driven clues are scattered throughout the 22 episodes. When the answer is revealed, there's nothing like it on TV when the characters (and the viewers) connect the dots.

But the season-ending revelations aren't even the best part. The serialized nature of the show wouldn't be effective without proper plotting, and in this regard, Veronica Mars does it better than anything else before it. This is why it's one of the greatest series ever, particularly notable during the season one Lily Kane murder plot, where every clue and every relevation fit like pieces in a puzzle up to the satisfying conclusion.

3. The dialogue: "Your wish is my shift-command"

Like its spiritual heir, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the dialogue on Veronica Mars is the most lexically-rich dialogue of its genre. From the one liners that fly by at a mile a minute, the quirky pop culture references, the subtle foreshadowing that only becomes apparent on repeated viewings, and the unique idiosyncratic quirks that make every character's speaking style special, the writing is superb and wonderful.

The dialogue wouldn't be as big of a deal if it didn't a cast talented enough to deliver it. Tina Majorino's (Mac) line deliver is superb; Kristen Bell can balance the surreal with the sublime; Jason Dohring (Logan) pulls of the perfect obligatory psychotic jackass role perfectly; and the father/daughter dynamic of Veronica and Keith is both comedy gold and frighteningly realistic.

The dialogue on this show is truly special, and this becomes even more apparent when entire threads on message boards are dedicated to the topic and when Web sites unnravel the multiple pop culture references every episode inevitably contains.

4. The secondary characters: A long time ago, we used to be friends

Wallace Fennel is the best friend. Cliff is the lawyer. Mac is quick-witted computer expert. Parker saved Veronica from her inevitable rape. Piz was cute. Weevil was well-acted.

Whether in the main credits or not, the secondary characters that inhabited the Mars universe established a rich, satisfying community of characters that made Neptune and Hearst College real-life, breathing locations.

5. Veronica's boyfriends (except Donut, and especially every school's obligatory psychotic jackass)

Leo was dreamy. Icetwin was a good distraction. Donut was a donut. Logan was a convincingly epic love. Piz was lame.

Veronica's love life was diverse, but always interesting. The meat of the show was always the mysteries and the characters, but the relationships were the icing on the cake that elevated a tough-acting heroine to a vulnerable, human girl.

6. The online communities, who savored, without pity

With only one online community being more active than Veronica's (that would be the Browncoats, Joss Whedon fans), the myriad of discussion boards, online forums and sarcasm-ladden recaps made discussing and analyzing the show almost as much of a joy as watching it on DVD. Almost.

7. The father/daughter relationship, a Mars for a Mars

It's a relationship rarely touched upon in the teen drama, but nonetheless, the relationship between Keith and Veronica was easily the loveliest relationship on the show. (Except for maybe Wallace and Veronica). When it was hinted at that Keith had died in the season two finale, Veronica contemplated giving up on life, realizing she had nothing left to live for. The same can be said for the audience during that scene.

8. Mars Investigations.net

Copy the link into your URL bar. Click enter. Beware: You'll easily spend two hours during your first visit.

9. Rob Thomas, who isn't a rat who hasn't seen God

The man who gets more work done before 10 a.m. than most people do during a day, Mr. Thomas (and this is not the musician) already had a cult-classic TV show under his belt before launching this one (that would be NBC's Cupid, starring Jeremy Priven). He also had been a successful novelist, with "Rats Saw God" being on the must-read list for hundreds of English classes in high schools everywhere.

It was this literary background that made season one of the series as excellent as it was; every episode was a chapter in a novel, with every character having a role and a purpose.

10. Jason Dohring We love Kristen Bell's portrayal of Veronica Mars. Like Sarah Michelle Gellar and her show, this series would not have lasted without a star talent such as Mrs. Bell behind it.

