There’s a whole world out there beyond the networks — you know this. There are a hell of a lot of new original programs on cable, some of which are damn good. However, there are way too many to keep up with — especially the new brand of “woman of a certain age” dramas.

Then there’s FX’s Damages, which recently gleaned two surprise Emmys (by my standards) for Glenn Close and Zeljko Ivanek. If you ask me, they were well earned (even though Michael Emerson from Lost should get his due before the show ends).

Even though I’m not fully through season one (for all I know there’s some sort of awful deus ex machina — but I doubt it), I must insist you all watch it. The first season is out on DVD, so you can take a sick day, hunker down in your PJs, put on a cucumber mask and get ready to see some high-quality, superbly-paced legal thriller. This is no basic cable Grisham.

I’ll give you the basics to whet your appetite. The first episode features Ellen Parsons, a porcelain-faced, superstar rookie lawyer, in an elevator. She’s covered with blood.  Someone’s clearly been killed.

That’s when they start messing with you. Flashback to several months earlier — law firms court Ellen to be their bright young star. This includes Patty Hewes (although Hewes and Associates is enough of a big deal that they don’t really have to chase anyone to get who they want).

Hewes is in the middle of an intense legal battle representing the former employees of Arthur Frobisher, played by a white-haired Ted Danson. Frobisher is a multi-gazillionaire who made even more gazillions by dumping his company stock just before it tanked.

Suffice to say, all of these things are connected. The corporate crime, the ingenue covered in blood, the steely litigator. It’s too much to explain in one post and more satisfying to watch play out in the nutso pilot.

One of the most refreshing parts about Damages is the fact that the characters aren’t predictable. They’re types, but they’re not lazy caricatures. Glenn Close is a pit bull (please, don’t let that woman distract you when I use that term), but she’s not invincible or completely soulless (mostly soulless, maybe). Frobisher is a powerful corporate criminal, but he’s also a huge softie and a petulant child. Fisk, his attorney (played by Ivanek), is particularly conflicted as the man who does Frobisher’s dirty work — the guilt eats him from the inside out.

The best part about Damages, and the reason I keep watching it until I fall asleep at night, is that the tension is excellently delivered. The scenes shot in the present day, a grim series of scenes shot on grainy film, divulge just enough juicy morsels every episode to change your entire perception of what has happened so far in the series.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the performances, which are pretty excellent all around. Glenn Close is psychotically awesome as the shark-like Patty Hewes — she’s got this icy stare that doesn’t give a damn thing away. Even Ted Danson is pretty great as Frobisher — it’s a far cry from the loveable barkeep Sam Malone, which every associates him with.

So, yeah. Get Damages on DVD and make a weekend out of it.  Don’t consume in moderation — swallow it whole.

• The DC Health department pays an unfriendly visit to Top Chef Spike’s restaurant
• Ouch: Letterman busts McCain for lying, Craig Ferguson gets pissed off as well
• Washington Post talks to Kathy Griffin about making it to the B-list
• The new gay on Survivor is friends with Clay Aiken
• Dexter gets a bobblehead
• Democrats and Republicans have similar TV tastes
• NY Mag talks to Amy Ryan from The Office about tackling bears
• 30 Rock: Liz Lemon loses her glasses
• FYI: There’s a David Archuleta corn maze
• The new Knight Rider: Not the worst show ever made, but surely in the Top 10
• Oprah doing voicework for a new animated Disney movie, probably as a singing vajayjay
• Bravo is working on a new show about fag hags
• How not to be the first person kicked off a reality show
• This day in lists: 6 TV shows that should never have been cancelled
• Sarah Silverman wants Jews to remind their grandparents in Florida to vote Obama

While most of the hubbub surrounding the new television season has been the return of shows severely impacted by the strike, there’s one show you might forget about: Dexter.

If you find yourself with a glut of time between now and the Sunday premiere, you can click here and watch it yourself (the password is “lady killer”). As I’ve been under the weather this first portion of the week, I encountered such a glut of time and took a quick peek at the preview (some spoilers below).

The season premiere finds Dexter functioning as well as he conceivably could. He has lots of crazy sex with Rita, but gets up in time to make star-shaped pancakes for her kids. Work’s going fine. Another day, another mangled corpse whose death he has to recreate. Of course, he hasn’t given up on his habit of being the dark vigilante of justice, either. In fact, he’s now owned the habit — no longer considering it an homage to his dearly departed father, but a quest of his own.

But, if the season is going to be interesting at all, something has to go wrong. And it does. En route to dispose of a teenager-murdering drug dealer, Dexter accidentally gets into a fight (and kills) a stranger at the scene of the crime. The stranger ends up being the little brother of a prominent assistant district attorney whose only crime appears to be being a mentor for wayward youth.

The DA is played by Jimmy “I’m latin” Smits, in full Cuban mode (following the decent, if unmoving, CBS drama Cane). Dexter has always embraced Miami’s latin flair, usually manifested by passing Spanish phrases and ending words with the diminutive “ito.” This season will likely be no different, as the shows Latin cast members are stepping further into the forefront.

