NYT Times Vamp/ Supernatual TV shows to watch now Olympics are over

SUPERNATURAL (CW) This one-time “X-Files” rip-off has grown up, managing to be cheerfully self-mocking and interestingly apocalyptic at the same time. The most recent new episode featured both a hunt for a renegade Cupid (fun) and the appearance of Famine, the first of the four Horsemen (serious). Returns March 25, with zombies, including the dead wife of Bobby (Jim Beaver).

THE VAMPIRE DIARIES (CW) It’s not the best new show of the season, but on a scale of expectation versus achievement, this smart, moody amalgam of “Dawson’s Creek” and “Twilight” would rank No. 1. Ian Somerhalder’s sly performance as the pouty bad-boy vampire Damon is a bonus. Returns March 25, with more back story: If Katherine (Nina Dobrev) wasn’t in the tomb, where has she been all these years?

FRINGE (FOX) “Fringe” is a good news, bad news proposition. The good news: Across a season and a half, the producers, writers and designers have maintained the most satisfying, entertaining, coherent story arc of any science-fiction-flavored prime-time drama. The bad news: No David Duchovny or Gillian Anderson. The performances here don’t rise to the level of the writing the way they did in “The X-Files,” the show that “Fringe” wants to be. Returns April 1, with the story of how Walter brought Peter back from the Other Side.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/01/arts/television/01season.html