What TVLine Is Thankful For This TV Season: Sweet Revenge, The Very Good Sons And More!

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WALKING DEAD-Rick

Michael Ausiello Is Thankful For...BLOODY GOOD TEASERS If any series boasts theme music that captures its show’s essence better than The Walking Dead, I can’t think of it. And it isn’t even that snug fit that’s the best part about the haunting score: The way its simple, repetitive orchestration starts playing in the final seconds of each episode's teaser, leading into the opening title sequence, creates a unique transition that doesn’t just make the spine tingle, it makes it throb!

Saturday Night Live

Matt Webb Mitovich Is Thankful For... SNL GETTING FRESHListen, I love Alec Baldwin and Justin Timberlake as much as the next guy – but they don't need to host Saturday Night Live (what feels like) three times a season, every season. So kudos to the late-night sketcher for finally venturing outside its comfort zone with the likes of Melissa McCarthy (we'll never consume ranch dressing the same way again), Charlie Day (aka the host of this fall's highest-rated outing) and Jason Segel (who somehow made The Muppets seem contemporary). And coming up Dec. 3, a blast from the past: Steve Buscemi, who hasn't lorded over studio 8H since 1988.

EMILY VANCAMP, NICK WECHSLER

Vlada Gelman Is Thankful For...REVENGE'S SOAPY ANTICS I love a good primetime mystery soap. But the last one I can remember really enjoying was Fox's short-lived Pasadena. So it's been an unexpected and long-awaited treat to have one as deliciously fun and twisted as Revenge. Plus, it brought some of my favorite WBers – Emily VanCamp and Nick Wechsler – back to TV.

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Michael Slezak Is Thankful For... PRECOCIOUS TEENAGERS I'll admit it: I foamed at the mouth with horror when Simon Cowell initially announced a lower age limit of 12 for his stateside version of The X Factor. So imagine my surprise that 14-year-olds Astro and Drew, and 13-year-old moppet Rachel Crow, have provided the show with some of its buzziest performances to date. Drew, in particular, performs with an emotional maturity and confidence that makes me secretly want to score a copy of her birth certificate (just to be certain). That said, I'm big enough to admit that if not for the kids, Season 1 might be little more than a predictable Melanie Amaro-Josh Krajcik march to the finale. In other words, bring on the youth -- unless, of course, it's in the form of frothy, pre-fab teenybopper act InTENsity.

Community

Megan Masters Is Thankful For...HUMAN BEINGS I'm thankful for Community. End of story. I'm thankful for the loving friend Jeff has become. I'm thankful for the wonderfully detached Abed and his doofy best bud Troy. I'm thankful each time Britta "brittas" something. I'm thankful for the Annie of it all, that Shirley thinks everything is nice, and that Pierce is Pierce. I'm thankful "homie don't Dean this" and that some things make one man Changry. I'm thankful for Dan Harmon, Neil Goldman, the Russo brothers and the rest of the creative team who give us the unique burg of Greendale. And most of all, I'm thankful that Community, not unlike Arrested Development before it, has demonstrated how a sitcom can defy convention and showcase innovation at every turn. One thing I'm not I thankful for: NBC benching it through midseason.

Get A Room

Michael Ausiello Is Thankful For...GOOD DIRECTING Yes, the acting and writing on The Good Wife are top-notch, but let's pause for a second to give props to the directors of CBS' Emmy-winning drama. Remember, it’s their clever scene transitions that keep us bouncing seamlessly between the procedural and the personal, it’s their zippy pacing that keeps us on permanent high alert, and it’s their subtle shifts in camera position that often push us off the edge of our seats.

Tweets

Matt Webb Mitovich Is Thankful For... SOCIAL SHOWRUNNERS One thing no one is thankful for this fall: the MIA status of Community and Cougar Town from their respective networks' announced midseason schedules. But in the wake of that bad news, I am thankful that show bosses such as Dan Harmon and Bill Lawrence aren't shy about using Twitter to throw their two cents into the Penny Can and say (something close to) how they really feel.

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Michael Slezak Is Thankful For... UNEXPECTED ENLIGHTENMENT It took a few episodes for me to get comfortable with the quiet rhythms of HBO's Enlightened, which at times has the breeziness of white sheets drying on a clothesline. More a meditation than a comedy, this compellingly odd half hour focuses on the amazing Laura Dern's Amy Jellicoe as she returns from convalescing at a new-age treatment center and looks to find serenity in a cold corporate environment. Often derailed by her own pettiness, neediness and personal baggage, Amy is nowhere near perfect, but Enlightened most certainly is.

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Megan Masters Is Thankful For... CHARMING HEIGHTS That unwanted (and literal) development at the start of Sons of Anarchy's fourth season set in motion a series of events that will forever change the show -- and thank goodness it did. The FX drama is currently the most enthralling, consistently good thing on TV -- as well as a ratings giant! -- and it's the performances that have helped propel it there. Every cast member has been given the chance to shine this year, but the moments I'm most thankful for belong to Charlie Hunnam's Jax, Theo Rossi's Juice, Kurt Sutter's Otto, Maggie Siff's Tara and Ryan Hurst's Opie.

