You know the one I'm talking about. After the writers strike ended last year in February, most of the networks made the interesting decision to just go ahead and shelve most of their freshmen series for the season, even if they'd picked up their "back nine" orders. Instead, they thought they'd launch the shows to big fanfare this fall, almost as if they were new again. Unfortunately, it looks like this plan backfired on them tremendously.

Across the board, those sophomore series that went on hiatus for more than six months are way down in the ratings. Apparently, absence doesn't make the heart grow fonder when it comes to the television landscape. It makes the instant gratification generation forget you existed. And stop caring.

(S02E01) The Darlings are back! Despite all the behind-the-scenes personnel and casting changes, Dirty Sexy Money appears to be better than ever. Loyal fans were rewarded with a major development in last season's murder mystery, and the premiere gave new viewers plenty of reasons to come back for more. Season One feels like it ended ages ago, but "The Birthday Present" was the perfect refresher course in the elements of this gorgeous, twisted world.

• AMC has a Breaking Bad marathon all night.
• At 6:30, TBS has the Cubs vs. the Dodgers, followed by the Red Sox vs. the Angels.
• At 8, ABC has a new Pushing Daisies, followed by the season premieres of Private Practice and Dirty Sexy Money.
• CBS has a new Old Christine at 8, then new episodes of Gary Unmarried, Criminal Minds, and CSI: NY.
• NBC has a new Knight Rider, followed by new episodes of America's Got Talent and Lipstick Jungle.
• FOX has new episodes of Bones and 'Til Death (two episodes).
• The CW has a new America's Next Top Model at 8.
• At 9, Bravo has a new Project Runway, followed by a new Top Design.
• Sci-Fi has a new Ghost Hunters at 9, then a new Destination Truth.
• At 9:30, A&E has a new Dog The Bounty Hunter, then a new Criss Angel Mindfreak.
• At 10, FX has a new Sons Of Anarchy.
• At 10:30, Comedy Central has a new Lewis Black's Root Of All Evil.

Check your local TV listings for more.

After the jump, the late night talk show listings.

Here are the new TV DVDs, in stores tomorrow.

Lots of good stuff for TV Squad readers this week, from season one sets for Chuck, Pushing Daisies, and Private Practice to a new Seinfeld season one set and Cybill.

I have the Ozzie & Harriet disc but since it's Christmas-oriented, I'll probably wait a couple of months to review it.

• The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet - Christmas with the Nelsons
• Alvin & The Chipmunks - Alvin!!! Edition
• Avatar: The Last Airbender - Book 3 Collection
• Chuck - Season 1
• Criminal Minds - Season 3
• Cybill - Vol. 1
• Dirty Sexy Money - Season 1
• Duckman - Season 1 and 2
• Father Knows Best - Vol. 1
• Gimme A Break! - Seasons 1 and 2 (Canada)
• Goosebumps - A Night in Terror Tower, Monster Blood, and One Day in Horrorland
• Inside The Actor's Studio - Robin Williams
• Meerkat Manor - Best of Season 3
• Private Practice - Season 1
• Pushing Daisies - Season 1
• The Red Green Show - 2000
• Seinfeld - Season 1: The Very Beginning
• Torchwood - Season Two
• Will & Grace - Complete Series and Season 8

Perhaps my favorite thing about Dirty Sexy Money is how the stellar acting from the entire cast makes you actually like and feel for this disgustingly rich and seemingly shallow family, the Darlings.

Why would anyone love a patriarch who manipulates and plays dirty, in both his business and personal life? Tripp Darling does it, and portrayed by Donald Sutherland, you love him anyway. He's got a sensitivity and down-home kind of style that lets him get away with it all.

Well, good news abounds in television these days: Dexter's third season is about to begin, Bones' fourth season is officially underway and there will be a Dirty Sexy Money marathon -- the whole first season, in order -- on SOAPnet.

This is Spoilers Anonymous, a weekly column here at TV Squad where we'll supply you with the dirt on some of the more popular shows on the air. We'll never put spoilers up here on the main page in order to help the reformed stay unspoiled. If you have anything to add to the group, feel free to step up and let yourself be heard, either with our tips form or by emailing us at tvsquad at gmail dot com or call and leave a message at (775) 640-8479 - your anonymity is guaranteed, if you wish to remain as such.

This week we have: 24, Bones, Brothers & Sisters, Chuck, Desperate Housewives, Dirty Sexy Money, Ghost Whisperer, Grey's Anatomy, One Tree Hill, Private Practice, and Pushing Daisies. (SPOILERS FOLLOW!)

Ed Bernero is such a big Hawaii Five-0 fan, he has the show's theme song as his ringtone. But that's not all.

The Criminal Minds exec producer is also creating a new version of the classic show that starred Jack Lord as Steve McGarrett, head of an elite branch of the fictional Hawaii State Police. The show won two Primetime Emmys and ran on CBS from 1968 to 1980 (Really?! It ran that long?!).

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the new version will feature McGarrett's son as top cop. Bernero says he won't try and re-invent the series, and will "keep as much of the original show as possible."

Okay, let's think about this. Who looks enough like Jack Lord to play his son? (Of course, he'll have to have the same immovable, thick mane.) Jake Gyllenhaal? Kyle MacLachlan? How about Peter Krause? Dirty Sexy Money can't last much longer, can it?