What else can I say about the premiere of Dexter?

There are some way-graphic sex scenes with Dexter and Rita, during which all sorts of thoughts flooded through my head (“Holy crap! She’s totally naked and grinding on Michael C. Hall now — not just simulating it by rolling around on top of him under the covers while wearing a pair of baggy sweatpants.”; “Michael C. Hall’s abs are insane.”).

Aside from that, and a last-minute surprise, it seems like the third season is off to a somewhat slow start.  I’m sure, however, that if this season is anything like the first two, they’ll appear to write themselves into a corner as the season progresses and somehow pull off a reasonable resolution.

• Bravo is filming a reality show based on polo, they are also casting for their Project Runway replacement Fashion House
• Kanye West is making a hip hop puppet show for Comedy Central
• The Karate Kid himself will be appearing on Ugly Betty
• What we aren’t watching: Heroes is down 25%… or maybe 40%
• HBO Canada is coming, and it won’t be owned by HBO
• How BJ Novak went from Punk’d to The Office
• KFC worried that 90210 may be too unhealthy for it’s advertising dollars
• Erik and Jaime from Survivor: China are getting married
• Lifetime snags How I Met Your Mother Mother reruns
• Do Not Disturb apologizes for being garbage, asks TV critics to give them a second chance
• This day in lists: Greatest TV hangouts
• And for the juvenile and easily amused, Sloth from The Goonies asks John McCain a serious question
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My love of Law & Order is not quite as deeply rooted or long-lived as Cristin’s, nor as wide-ranging as that of the TWoP writer behind this masterpiece. (I can usually just flail at the TV while yelling “I saw him sassing Lennie Briscoe!”) But it is love, and it endures. I owe the completion of my thesis to the reruns of SVU on the USA channel, and having watched all of Oz last spring (somehow sex crimes made it easier to do financial reports…who knew?) I can speak authoritatively about the SVU-Oz crossover appeal (this week: Luke Perry, formerly charred, disgraced televangelist Rev. Jeremiah Cloutier!). And I was SO EXCITED when SVU came back last night.

Psst! I have a secret opinion about Project Runway that I’ve learned—the hard way—not to share in public. But the Internet doesn’t count as public, right? So I’m going to let all of you in on it.

First, let me say that I watch Project Runway knowing nothing about fashion. I came of age in the ’90s when grunge was in, boys and girls wore the same clothes (flannel), it was cool to say you got a bloodstained shirt at the Salvation Army for a dollar, and everybody looked like they were dressed in their PJ’s all the time—and I secretly hope that, with this whole economic-downturn thing, we’ll go back to those blissful days.

With that being said, are you ready for my secret? Even if it gets me in trouble with some of my fellow TiFaux writers?

Fine. here goes: I actually like Kenley.

Most people I know revile her. Yes, she’s pompous. Yes, she’s kind of a one-trick pony. Yes, I know she said something bad about Tim Gunn last time, which is the fashion equivalent of a cardinal (well, venial) sin.

In spite of all that, I still like her. The preview for this week looks like she’s about to get her comeuppance. I don’t know if that means she’ll be kicked off, or slapped on the wrist but kept around for drama. Either way, I might as well step in and defend her while I still can.

Mean and Mini-Mean

Here are the reasons that you Kenley-haters should lay off:

• Mary McDonnell moves from Battlestar to Grey’s Anatomy
• Elisabeth Hasselbeck leaving The View for Fox News
• Worst Week is looking like a loser
• Tom Bergeron unscripted dropping of Heidi Klum at the Emmys left a big ass bruise
• 90210 has been picked up for a full season
• GLAAD: TV shows are including more gay characters
• E! Kristin has spoilers for Lost, Grey’s, The Office and more
• Al Franken admits to coming up with the idea for the McCain SNL skit
• George Clooney definitely not returning to ER
• Tina Fey on SNL Palin skit: “I saw one lady trying to form a thought that it was sexist on the news, but she didn’t really get it together. Probably because she was a lady and she was dumb.”
• This day in lists: 50 OMGWTF moments in Lost

Clay’s made it official — he’s a lesbian. Or at least his haircut is.

This week on Gossip Girl: Everyone went broke because all their money was in Lehman and Merrill Lynch. Chuck hocks everything in the Palace Hotel and hops a container ship to Venezuela, because we don’t have an extradition treaty with Venezuela. Nate gets sent to Oz in his father’s place and becomes Ryan O’Reily’s bitch. Dan learns what it’s like to actually be middle class and has to go to SUNY. Jenny’s turning tricks at the Holland Tunnel. Blair and Serena get jobs at the Qdoba opening across the street from my apartment. Rufus’s lame-ass gallery goes under and he takes a job as a fact-checker at Rolling Stone. Bart and Lily learn where Target is and, faced with the ugly reality of generic breakfast cereal, Eric begins acting out by tagging the 7 train. Vanessa carries on with two-for-one lesbian taco night in Queens. Even Gossip Girl suffers—her cell service gets turned off and she’s reduced to Xeroxing a ‘zine in the finest tradition of up-by-the-bootstraps individualism.