Men in Trees is Northern Exposure Lite—and it’s not the only new comedy that’s depressingly familiar.

If they weren’t in New York to begin with, you can bet that this gang—the Japanese salaryman who teleports, the Indian genetics professor with a superpowers theory, the Las Vegas stripper with a guardian-angel doppelgänger, the beat cop who hears what people think, the high-school cheerleader who can walk through fire, the male nurse who can fly, and the drug-addicted artist who is painting the horrific future—would wind up in this city together.

We’ve been here many times before, with a whole family on the run, although this time, at least, it has nothing to do with the witness-protection program.

This glorious six-hour account of the civil-rights movement includes interviews, documentary footage, home movies, and period music, all of which depict a second American revolution.

Even if every hour of Standoff doesn’t live up to the air-traffic-controller-gone-bananas episode that aired on September 12, at least once a week all of us will get to go home with the spectacular DeWitt.

However much executive producer J. J. Abrams is actually involved in this tedious series of interlocking melodramas—and rumor has it that the mastermind of Lost keeps his distance—it’s still not enough to make us care.

Don’t miss executive producer Salma Hayek’s hilarious guest appearance in the pilot, as a sexy maid in a Spanish-language telenovela.

Smith seems to be shot inside the head of Orson Welles, kaleidoscopically noir enough to frighten even the French.

Justice and Shark are superslick but lack a crusader’s soul, while 30 Rock stumbles and Studio 60 soars.

Kyle Chandler is the new coach, Connie Britton his terrific wife, and Scott Porter the star quarterback injured in the first game of the season. The rest is claustrophobic hope and dread.