Premiering Tonight 09.23.08

The 2008 Fall Season is upon us and that signals the return of Premiering Tonight. Welcome to Premiering Tonight, highlighting all the new and returning shows premiering on the Fall 2008 schedule.

Premiering tonight on TV are the season premieres of NCIS and Without A Trace on CBS. Law & Order: Special Victims Unit returns on NBC. CBS unveils its new series, The Mentalist starring Simon Baker.

The Mentalist – 9 pm/ET CBS
The TV Remote’s Pick To Click

Simon Baker stars as Patrick Jane, an independent consultant with the California Bureau of Investigation (CBI), who has a remarkable track record for solving serious crimes by using his razor sharp skills of observation. Within the Bureau, Jane is notorious for his blatant lack of protocol and his semi-celebrity past as a psychic medium, whose paranormal abilities he now admits he feigned.

Senior Agent Teresa Lisbon openly resists having Jane in her unit and alternates between reluctantly acknowledging Jane’s usefulness and blasting him for his theatrics, narcissism and dangerous lack of boundaries. His former career as a fake psychic honed his powers of observation, helping him see things most investigators overlook. In the opener, he works to solve the murders of a golf pro’s wife and her doctor, a crime that has a deep personal connection to Jane.

NCIS – 8 PM/ET CBS

The surprising secret behind Gibbs’ new team is revealed on the Season 6 premiere. The team investigates the murder of a Navy petty officer, and Gibbs discovers a link between the case and Vance’s decision to break up the team.

Opportunity Knocks – 8 pm/ET ABC

J.D. Roth hosts a new game show that has family members answering trivia questions about one another. Questions are based on the details and events that make up people’s daily lives, as well as articles found in their home that tell something about them. If contestants answer correctly, cash and prizes await them. Up first is the Gutierrez family from Torrance, Calif. Host Roth and Ashton Kutcher serve as two of the show’s executive producers.

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit – 10 pm/ET NBC

The show begins its 10th season with several guest stars including Luke Perry, Sara Gilbert and Julie Bowen. New ADA Kim Greylek (Michaela McManus) joins the cast as a very enthusiastic lawyer. Tonight, Greylek helps with a case that involves a child making accusations of abusive medical testing against his foster parents, and this leads the detectives to an older, unsolved rape case.

Without a Trace – 10 pm/ET CBS

The series returns for a seventh season on a new day and with a new boss (Steven Weber) for the Missing Persons Unit. The latter change is one that Jack doesn’t adjust to all that well. Tonight’s case involves the disappearance of a man whose daughter vanished years earlier and was never found. The team think that the man’s efforts to help a couple whose son is missing may have something to do with the man’s disappearance.