But the actor with the most convincingly stellar performance was Jason Dohring. He started off as a tiertiary character but quickly became so much more. He became the second lead character the moment when he and Veronica kissed for the first time in front of the Camelot Hotel, and the writers gave him his own season-long arc (and cutey Hannah as a girlfriend) in the second season. In the third season, he was given much less interesting material to work with (how many times did he and Veronica break up?), but Mr. Dohring elevated the material and made the character and the show that much better.

Honorable mention: The soundtrack. Spoon! Air! The Dandy Warhols! And is that Broken Social Scene I hear?

The first thing that pops into my mind about the news of this cancellation is my anger toward the CW. And no, I'm not talking about my anger over cancelling the greatest hope for quality TV in the media - I'm angry at the way they treated this show, advertising it as shallow teen fluff. I'm angry at the way they forced the creator and writers to make it more relationship-driven this current season to attract more viewers, when the viewers actually watching the show could not care less who is dating who on the show. I'm angry at the way the CW made this show into something it should never have become in its final, third season, and come tonight, its series finale.

I'll have more coherent thoughts in the next few blogs about this dreadful news - as well as my recap of the season finales for Brothers and Sisters, Heroes, and Lost - but for now, I pay tribute to the best-of-the-best moments of Veronica Mars, the third-best television series ever.

Five best episodes of Veronica Mars

A Trip to the Dentist: Season One, Episode 21. The reason why this is one of the five best episodes of Veronica Mars is because it perfectly encapsules the show's unique ability to juggle not one, not two, but three plot threads into one episode. We discover why Veronica was drugged and raped, we discover more about the murder of Lily Kane, and we get juicy relationship morsels from Duncan and Veronica, who may or may not be brother and sister. (Luckily, this gets cleared up sooner rather than later). Oh, and Madison's a bitch. Who could want more?

An Echolls Family Christmas: Season One, Episode 10. The one where Veronica confronts the Kanes on their involvement in the disappearance of Veronica's mother and Lily Kane's death. Oh, and Aaron Eckols gets stabbed by a mistress. And these are just the B and C plots.

I Am God: Season Two, Episode 18. The best use of flashbacks and the best cinematography of any Verinca Mars episode, Veronica investigates the lives of the bus crash victims as they haunt her dreams. The episode ends as creepily and ambiguously as it begins.

Weapons of Class Destruction: Season One, Episode 18. This is the episode where I officially fell in love with the show. And, yes, this may have a lot to do with a certain scene between Veronica and Logan.

Welcome Wagon: Season Three, Episode One. This episode, the best season premiere of the three, is one of the most energetic, wittiest episodes in the series, and really only the second episode you can realistically use to convert newbies. Extra points for featuring the most Mac-related screentime ever, the introduction of two excellent new characters, Piz and Parker, Dick's crying scene, and that shocking, emotional final 10 seconds when we discover a main character has been raped. This is why we love this show.

Five best characters of Veronica Mars.

Veronica Mars. The greatest female role model in popular culture. She inhabits all the qualities that are deemed "male" that lead to success in today's society - self-confidence, self-assurance, intelligence - and adds a few female ones, including quick-wittedness and scathing sarcasm. Played by Kristen Bell, TV's best actress, this is the reason why this show has generated so many fans.

Logan Eckols. Every television series has an obligatory psychotic jackass. And no TV series has ever had one as multi-layered and enjoyable to watch as this one.

"Mac." This chic nerd (yes, you read that right) is a perfect match for Veronica's scathing sarcasm with one-liners and a killer line delivery to match Kristen Bells'.

Wallace Fennel. Veronica's "side-kick," it's the incredibly likeable performance of Percy Diggs III that makes this character charming in every scene he's in. Unless that scene involved Don Lamb.

Keith Mars. He's in almost as many scenes as Veronica, so you'd better like him. And boy, do we - he is that great TV father, and man that understand and respects his daughter as an intelligent, adult woman.

More on the way.

