Dollhouse

The smart shows are stepping up their game, demanding more of us non-science majors.

Compared to earlier TV masters like Steven Bochco and David Kelley, the new auteurs are light-years ahead of their audience.

Where TV series of the past incorporated knowledge from legal or law enforcement personnel, they were written so that the average viewer could understand the substance.

Today’s TV masters are working remote branches of science or pseudo-science, assuming viewers will go along for the ride. We follow, vaguely, and let the characters carry us. We watch "Lost" mostly for the interactions of Jack, Kate and Sawyer, but pride ourselves on catching the subtext about electromagnetic fields.

Bochco and Kelley based their superior dramas on crime stories, interpersonal relationships among lawyers, police and suspects or clients. "NYPD Blue," "L.A. Law," "Ally McBeal" and "The Practice" had lawyers or cops on the payroll as advisers, but they spoke a language most lay viewers could follow.

They ripped from the headlines to provide topical drama.

The current masters deal in out-of-body, back-in-time, parallel universe, cybernetic and robotic issues. They don’t rip headlines so much as tear the space-time continuum.

They hire M.I.T. script advisers to keep the quantum physics real.

They’re blinding me with science.

As you can perhaps tell, I’ve just screened "Dollhouse," the upcoming Fox sci-fi drama from Joss Whedon. Clever, fast-paced, futuristic and starring Eliza Dushku, it’s slated to begin Feb. 13. I have that happily hungry feeling, like I need to watch the pilot twice. This series is going to be as riveting as it is eagerly anticipated.

In a secret lab, "Handlers" program "Actives" to do whatever needs doing, wiping their minds clean and implanting whatever memories will serve the purpose — extra languages, professional skills, martial arts, whatever suits the next assignment. What happens when an Active goes rogue? (No Sarah Palin jokes, please.) In "Dollhouse," matters of bioethics are at the fore.

Before that, I spent time in another secret lab, catching up with the "Fringe" episodes stockpiled on my DVR. The science-laced mystery on ABC from J.J. Abrams concerns a vast conspiracy surrounding secret scientific experiments that deal in genetic fiddling, telepathy, and more brain chemistry. It’s all part of what the series calls The Pattern, something big, scary and so scientifically advanced we have no idea what’s up. Is John Noble’s character Walter Bishop brilliant or a mad scientist? Yes!

Next I watched the above-average pilot of "Lie to Me," premiering Jan. 21 on Fox, about forensic studies of facial expressions and involuntary body language. Tim Roth plays the doctor who assists law enforcement agencies to get to the truth.

The "real-life discoveries of Paul Ekman" are the basis for the series, according to Fox. Ekman serves as scientific consultant on the show. Not in a class with "Dollhouse," closer to traditional cop show procedurals, it hints at a pseudo-scientific approach.

Of course I’m brushing up on Faraday’s law of induction, looking forward to the fifth season of "Lost," returning Jan. 21 on ABC. This year’s 17 episodes promise more jarring manipulations of time and place on that metaphysically puzzling island.

The popularity of pseudo science as a premise, or at least background noise, for TV series has been climbing — even before "Heroes" first showed promise. "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" lives in the same realm, asking viewers to consider time travel, cyber-life and an apocalyptic future alongside mother-son relations.

I’ve been thinking — TV has been forcing me. If it’s not string theory or electromagnetism it’s Einstein’s relativity. We ache to understand mysteries bigger than ourselves and science-y television let’s us pretend we can.

Luckily, we don’t have to know much about these weighty subjects to enjoy the drama driving the science talk. Like the surgical lingo that graces "Grey’s Anatomy," the physics references are mere props on the set. But give Abrams and Whedon credit: They’ve built dramatic premises on some sophisticated, serious science.