The second season of “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” premieres tonight (7 p.m., Fox).  Last year (well, earlier this year) was like an inverted bell curve for me - really dug it at the beginning, lost interest in the middle, liked it again towards the end. We’ll see how it goes this time around, but they definitely win points with me for adding Shirley Manson, lead singer of my beloved ’90s band Garbage, to the cast, though clearly her actual abilities as an actor is somewhat of a question mark at this point. Also, Dean Winters guest stars tonight. Who doesn’t love Dean Winters?

Up against “Terminator” is “Gossip Girl” (7 p.m., The CW). The Blair dating a secret “Lord” storyline is pretty endearingly ridiculous, especially when he started randomly speaking in an English accent, plus any promise of scheming Chuck = awesome. But who could possibly care about Nate and the old lady?

Also on tonight: the season finale of “High School Musical: Get in the Picture” (7 p.m., ABC). I actually don’t know much about this show other than the clips they’ve shown on “The Soup,” but I figured the prize was a part in “High School Musical 3″ (which didn’t make a ton of sense to me since the movie comes out next month, but maybe this show has been in the can for a while).  Apparently what’s actually at stake is the lead role in a music video that will play over the end credits of the movie. Well, that’s…something. Good for them!

“Gossip Girl”! The first big premiere of the fall network season! Scandal! Fashion! The big city! Attractive young people with lives much more interesting than yours ever was or will be! Huge amounts of “buzz” coupled with incredibly low ratings!

Oh, what a feeling, to be looking forward to new episodes of a show I like (other than “Burn Notice”). Last season didn’t end on any cliffhangers, but did plant the seeds for plenty of interesting things to come. Here’s what The CW says about it:

GOSSIP GIRL INVADES THE HAMPTONS / GUEST STARS INCLUDE AUTHOR JAY MCINERNEY, SOCIALITE TINSLEY MORTIMER AND ACTRESS MADCHEN AMICK As the summer draws to a close in the Hamptons, Serena (Blake Lively) and Nate (Chace Crawford) have everyone fooled into thinking they are a couple to cover up the fact that Nate has been hooking up with a married older woman (guest star Amick) and Serena has been secretly mourning her break-up with Dan (Penn Badgley). Blair (Leighton Meester) returns from abroad with a hot guy on her arm (guest star Patrick Heusinger), making a very jealous Chuck (Ed Westwick) question his decision to leave Blair stranded at the heliport. Dan has spent the summer assisting a famous author (guest star McInerney), but decides to head to the Hamptons to see how things stand with Serena after a summer spent apart. While interning for Eleanor Waldorf’s company, Jenny (Taylor Momsen) sneaks an invite to a much-coveted Hamptons’ White Party at which Eric (Connor Paolo) introduces her to socialite Tinsley Mortimer. Matthew Settle also stars. J. Miller Tobin directed the episode written by Joshua Safran (#201).

A guest appearance from THE Tinsley Mortimer? I’m so there! And tomorrow: “90210.”

How I Met Your Mother
7:30 p.m., CBS
Just a couple weeks ago, people online were at least relatively sure that Stella (Sarah Chalke) would end up as the titular “Mother.” But with Bill Lawrence saying that “Scrubs” could go on for many years past next season (Lawrence seemingly being the only person that thinks that’s a good idea), that puts the whole thing into question. On one hand, it seems too obvious for Stella to be the mother, on the other hand, we’re going into season four, and the show just barely gets renewed each spring, maybe resolving that loose end wouldn’t be such a bad idea. Since the show really is about a lot more than the gimmicky framing device, it probably could continue past the revelation, though I imagine it’ll be drawn out a while longer, and past tonight’s third season finale. Oh, and the above picture certainly suggests that Ted and Barney become friends again, but maybe it’s just a flashback - or maybe I’m just using an old picture! Such suspense.

Gossip Girl
7 p.m., The CW
The “Gossip Girl” backlash has started! Maybe revolving an entire lineup around “GG” ripoffs wasn’t a great idea. After revolving last week’s murder subplot rather tidily, we’re all systems go for Chuck’s Dad and Blair’s Mom to get married - or are we! What about that kiss that Blair’s Mom and Dan’s Dad shared last week? I really don’t know why Dan’s Dad is so into Blair’s Mom, he seems cool and she seems like a real square. I also don’t know why a show that’s so hot and hip with young people is focusing so much on parents - Jim Walsh weeps! First season finale.

House
8 p.m., Fox
I haven’t watched “House” since it came back post-strike. Have I missed anything? Some diagnoses? Maybe some sarcasm? Apparently last week’s Fred Durst role extends into tonight’s fourth season finale, so that’s…something. Also, according to official Fox press, House’s friendship with Wilson is tested “beyond limits.” That’s right, BEYOND LIMITS. You know the normal limits for House and Wilson’s friendship? This goes some point beyond that!

