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Watched the debut of a new teevee show tonight, Wonderfalls. First look: quirky, cynical/sweet, kinda funny. Hard to say if it'll have staying power, and it probably won't last long enough for me to find out. It'll get compared to Joan of Arcadia because of the similarity of the plot (Joan talks to God, lead woman in Wonderfalls talks to toy animals), and that similarity is emphasized because the new show follows directly on the other (although on different networks), with Joan on CBS at 8:00 and Wonderfalls on Fox at 9:00. This makes at least four shows this season that feature young women with odd, supernatural powers (the others being the sadly crummy Tru Calling and the decent-if-not-great Dead Like Me, the latter of which comes on Showtime right after ... you guessed it, Joan of Arcadia and Wonderfalls). Dead Like Me is actually the closest match for this new show: both feature lead characters with lovably bad attitudes.

What does it all mean? Do a Google search, there have been plenty of folks writing about this odd new trend in teevee land. I explained it to my wife with a baseball reference, as is my wont. When Barry Bonds retires, I told her, the Giants would need to get someone to hit home runs, and someone to get on base, and someone to steal bases, and someone to play great defense ... in other words, Barry Bonds is so great, it'll take four guys to replace him.

Well, I don't think it's any coincidence that four new shows about supernaturally-empowered young women have hit teevee right after Buffy retired. It takes four shows to replace the Buffster.