Four autumns ago, the TV networks presciently, weirdly, scheduled three terrorism dramas just before 9/11. This fall, just after Hurricane Katrina, the lineup includes three sci-fi series about menaces from the water. Is it conspiracy? Clairvoyance? No, just TV: blame the success of ABC's Lost, in which plane-crash survivors battle eerie phenomena and seaborne attackers on an island.
The wettest of the Lost wannabes is NBC's Surface (Mondays, 8 p.m. E.T.), in which a new species of giant (mostly unseen) creatures appears in the world's seas. Idealistic oceanographer Laura Daughtery (Lake Bell) bumps into a mystery beast during a deep-sea bathysphere dive....