Only one week to go until Veronica’s back.

Let’s have a small word about last week’s Gilmore Girls. I was so glad to have them back, even if the episode felt a little uninspired (like this season). But if Rory Gilmore gets one more awesome accolade handed to her, I will punch something. Even absurdly amazing girls* like Rory fail sometimes. Everyone fails, because the world is not perfect, and sometimes meritocracies don’t work or there’s just someone better out there. The fact that she never, ever fails at anything makes her so much less interesting and relatable. Anyhow, tonight: I’m still excited about having new episodes.

From the description, House tonight sounds like there’s a lot of intrigue. I won’t spoil anything, but the Wilson/Cuddy date thing is obviously going to be an issue, and the mystery sounds more Foreman-centric.

The Honorary Cristin and Dan Selections: Pussycat Dolls and Work Out.

We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming: Is anyone else terrified by the MTV show Scarred? I know I’m not exactly their target demographic, but I’m pretty sure even when I was a kid I didn’t like seeing other people get seriously injured. But then again, I probably wasn’t their demographic back in the day, either.

*A maddening article you probably don’t want to read anyway hidden behind the TimesSelect wall.

… on the “war on terror.”

Cheney. Bush. Get it?

Linderman suggested last night that the small loss of life in the blowing up of New York is worth it for Nathan to become president and unite humanity in fear. Oh really, Lindy? It’s pretty clear that the show doesn’t agree with the L-man’s assessment: the ends don’t justify the means, and it’s sickening to think you could use this tragedy to become president, further your agenda, take away people’s civil liberties, etc, etc. I think you get where they’re going with this.

Frankly, though I cheered when I realized what they were doing, I was surprised the show went there. I love Heroes, mostly for its tight, imaginative storytelling, but I’ve never thought of it as a particularly socially-conscious TV show. Sci-fi often (always?) has an allegorical and sometimes political bent, but this particular show seemed more interested in the human drama than the wide-ranging implications of whatever’s happening in the world.

Maybe it’s inevitable that a show about people who are “different” and in some way persecuted should become political, with at least similarities and comments upon the real world. I guess I didn’t expect it to be so incredibly obvious a connection. In a show like Battlestar Galactica, the ways that the story comments upon real life are often shifting and subject to interpretation: Sometimes we’re the Cylons, sometimes the Cylons are terrorists, sometimes there isn’t a one-to-one comparison to be made. At its best, good sci-fi can make you question your assumptions about what’s happening in the real world.

I’m not sure that Heroes has gotten to that point yet — so far, the story they’ve proposed doesn’t have that layer of ambiguity. But I’m excited to see what they do and glad they’re going for it.

In other news, Peter has a new hairdo.

Makes him look older. Rowr.

I’m going to see David Rakoff tonight. I’m afraid I might pee in my pants.

• Bryan Fuller, one of the guys behind Heroes, talks about Zach and his would-be gayness.
• The New York Post compares the premise of Heroes with the graphic novel “Watchmen.”
• Playing Lost audio backwards will not make the show any clearer, but people do it anyway.
• Beware, all ye who enter: season finale spoilers.
• One of the crazy Bachelor ladies is in hot water from her students’ parents.
• Tim Gunn counters reports that they haven’t been able to find any good designers for Project Runway 4.
• For American Idol — poverty is out of sight, out of mind.
• The most recent dead Hero talks to TV Guide.
• The Tudors’ Jonathan Rhys Meyers enters rehab. Shares bunkbed with Britney?
• Ugly Betty’s America Ferrera is doing another Traveling Pants movie.
• Some answers surrounding Joan and Melissa’s dethroning from the red carpet come out.
• The three surviving members of the A-Team will reunite on British television to contact the dead dude.
• Is the Sci-Fi Channel doing a good job at attracting non-nerds?
• Confirming what everyone else pretty much figured, the New York Post says that Screech is a douche.
• A Lauren Graham interview — take it or leave it.
• Jesus Christ! Disturbing photos of “J-Wahl” playing Russian-fucking-roulette.