Heroes and The Sarah Connor Chronicles are back, joined by J.J. Abrams’ Fringe. And with many shows not returning for a few more weeks, we feel like we’re watching a lot of sci-fi. Here’s our rundown of the new season in science fiction (so far):

Heroes Figures Out How to be Exciting and Boring at the Same Time
The two-hour season premier of Heroes saw a number of characters close to death or even dead. But without pause, all of the characters found miraculous salvation. Parkman shrugs off four shots to the chest, Claire is Sylar’s first victim to get a pass, and Nikki seems to have walked out of an exploding building.

We’re pretty tired of the plotline: character dies…gets blood from Claire/Adam…character lives. Seriously, the excitement and anticipation we get when one of our favorite characters is in a life-or-death situation disappears when we know that there’s no chance of them actually dying. Heroes needs to either kill someone off or they need to stop pretending that they’re going to. They’ve cried wolf one too many times…call us when the wolf actually shows up.

The Sarah Connor Chronicles Makes Us Angry

The first episode of the new season has robo-girl Cameron (Summer Glau) return to her roots and turn on John. John manages to get the chip out of her brain in a matter of minutes (raising the question, how come he can never manage to take out Cromartie?), then he uses a technique for fixing her that makes us wonder…are the Terminators made by Nintendo?

To “fix” her, he takes out the chip, blows on it, wipes it off, and puts it back in. This is what we did when we were kids and our original Nintendo games wouldn’t work. But since this fix hasn’t worked since 1989, we have to wonder why it magically worked on Cameron. The entire season premier was basically worthless, they have Cameron turn evil, only to turn good again…barely moving forward at all. The only thing it does is foreshadow her future change to become John’s nemesis in the future…which means at some point, he’ll have to kill her…and sine Summer Glau is is 89% of the reason we watch this show…we’re not happy.

Then they fail to live up to the hype that they were planning on killing off a main character by offing Sarah’s ex-fiance’s current wife. Yawn…if you’re going to make the threat, at least kill off Brian Austin Green…we can’t watch him without being reminded of his Vanilla Ice-inspired 90210 character anyway.

Fringe is OK, where are Mulder and Scully?
Fringe stars Australian actress Anna Torv and Dawson’s Pacey, Joshua Jackson, as investigators of the paranormal. The concept is interesting, but Torv looks too generic to lead the cast of a hit show and we just keep feeling like we’re watching the X-Files.

And starting October 9th, Fringe is going to have some competition from Eleventh Hour on CBS. From all the previews we’ve seen, Eleventh Hour has the exact same premise, and a few things Fringe doesn’t have. Eleventh Hour is from Executive Producer Jerry Bruckheimer and stars Rufus Sewell (from sci-fi cult classic Dark City) and certified hottie Marley Shelton (from Grindhouse and Sin City). Time will tell if either show will make it, but we’re certainly more excited about Eleventh Hour.

The Bottom Line
Coming back from a season-long writers’ strike sandwiched between two Summer breaks, this season of TV is off to a rocky start. But like an athlete who had to take time off from an injury, a sluggish start is to be expected. The writers’ brains have atrophied and they need a little rehab to get back up to speed…hopefully things will pick back up soon…or you’ll find our DVR for sale on eBay.