Last year, RedEye's "Best Character on TV Tourney" crowned Kara "Starbuck" Thrace the ultimate victor.

Photo credit: Justin Stephens/Sci Fi

The first round of voting for this year's Tourney has just opened, but unfortunately they've decided to make last year's winners ineligible, so I you can't go there and vote repeatedly for Starbuck again this year. But there are some other good possibilities.

The tourney is divided into four regions: the George Costanza Region, the Carmela Soprano Region, the Smoking Man Region, and the Buffy the Vampire Slayer region. Guess where our favorite ladies are to be found? (Well, not in the George Costanza Region.)

In the Smoking Man Region, we've got Battlestar Galactica's Number Six (Tricia Helfer) vs. The Shield's Det. Shane Vendrell (Walter Goggins).

Photo credits: Sci Fi/Justin Stephens (Helfer), Prashant Gupta/FX (Goggins)

Well, Six is a super-powerful Cylon with the ability to seduce and manipulate pretty much anybody she wants — plus she plays for our team (half the time). Det. Vendrell is ... who is he? My money's on Six. … continue reading

This week brings several new shows to the small screen for your viewing pleasure. Most heralded is the Ashton Kutcher comedy Miss Guided, starring Judy Greer.

Greer plays ex-nerd Becky Freeley, a guidance counselor at the high school she attended. Although I expected to see something fresh with Kutcher at the helm, Miss Guided looks like just one more show about how a former high school misfit overcomes the past to find success. The show even has Becky's one-time nemesis, former homecoming queen Lisa Germain (Brooke Burns) who now teaches English, to complicate life just like the old days. And, guess what? Becky and Lisa both have the hots for the Spanish teacher! Comedy gold.

Reviews of the premier episode have been mixed (the Boston Herald review bears the headline, "Flunk'd," while courant.com calls the show "delightful"), but the cast gets good marks for making the most of a mediocre pilot, so we have reason to hope the show will improve. Miss Guided premieres Tuesday at 10:30 p.m. ET on ABC, then will move into its regular time slot of 8 p.m. Thursday.

Thursday at 8:30 p.m., a new reality show comes to HGTV, starring the winner of the network's Design Star, Kim Myles.

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I have fond memories of playing the first Tomb Raider video game on a dorky Acer PC that would now seem like a relic. That game was so pixelly — Lara Croft had those pointy torpedo boobs — but it had the perfect effort-reward ratio. For me, every TR game since then has paled. And the films don't really compare either, though I do enjoy watching Croft kick butt. Still, Tomb Raider should be about the adventure, not the Angelina.

This latest bit of Tomb Raider news is more along the lines of what I like. Minnie Driver will be the voice of Lara Croft in an online animated series called Re\Visioned: Tomb Raider. I take issue with the backslash (what the hell is that trying to do?) but I approve of the concept. And I definitely approve of anything that involves Driver's voice or Driver in general. (I only wish I could tolerate the rest of The Riches, because she's great in it. But I can't get past the virilization and bad-acting-ization of Eddie Izzard.) … continue reading