It's coming. The table is set, the players are on the field, the sails are raised, and the pretty maids are all in a row. Of course, I speak of the 2008-09 television schedule. In just a few short weeks viewers will be able to dine on a number of favorite and new dishes that are being served by the networks as well as the increasing number of cable channels who are delving into original programming.

While other fall seasons have come and gone with nary a whimper, this season may be different. Due to the prolonged Writers Strike many shows ended their seasons quite early. Programs like Life, Private Practice, Pushing Daisies, and Heroes haven't aired original episodes since the end of 2007. Heck, there hasn't been a new episode of The Shield since June of last year! So, the beginning of the 2008-09 season will be a second chance for some of these shows, particularly the ones that premiered last season, to show their worth to fans and the networks.

So I've been back from LA for a couple of days, watching Rich and Keith file frantic reports from Comic-Con. It just makes me shake my head in sympathy. Though CC is a different animal from the TCAs, in both structure and in sheer volume of people and activities, I still know exactly how they feel. It all starts to feel like a blur after awhile -- panels, reporter scrums, parties, meeting your favorite (and not-so-favorite) TV stars... When you get back to "normal life," it almost feels like it never happened.

Anyway, now that I have a day or two to reflect, I took a cue from our friends at AOL and came up with a list of things I learned on this press tour. But this list will involve both the network-related things I learned with what I learned about celebrities, my fellow critics, and myself.

I wanted to wait a bit before I posted about the ABC showrunner panel, because a) I already posted about the "news" from Shonda Rhimes about Katherine Heigl's statements, and b) I wanted to think about why these panels seem to be so much more informative than the individual show panels?

We'll get to that more later. On the panel were Rhimes (Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice), Marc Cherry (Desperate Housewives), Silvio Horta (Ugly Betty), Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse (Lost), and Greg Berlanti (seemingly the rest of ABC's schedule). As you'd expect, Rhimes got the Heigl questions, Lindelof and Cuse got the most esoteric questions, and Chery made the most jokes. The funniest line, though, came from Horta.

The photo to the right is of Dirty Sexy Money (and Eli Stone and Brothers & Sisters) EP Greg Berlanti, from the ABC show-runner panel. The reason why I post it is because ABC doesn't have any web-ready photos of either the DSM or the Private Practice panels for download, many hours after both panels. This despite promises that they would have web-ready pictures from the press tour up quickly. OK, cranky rant over.

Anyway, the panels for the two sophomore Wednesday shows didn't reveal all that much in the way of new info. We found out a little about what both Berlanti and PP creator Shonda Rhimes have in store, and how they deal with returning from such a long break (ABC held back the two shows and Pushing Daisies after the strike, making plans to restart in the fall).

After Jimmy Kimmel left the room, ABC Entertainment Steve McPherson got on with the business of facing the press at his executive session. I kicked it off with a question about Scrubs, following up on what Bill Lawrence told me in May about a possible "next generation" ninth season.

"We do think there's an opportunity after (this eighth season)," said McPherson. "If any or all the cast is a part of that, I think there's a growth (opportunity) there. It's a show that, despite being moved around into like 17 time periods and really never being given the marketing support, has really performed unbelievably well on NBC." He went on to say that they hope "it won't be a one-season situation."

Other than that, most of the conversation revolved around the network's returning shows, which makes sense, since the network is only debuting a few new shows (none of which had pilots that the network thought were suitable for preview) this fall.

AOL TV's new video interview series, Outside the Box, takes questions from you (the fans) and poses them to the stars of the hottest shows.

We already asked you to submit questions for the stars of Scrubs. Next up will be Peter Krause and Lucy Liu of Dirty Sexy Money.

While DSM's first season was tragically cut short by the writers' strike, the 10 episodes that did air were full of frothy fun. And that cast! Krause, Liu (who's new for the second season), Donald Sutherland, Jill Clayburgh, Billy Baldwin, Glenn Fitzgerald ... and I could go on. And if you don't quite remember where the show left off, read Erin's review of the season finale.

So, if you're wondering what's in store for Dirty Sexy Money, what Liu's character will be like and if we'll ever find out who killed Nick George's dad ... submit your questions in the comments below by Tuesday, July 15. Be sure to include your first name and your city and state. Good luck.

There have been a lot of personnel changes made to the cast and creative staff of Dirty Sexy Money lately. Only four months after replacing original showrunner Josh Reims, Daniel Cerone has left his executive producer/showrunner position. Big Shots creator Jon Feldman is Cerone's replacement.

Apparently ABC didn't share Cerone's vision for a darker season two of Dirty Sexy Money. Fortunately, Cerone is leaving on good terms with the network. He still has a two-year deal with the ABC Studios. There will be an unexpected early break in production so that showrunner duties can be handed off to Jon Feldman.

The writers' strike forced some of my favorite shows into an unexpected, summer-long hiatus and delayed the return of others. I'm grateful that shows like Lost still have new episodes, but the second half of this TV season hasn't felt the same. I especially miss the promising new series that were cut short.

It feels like other shows have been on hiatus forever. Flight of the Conchords was supposed to return this year, but had its premiere pushed back until 2009. I miss Bret, Jemaine, and their strange circle of friends. I've been wondering about the fates of several absent characters lately. So many storylines were left unresolved.

Here's a short list of some of the faces I can't wait to see again: