Lisa Jane Smith, author of a whole library-shelf full of Vampire Diaries for literate tweens, has every right to feel like a Shakespearean monarch whose throne is usurped in a tragedy's first act. She pioneered the genre, took a little sabbatical, and came back to find her world dominated by Harry Potter and all those "Twilight People." In 2008, The Vampire Diaries were reprinted in cool new covers and fonts, and L.J. Smith returned to writing full time. In the fall of 2009, "The Vampire Diaries TV Show" came to the CW, developed and produced by Kevin Williamson of "Dawson's Creek" fame. To his everlasting credit, Williamson expertly preserves the goodness and sweetness of Smith's characters and situations. Although the vampires naturally want to seduce the sensitive young heroines into their dark world, the pretty little women always bring the flesh-hungry bad boys back into the light. Of course, the show's production values allow lots of room for good music and teen-aged angst"”there is no shortage of fog, but it also has plenty of attitude. In addition to foretelling evil events, the show's prophet can predict fashion trends. The story turns on a tween's eternal dilemma: wistful good girl falls in love with the good vampire brother but is constantly tempted by bad-boy vampire other-brother. What is a girl to do?

How many television shows can claim the honor of creating a new term in the English language? "Grey's Anatomy" qualified for the Oxford English Dictionary with its phrase "McDreamy," the residents' term for the hot young surgeon with whom they worked and studied. And original coinage is just the tip of the program's linguistic iceberg as it has remained arguably the best written show on television for more than five seasons. Both narrative and dialogue dazzle in every episode; accompanied by the right music, the closing sequences guarantee a good cry. Enrolled in the nation's toughest and most competitive residency, five young women doctors struggle to survive forty-eight hour shifts and the rigors of a program supervised by five famous doctors who are determined to shape them up or break them down. The women focus on, often obsesses with their careers, and romance, in the words of one viewer, "like take-out pizza, is consumed on the run." Just before the show's 2005 debut, Alessandra Stanley described it as "a Girl Power version of "˜ER'," still the best one-phrase summary ever. All those young girls, and only one McDreamy.

Another reality television show that actually has merit is School Pride. The show is based on an actual restoration on Carver Elementary, a school in Compton, California seven years ago. The schools chosen on this program will receive around two million dollars worth of upgrades and repairs that were sorely needed plus plenty of exposure via the television program. Additionally the student participation helped with School Pride as they were a part of renovations and it is their family, volunteers, and neighbors that help organize the production. The premise is that schools in need of costly repairs can receive help when they showcase how much need there is for improvements and students participate by showing how much pride they have for their school. Somewhat based on the television program "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" the cameras follow students, teachers, and community members performing the renovations badly needed by a particular school. In seven days it's amazing how much can be done and camera crews will return a few months later to see just how much improvement has been made and how it affects the surrounding community.

NCIS: Los Angeles TV Show focuses on the Office of Special Projects in the covert NCIS division. The agents on this team work undercover to bring down dangerous criminals that are putting national security at risk. The highly trained team consists of six experts in different areas and together they are unstoppable. Using the latest in technology to figure out who is behind crimes such as hostage takings and terrorist attacks, this elite team does whatever is necessary to get the bad guys and keep our country safe. Although they may appear to be an unlikely combination of members, their results prove that they each play a key role in getting the job done. Watch NCIS: Los Angeles TV show for fast moving action that will keep you interested to the very end.

One of two intense medical dramas NBC introduced in the fall of 2009, "Mercy" had all the advantages its one-named rival "Trauma" did not. First, it had talent behind the scenes. Liz Heldens from "Friday Night Lights" created the show and led the writers, proving once again that the best way to dramatize the real world is to show it realistically"”ugliness and all. Second, it had attitude and guts to stay true to its revolutionary premise, the well-informed notion "that nurses remain [not only] more generous caregivers, but that they are more intuitively apt, smarter, more committed and as technically able as their [physician] superiors, with none of the accompanying arrogance." In a winner-take-all ER smackdown, you always would go all-in with the Mercy Hospital nurses. The main character, nurse Veronica Flanagan Callahan, has just returned from a tour in Iraq, where she clearly learned more in each day than the pompous, presumptuous doctors learned in all five years of medical school. Of course, Veronica gets neither the respect nor the reward she deserves, but "Mercy" dangles the possibility of true love as just recompense for Veronica's skill and compassion. Taylor Schilling plays Veronica with exactly the right balance of toughness and vulnerability, skillfully juxtaposing her consummate skill as a nurse with her intrepid ingenuousness in matters of the heart. If only "Mercy" had survived into a second season, all the tangled threads in the story might have come to their proper denouement. If only.

Cassie is a shy young girl of sixteen when she discovers she is a witch with powers yet to be discovered. She joins a Circle of witches in New Salem and finds it a competitive world indeed. Cassie is in love with a boy she meets called Adam who is Diana's boyfriend. Diana soon becomes Cassie's best friend so that complicates things a bit. And she now must deal with Faye, another witch. Their Secret Circle rules at the high school Cassie now attends and witches can be dangerous when they are angered. The Secret Circle of witches have been in power and ruling for three hundred years in New Salem and they will use their powers to do pretty much as they wish, including manipulating innocent students into doing their bidding. Can Cassie and her newfound powers of witchcraft be strong enough to lead this witches coven from danger or will they be harmed by the dark forces instigated by a few in the Secret Circle? When the evil Faye assumes power over the Circle she leads them into dangerous territory and even death for someone near to them all. And then the witch hunters arrive on the scene to complicate things even further.