Couch Potato: The season so far

There was pretty much no way I wasn’t going to like CBS’s “NCIS: Los Angeles.”

I’m a huge fan of the original, which stars Mark Harmon as one of several special agents from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, a law enforcement organization that investigates crimes involving the Navy and Marine Corps.

Then there’s Chris O’Donnell — be still my heart — who stars in the spin-off. He’s been one of my imaginary boyfriends since “Circle of Friends,” and it’s great to have him on TV every week.

O’Donnell and LL Cool J play undercover NCIS agents who work for the Office of Special Projects, catching dangerous and elusive criminals that pose a threat to national security.

The series echoes the tone of the original: The agents are investigating serious crimes, but there’s still plenty of comic relief to be mined throughout that process.

Nobody has emerged as tough a guy as Harmon’s Leroy Jethro Gibbs just yet, but there is a great buddy-cop feel between O’Donnell’s G. Callen and LL Cool J’s Sam Hanna that distinguishes the spin-off from its predecessor.

The Los Angeles crew’s de facto leader is Hetty Lange (Oscar winner Linda Hunt), who fills many roles for these agents. She outfits them with surveillance equipment and clothing for undercover assignments, but is also something of a mother hen who doles out advice when they need it.

Creating a spin-off can be tricky business, but CBS got it right this time.

“NCIS: Los Angeles” airs at 9 p.m. on Tuesday.

Here’s what else I’m watching this fall:

Glee (Fox, 9 p.m. Wednesday)
This show never fails to put a smile on my face.

I love the show-stopping musical numbers, the subversive comedy and pretty much anything the hilarious Jane Lynch does as mean cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester.

One of the most touching recent moments was when Glee clubber Kurt came out to his father. It was handled beautifully.

The show clearly has many more potential storylines to explore, so I’m a little baffled as to why they’ve gone all soap opera on us with two pregnancy-related plots. Glee club teacher Will’s evil wife, Terri, is faking one to hold on to her man, while popular cheerleader Quinn actually has one in the oven. It’s just not her boyfriend, Finn’s.

Both plots are meant to keep our core couples apart — Will and neat freak guidance counselor Emma, and Finn and fellow singer Rachel — but neither is being done particularly well.

I really can’t stand any scene the dreadful Terri is in. Couldn’t the writers make her a little less insufferable?

Flash Forward (ABC, 8 p.m. Thursday)
The season’s best new drama, by far.

It’s confusing and complicated — the show is about what happens when a random event causes the entire world to black out, during which time they get a glimpse into their immediate future — but so worth watching.

The cast is great: “Shakespeare in Love” star Joseph Fiennes trades in his tights for a badge and gun as FBI agent Mark Benford, who is leading the investigation into why these flash forwards occurred; John Cho (the “Harold and Kumar” movies, “Star Trek”) is his partner, who is worried because he didn’t see anything during the blackout; and Sonya Walger, who knows a thing or two about high-concept series from her time on “Lost,” is Benford’s wife.

I love how every episode ends with a jaw-dropping plot twist. The premiere’s final moments revealed creepy, grainy footage of a mystery man walking around during the black out. Another recent ending found Bender and a fellow agent discovering that a similar blackout occurred in Somalia during the 1990s.

Let’s hope the writers keep them coming.

Random Thoughts
The storylines on Fringe (Fox, 9 p.m. Thursday) keep getting weirder and weirder — see that part human, part scorpion, part molerat baby from a few weeks ago — and I couldn’t love it any more. … I don’t want to accept that George is dead on Grey’s Anatomy (ABC, 9 p.m. Thursday). It’s so unfair to lose an actor of T.R. Knight’s caliber, but it did provide some great material for his former costars, especially Chandra Wilson’s Dr. Bailey. … How I Met Your Mother (CBS, 8 p.m. Monday) is handling the Barney/Robin romance perfectly; they really are one of TV’s cutest couples … Project Runway’s (Lifetime, 10 p.m. Thursday) recent newspaper challenge — which had contestants designing frocks out of paper — was just cool. The best designs were Christopher’s showstopper, a bustier paired with a full skirt of feathered newspaper print; Irina’s “fur” trench coat; and Logan’s Asian-inspired dress. … My favorite Amazing Race (CBS, 8 p.m. Sunday) teams are Harlem Globetrotters Flight Time and Big Easy, father/son duo Gary and Matt and gay brothers Sam and Dan. I was sad to see best friends Zev and Justin go, and I don’t like Meghan and Cheyne, simply because the spelling of the latter’s name is ridiculous. It’s Shane. Simple as that.