I've been watching a lot of television this month, as I've done every Fall since I was a child. I always hope that the new Fall tv season will produce new delights, and usually it does. But not this October.

The shows I loved as a child: Perry Mason, Have Gun – Will Travel, Star Trek, are still enjoyable today on DVD. A good television show is one with original ideas, compelling stories, and -- most of all -- likable characters. The characters may not be heroes. They may be black-hearted villains like Long John Silver or Darth Vader. But you remember them and, in a way, you love them. This year it seems the lovable characters are lacking.

I will always remember Data. And Quark. And Willow, Spike, Mulder, Skinner, Lex Luthor, Londo, G'Kar, Jayne, Kaylee, Starbuck, Hiro, Sarah Connor, Toffer, Locke, and Hurley. As best I can tell, there is nobody like that out there this season in science fiction, either on the returning shows or the new shows.

To start at the bottom, I tried to watch Supernatural but failed. An extended sequence of a serial killer stalking a mother and a baby is not my kind of television. I watched all of one episode of Star Wars: Clone Wars, but only because it was a half hour. The plot was a cliché fifty years ago on Tom Corbett – Space Cadet. I was able to sit through Fringe but I was glad when it was over. The Event was a little more entertaining, but the plot is preposterous. To mention just one absurdity, a story turns on a kidnapper being able to predict within seconds when her victim will succeed in cutting through her bonds with a shard of broken glass. Smallville, as I mentioned last issue, has a few good moments, but I can't say I look forward to watching. Like The X-Files, it has gone on two seasons too long.

Probably the best of the Fall shows is Caprica, which has drama aplenty. But none of the characters is even remotely likable -- ruthless businessmen, ruthless gangsters, and ruthless terrorists. Of the three, the terrorists are the most sympathetic.

What I'm enjoying most this Fall season are old shows that I either buy on amazon.com or get in the mail from Netflix: The Wire and Fraggle Rock. If you've seen anything really good this Fall, please let me know.