But “Disturbia,” starring Shia LaBeouf as a teenager on house arrest three months in a seemingly idealistic suburban neighborhood, is one of the first hugely-successful mainstream films focusing on the age group that that will experience the most severe consequences of urban sprawl: adolescents.

The film features a serial killer, a mysterious car crash and various depictions of heterosexual teenage eye candy in the form of Sarah Roemer, but all of this is far less important than the real themes of the film, that suburban life is isolating, suburban neighborhoods are not as perfect and heterogeneous as they appear, and electronic media is killing America’s youth.

During the first major portion of the film after the character is put on house arrest, he goes through a series of activities to kill time. It’s pretty much a checklist of the worst things a teenager can do to become a non-productive member of society. He plays X-Box 360 for a few hours. He then rips into several boxes of twinkies. (A commentary on my generation’s propensity toward diabetes and obesity?) Next he goes on iTunes. Then he watches high-def television. Then he’s playing his PSP. Then he listens to his iPod.

Either the producers wanted to make a few extra million dollars on product placement, or they’re trying to make a statement about suburban life. (Or both).

The character is trapped in his house because of the circumstances of the plot, but this is just a thinly disguised metaphor for typical suburban life. In suburbia, if you don’t own a car, you are pretty much trapped at home and it’s up to you to find your own means of entertainment. And even if a teenager does have a car, is there necessarily anything interesting within driving distance to do anyway?

Eventually, our main character’s sources of electronic entertainment are either taken away or threatened by other people around him who have not yet succumbed to suburban oblivion. His mother, who is a baby boomer and not a disillusioned adolescent, cancels his credit card subscriptions to X-Box 360 and iTunes. He then moves onto using TV to occupy his time, but the mom cuts the cord with a pair a scissors. His neighbor (and love interest), who just moved to the suburbs from the city and thus devoid of the negative, soul-crushing aspects of suburban life, threatens to throw his iPod of a roof at one point in the film.

The film then comments on the fact that suburban life is never as pristine and perfect as it appears to be. The main character’s businessman-and-perfect-father neighbor is having an affair with the house’s maid. The children of the cheerful housewife across the street secretly order porn through the satellite TV using their mom’s credit card. The gentle, seemingly-harmless neighbor who tries to woo over the main character’s mom is actually a serial killer with the bodies of 12 dead women buried underneath his house. The hot city girl who just moved in spends more time on the roof of her house rather than in her house because he Hollywood parents are fighting 90 percent of the time they interact.

The suburban lifestyle is socially isolating to the main character. He doesn’t go to the party that takes place down the street from him, and instead spends the time playing his PSP and listening to his iPod. He only interacts with one friend in the film. He appears to have no one else in his life.

A lot of this is largely due to the circumstances of the plot – he’s on house arrest and thus cannot travel 100 feet away from his ankle bracelet’s transmitter. But again, this is a thinly-veiled metaphor about suburban life.

Kristen, a senior elementary education major who wished to keep her name withheld, grew up in Lake in the Hills, Ill. She describes herself as a self-imposed homebody. She’s a homebody because there was absolutely nothing to do, ever, in her hometown, so she adjusted to finding electronic means of entertaining herself. This is self-imposed because she really, really rather prefers to be around people, but doesn’t know how.

Kristen’s story makes me rethink my own life and experiences with suburban sprawl. Growing up in a bedroom community similar to Kristen’s, I never really considered any other way of life. It wasn’t an option, and I rather enjoyed isolating myself with electronic media in my suburban house everyday after school. But if I knew that other lifestyle options were out there for me, and that socially isolating myself in my adolescence would put myself and Kristen in a bad place down the road, would I have gone about things the same way? How much of an impact has suburban life had on my worldview and my ability to experience the world around me, and how much would this have changed if I grew up outside of the suburbs?

“Distubia” should be essential viewing for teenagers and parents alike. Parents should watch it to know what they should not let their children do in their spare time, and teenagers should watch it to realize that dangers of living a conformist suburban lifestyle.