The Bachelorette
8:02 p.m., ABC
DeAnna Pappas was one of two finalists of last fall’s 11th (!) season of “The Bachelor,” when the dude decided not to give roses to either of them. The other one has seemingly moved on with her life, but Pappas has not, so she’s starring in this, the fourth season of “The Bachelorette.” Will she finally find love on a TV show like she’s always dreamed? Why are there so many seasons of “The Bachelor” and so few of “The Bachelorette”? Why does the Firefox spell check seem to think that “Bachelorette” isn’t a real word? Tune in for possibly none of those answers!

ALSO ON: The surprisingly not all that drawn out (three hours over two days) “Dancing with the Stars” season finale begins (7 p.m., ABC); “American Gladiators” attempts to break though the bad ratings gauntlet (7 p.m., NBC); and “Big Bang Theory” (7 p.m., CBS), “Bones” (7 p.m., Fox), “Paradise Hotel” (8 p.m., My Network TV), “One Tree Hill” (8 p.m., The CW), “Two and a Half Men” (8 p.m., CBS) and “Rules of Engagement” (8:30 p.m., CBS) all get season finales. So does the third round of “Flavor of Love” (9 p.m., VH1).

Gossip Girl
7 p.m., The CW
After last week’s major OMFGage, hopefully we’ll get some more clue about the wacky bombshell that Serena (Blake Lively) dropped. Plus, we can look forward to more of Georgina’s (Michelle Trachtenberg) Machiavellian machinations - they are going so over the top with that character that it’s ridiculous and awesome (though stopping just short of being ridiculously awesome). It’s only slightly weird to see her play a 17-year-old when I saw that like six years ago. Guest spots tonight from Lisa Loeb and “famous cake designer” Sylvia Weinstock as themselves. Famous cake designers? Save that for next week’s season finale!

American Gladiators
7 p.m., NBC
Back in January, a revival of “American Gladiators” made sense given the raging writer’s strike and how starved we, as a nation, were for new programming. Now? Maybe not so much, but by premiering it today, they’re obviously trying to get a jump on the impending summer season, where “American Gladiators” again makes sense (with “America’s Got Talent,” the Olympics and other vaguely patriotic programming, NBC is dubbing their summer lineup “All American Summer”). We’ve got some new Gladiators this time, too - Phoenix, pictures, who apparently wears wings for some reason, and Jet and Rocket, formerly known as season one winners Monica Carlson and Evan Dollard, respectively.

How I Met Your Mother
7:30 p.m., CBS
Yep, Britney Spears is back. And it seems like there’s at least a storyline reason for it - she’s not happy with Ted (Josh Radnor) because of him pretending to be interested her the first time her character appeared, and Barney (Neil Patrick Harris) isn’t happy with Ted either, since they are no longer bros and all. This seems to be a mutually beneficial relationship - “HIMYM” was officially renewed today, and Spears has recently gotten increased visitation rights, so good for them. Season finale next week.

Samantha Who?
8:32 p.m., ABC
First season finale. I don’t really dig this show, but a lot of people evidently do, so you’re probably totally psyched to see what’s going to happen in the budding relationship between Samantha (Christina Applegate) and Todd (Barry Watson)! I guess they’re back together? Good for them! Crazy kids.

ALSO ON: “The Hills” (10 p.m., MTV), “The Bachelor” (9:02 p.m., ABC) and article-less “Medium” (9 p.m., NBC) see season finales and Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit fame shows up on “House” (8 p.m., Fox) in one of the more bizarre guest appearances in recent history.

OMFG, indeed. I just got caught up on the first three post-strike return “Gossip Girl” episodes the last few days, and thank goodness I did. Because each episode was maybe more awesome than the last, culminating with that final moment in yesterday’s episode, that was probably the single most surprising, shocking twist they could pull off that didn’t involve something like aliens or cyborgs (which also would be pretty awesome).

Big time spoilers and the clip itself after the cut!

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The New York Post, that venerable bastion of journalism that less than a year ago “mistakenly” referred to Barack Obama as “Osama,” has come out strongly negative against last night’s episodes of “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report.” Normally, I wouldn’t even have much of an idea, but Artie Lange was talking about it this morning on Stern and I thought it might be worth checking out.

Adam Buckman’s bizarre polemic against the Comedy Central shows included calling them “stooges” and sarcastically remarking “Awww, poor babies” in regards to Stewart and Colbert commenting on the difficulty of doing the show without writers. He also really didn’t like the “nine times worse than September 11th” joke that I thought was rather clever .

Did Buckman miss the point? Stewart and Colbert were in a tough position, and did the best they could in their situation. The show wasn’t as good as it would be without writers - obviously, and that was acknowledged (either overtly in the case of Stewart, or subtly in Colbert’s case). That said, they’re both entertaining guys, and even at a handicap, are more entertaining to watch than most of the “serious” cable TV pundits. To go after them to this extent seems rather mean-spirited and the TV columnist equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel. It’s like if a Chicago sports writer wrote a lengthy, vitriol-filled column in 1993 (or 1998) about how the Bulls were shockingly not as good after Michael Jordan retired.

Also today, though, another Post columnist wrote a column bashing “Gossip Girl,” officially losing any credibility that publication might have had with me. Again, the Post seems blissfully out-of-touch, calling “GG” “consistently demeaning to girls,” which is surely taking things entirely too seriously.