As good as its surprising first season was, "Justified" entered rarefied heights in its second season, earning critical acclaim (a well deserved Emmy for Margo Martindale, plus nominations for Timothy Olyphant and Walton Goggins) as well as fanboy huffing here at Warming Glow, where all of the show's trappings -- a shoot-first protagonist, complex characters, femmes fatales, bourbon, snappy one-liners, and noir undertones -- appeal equally to our intellectual proclivities and baser instincts.

Season three of "Justified" kicks off next week on the FX Network, and it's the best drama the winter schedule has to offer.

GRRR SEXY DARK AGES.

Justified (FX) -- Have you seen the Natalie Zea Esquire photos yet.

With all due respect to Kid Rock (which is to say: none), "Justified's" Raylan Givens is the original American Badass.

One of CBS's new dramas this fall is "The Defenders," starring Jerry O'Connell and Jim Belushi as a pair of streetwise Las Vegas defense lawyers.