“Annie Hall” is a culturally-defining movie from the 1970s from one of the most critically acclaimed modern directors, Woody Allen. Despite its cultural significance, however, there isn’t much to love in 2007 in the heavily drug-laden, sexually obsessed ‘romantic’ comedy.

Woody Allen is as benign a Hollywood figure as one can be to Generation-Y in 2007. Disconnected from the height of his popularity in the 1970s by 30 years, he is unlikely to hold as much appeal to Gen-Y as other Hollywood directors from the 1970s. These range from directors such as Francis Ford Coppola, whose works such as “The Godfather” heavily influence current-day successes such as “The Sopranos,” or Steven Spielberg, who is still making mega-blockbusters to this day. There was “Match Point” in 2006, a critical success as well as a financial success, making $23 million, according to BoxOfficeMojo.com. Other than that, Allen was a non-figure to the group of college students attending a screening of his signature work, “Annie Hall,” in one of the Cole Hall auditoriums at Northern Illinois University.

The film stars Allen, who plays a psychoanalytical, hyper-critical comedian named Alvy Singer, and Diane Keaton, who plays the titular character. The film follows the story of Alvy and Annie’s hot-and-cold romantic relationship, shown through a combination of real-time scenes, flashbacks, and dream sequences.

Singer meets Annie – a flighty, hippie Wisconsin transplant living in New York City – through a friend. The two make an instant connection and soon start dating. The fractures in the relationship are revealed quickly when Alvy begins demanding more from Annie in the relationship than she wants to offer. In a revealing scene, she admits to Alvy that she cannot sleep with him without the aid of marijuana.

They eventually break up. Then get back together. Then they break up again. And so forth.

All the while, Alvy is constantly narrating the film’s story. Allen chooses to break the fourth wall in the film – the divide between the audience and the film – when the Singer character addresses the audience directly. Other unconventional story techniques in the film include fantasy sequences, scenes where characters’ voices and faces are transposed on Disney characters, and subtitles appearing during dialogue that reveal what characters in a scene are actually thinking.

The film was nominated for five Academy Awards in 1977 and won four, including best picture. The cultural differences between the film’s 1977 setting and today are very minimal. There are no moments of era-related shocks to be found in the form of disco, mustaches or clothing, though it is highly unrealistic to believe that Hall’s expansive New York City apartment only costs $800 a month – until the audience realizes it has to factor in inflation.

The dialogue in the movie is its strongest characteristic, and largely a reason why the film reached the success it did. The character of Alvy is a comedian, and accordingly, the character is extremely quick-witted and hilarious.

But sometimes an actor can cross the line between cute self-effacement and self-referential mockery.

The character of Alvy, as revealed in the film’s narration, is obsessive compulsive about issues regarding his masculinity, his sexual prowess, relationships, and social class. These are usually appropriate character flaws for a comedian to have, but in a movie about a comedian when these make up the majority of the film’s situations and dialogue, it all just comes off as whiny. Diane Keaton’s Annie is, however, an absolute pleasure. The character is a flighty, twee character who uses phrases such as “la-dee-da” throughout much of the film, but she is also a self-confident, feminist role model. She doesn’t let her relationship with Alvy define her, choosing to allow her own personal goals and integrity be the things that make her who she is. Plus, there’s a reason why this character created so many fashion trends in the 1970s: Somebody in the movie’s make-up department must have known what cultural phenomenon they were creating when they put Annie in a layered button-up and tie outfit. If only Alvy wasn’t such a sexually aggressive, emotionally abusive boyfriend to Annie – and the seven other people he comes on to, wildly inappropriately, in the film – the movie would have merit as a work of female empowerment.

The film’s bluntness in regard to issues of relationships, sexuality, drugs and New York City life must have been a breath of fresh air in the 1970s. But for this audience in 2007, that breath of fresh air smells more like New Jersey.