Grade:  A

Two episodes in, I unequivocally love this show.  Reaper makes Chuck pale in comparison.  The two share a basic concept—male underachievers who unwittingly enter a world of high intrigue and danger—but where Chuck rips off Alias hardcore, Reaper more gently takes off from Buffy International Airport.  On his twenty-first birthday, Sam Oliver (Bret Harrison) fends off his suddenly solicitous parents and heads to The Work Bench, where he punches a clock with his goonish best friend Sock (Tyler Labine) and love interest Andi (Missy Peregrym).  After a number of mysterious occurrences—Sam develops telekinesis and has odd . . .

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Chuck grade:  A –

Journeyman grade:  C +

Of the two new shows that bracket Heroes on NBC’s Monday lineup, Chuck is the one that dares to ask, “What if Sydney Bristow didn’t mean to become a secret agent?”  Chuck (Zachary Levi) is a computer tech at Buy More who hasn’t gotten over the time his college roommate Bryce stole his girlfriend.  Eventually Bryce graduated to stealing government intel, and emails the goodies to Chuck just before dying at the hands of Jayne from Firefly.  Somehow the intel downloads into Chuck’s brain, and suddenly Chuck is the . . .

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Grade:  C +

God, the WB lives.  Its teen-centric programming philosophy rises again in the form of Gossip Girl, a nighttime soap (based on a YA book series) about fabulously rich New York City teenagers who don’t get along, or have just met.  The hive’s former queen is Serena Van Der Woodsen, a (reformed?) bad girl who ran away to boarding school in Connecticut after sleeping with:  Nate, the boyfriend since kindergarten of Serena’s (now ex-) best friend:  Blair, the crowd’s reigning queen who is possibly opening her orbit to include:  Jen, the school’s new girl, daughter of . . .

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Grade:  B

I hardly needed to watch Back to You to know what I thought.  Assembled on set from parts made elsewhere, this is the sitcom that unites Kelsey Grammer and Patricia Heaton as themselves…I mean, as a pompous local-news anchor who returns to his old station in disgrace, and a brittle local-news anchor who doesn’t like having her turf invaded.  (Respectively.)  The marketing pitch was probably “You know what you’re getting into.”

I was surprised, though, that I liked it.  Or at least I was entertained.  It’s kind of like Ron Howard’s adaptation of The Da . . .