FRINGElincs

Vlada Gelman Is Thankful For...TWO LINCOLNS LOGGED Thank you, Fringe, for understanding that you can never have enough of a good thing -- especially when that thing is Lincoln Lee. I didn't think I could love the guy more than I did last season. Then the show up and made Seth Gabel a series regular, giving us even more of the nerdy, lonely Lincoln from our universe.

HOMELAND

Michael Ausiello Is Thankful For...LONG-OVERDUE COMEBACKS Claire Danes has been away from TV for far too long. That fact is driven home every Sunday night when the My So-Called Life alum steps into the shoes of anti-terror pitbull Carrie Mathison in Showtime's new thriller Homeland. Her performance as the relentless, mentally unstable CIA agent leaves us in a constant state of shock and awe. Honorable mention goes to the rest of the show's top-shelf cast, including Morena Baccarin, Mandy Patinkin and Damian Lewis.

The Walking Dead (Season 2)

Matt Webb Mitovich Is Thankful For... MORE BRAINSSSS Sure, there was a visceral thrill to The Walking Dead's miniscule first season, in that each of the six episodes played like a breakneck Xbox first-person shooter. But Season 2's meatier 13-episode run affords the characters time to take a breath, wash up on occasion, and, you know, develop. (The only downside: The show has gotten too talky at times, but as long as there are no more pensive pit-stops at churches....)

Prime Suspect

Michael Slezak Is Thankful For... THAT POLARIZING FEDORA NBC's soon-to-expire Prime Suspect takes a bracingly straightforward approach to a crime-of-the-week procedural genre that's gotten bogged down with delivering 27 implausible twists-per-hour and settling for the predictable "Big Name Guest Star = The Bad Guy" approach to casting. Even better, NBC's underrated gem gives us a cranky and often hilarious heroine in Maria Bello's Jane Timoney, a woman who's not afraid to grill a suspect in a crowded Loehmann's dressing room or ask a fearsome Russian loan shark if he happened to be sleeping with a recently snuffed male client. Like the cranberry relish in your fridge, enjoy Prime Suspect while it lasts.

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Megan Masters Is Thankful For...RETURNING TO HARLAN COUNTY Having only recently jumped on the Justified bandwagon (I currently have three more episodes of Season 2 to get through), I could not be more giddy at the prospect of watching Raylan and Boyd -- the only TV twosome receiving my 'shipper endorsement! -- week-to-week with the rest of the world, when the FX hit returns in early 2012. Now, somebody pass the apple pie, will ya?

Parks and Recreation

Vlada Gelman Is Thankful For...CHRIS PRATT As a fan of Everwood, I knew Pratt was more than capable of being lovably doofy and funny. But what he's done with Andy Dwyer, who could have just been Ann's one-note annoying ex, is astounding. I love Amy Poehler and Ron Offerman as much as the next Parks and Recreation fan, but Pratt's fearless, hilarious performance is the show's unsung, secret weapon. He makes me laugh with just a look, a brilliant bit of physical comedy (even in a webisode!) or his decision to trade weapons for lions. On top of it, he's got real heart, so you completely believe April would fall for and marry the guy.

Parenthood

Michael Ausiello Is Thankful For...MONICA POTTER “Keeping it real” could well be the motto of Parenthood’s unsung hero. Though her comic timing is spot-on, her meltdowns are often as moving as they are hilarious. Who doesn’t relate? Personal favorite scene: the one in which Kristina meets Adam's hot assistant for the first time and razzes him hardcore. Potter played it so smartly, and so subtly, that it boggles the mind she’s still so underrated.

The Three Rs

Matt Webb Mitovich Is Thankful For... RUMPLESTILTSKIN! REVENGE! RUBBER MAN! With the annual ritual of screening new shows for the fall comes the occasional bit of dread, as you fret that a fun or ambitious show -- even if not the loftiest of "high art" -- won't court good numbers upon its debut. That's why I am thankful that Revenge (a sexy sudser in the tradition of Dynasty), Once Upon a Time (a risky lark if ever there was one) and American Horror Story (a shameless freakfest if there ever was one) all opened well, held onto their audiences and quickly earned full-season orders or even a Season 2 nod (for AHS).

Nolans

Megan Masters Is Thankful For...TWICE THE NOLAN No one in ABC's Wednesday night lineup stands out more so than Modern Family's Nolan Gould aka Luke, the Dunphy with the best comedic timing, and Gabriel Mann, the guy behind Revenge's uber-schemey Nolan aka one of the TV season's most inventive and entertaining characters. Gould has pretty much owned Season 3 of his Emmy-winning sitcom, mastering the endearing buddy-buddy arc between Luke and his dad Phil, while Mann's mysterious Hamptonite -- who was a big question mark when the series debuted -- has stolen the show with his cautious devotion to Emily and an outlandish style sporting a personality all its own.

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Vlada Gelman Is Thankful For...THE GOOD WIFE CASTING DEPARTMENT There's a reason why the CBS drama has such a fantastic wheelhouse of recurring characters -- because its casting department knows what they're doing, picking familiar favorites for unexpected, complex roles and tapping into the bevy of theater talent in New York City. This season alone, they've had Lisa Edelstein, Aaron Tveit, Amy Sedaris, Parker Posey, Harvey Fierstein and Eddie Izzard on the show, each of whom created distinct, memorable characters.