I'll have the full review of the first episode of The Nine when it premieres later this week (Wednesday night at 10, after Lost), but I wanted to tell you the 10 things I jotted down as I watched it.

1. This show isn't just "involving," it's mesmerizing, and that's unbelievably rare on television.

2. The cast is like a greatest hits of television from the past 10-15 years: Tim Daly (Wings, The Fugitive, Eyes), John Billingsley (Star Trek: Enterprise), Scott Wolf (Party of Five), Tom Verica (American Dreams, Will and Grace, Central Park West), Chi McBride (Boston Public, House), Kim Raver (24, Third Watch), and others. The cast is so good it's scary.

Earlier today I was doing some digging around to see if Spenser: For Hire was being released on DVD anytime soon. No luck yet, but it got me thinking. For several years in a row, it seemed like Robert Urich had a new TV show every single fall. Not all of them were successful, but it tells you something about the actor, how much he was liked by fans and the networks, because he was in over a dozen TV series starting in 1973. And that's not counting all the shows he guest-starred in and all the miniseries where he had a role.

Here are the five best Robert Urich TV shows. Urich died in April of 2002:

LL Cool J is set to star in a new show by CSI creator Anthony Zuiker. It seems that Zuiker is something of an LL fan, so when offered the chance to work with the rapper/actor, he jumped at it. The result is The Man. LL will play an undercover cop who deals with busting perps and running stings at night, and then works to raise his three adopted children by day. The formula is to have the crime stories as the weekly feature while the home life is serialized and takes place in longer arcs throughout the season.

I like to think of it as CSI: In the House, as this does vaguely resemble the plot for LL's previous TV role on that fairly successful sitcom. LL appeared in an episode of House last season, as well as the movies Last Holiday and SWAT. There is nothing official on when this all might come to fruition, but given that it is CBS golden boy Zuiker, things should move quickly.