BIG SCREEN

Fame (PG-13) -- Alan Parker's influential 1980 musical about the students at New York City's High School of Performing Arts gets a ``reimagining'' that includes a toning-down of the original R-rating to a High School Musical-friendly PG-13. Yes, New York has changed a lot since the 1980s. But still. Asher Book, Kristy Flores, Paul McGill and Naturi Naughton are among the talented kids who hope to live forever and learn how to fly high. This one is not being screened for critics until the last possible minute, so don't expect much.

Pandorum (R) -- Astronauts (Dennis Quaid and Ben Foster) awaken from cryogenic sleep aboard a spaceship and can't remember who they are or what their mission is. They even forgot to screen the movie in advance for critics. Now that's scary!

Bright Star (PG) -- Jane Campion (The Piano) wrote and directed this period drama about the doomed romance between 19th century poet John Keats (Ben Whishaw) and his 18-year-old neighbor Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish). Like Spider-Man for AP English teachers.

Surrogates (PG-13) -- In the near future, FBI agents (Bruce Willis and Radha Mitchell) investigate a murder involving artificial ``surrogates,'' robotic aliases used by recluses to represent them in the outside world. The fact that the movie was directed by Jonathan Mostow (Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines) sounds promising. Much less promising: It is not being screened for critics, because we're really mean and love to tear down bad movies.

-- RENE RODRIGUEZ

SMALL SCREEN

The Modern Family (9 p.m. Wednesday, ABC) -- This new sitcom maps the new shape of American families by following three of them: your standard Ozzie-and-Harriet, mom-dad-and-2.2-kids model; a gay couple who've just adopted a Vietnamese daughter; and an ethnically blended May-December version that pairs Sofia Vergara and Ed O'Neill. This sounds like the recipe for a bland stew of political correctness. Instead, it's a hilariously free-swinging, take-no-prisoners riot.

The Forgotten (10 p.m. Tuesday, ABC) -- Christian Slater plays an ex-cop leading a team of volunteer sleuths -- many prompted by their own bitter experiences -- who search for the identities of John and Jane Doe murder victims the police have given up on.

The Good Wife (10 p.m. Tuesday, CBS) -- We've all seen them, the political wives standing blankly by at the press conferences at which their husbands apologize for egregious infidelities and promise to do better. Now Julianna Margulies brings one to indelible life, playing a humiliated middle-age woman returning to the workforce after her politician husband goes to prison for corruption and sexual misconduct.

Mercy (8 p.m. Wednesday, NBC) -- A gritty and sometimes darkly funny Best Years of Our Lives for the age of Iraq, with a gender twist: Taylor Schilling (Dark Matter) plays a hard-drinking, shell-shocked nurse returning home to work in the emergency room of a hard-bitten urban hospital.

FlashForward (8 p.m. Thursday, ABC) -- With Lost headed for retirement at the end of this season, ABC is grooming a new sci-fi mystery to take its place. At the center of this one is not a mysterious plane crash but a worldwide blackout in which seven billion people simultaneously lose consciousness. When they come to, everyone has had a glimpse of a future that ranges from cryptic to chilling: As one little girl tells her parents, ``I dreamt there are no more good days.''

-- GLENN GARVIN

Let Miami Herald TV critic Glenn Garvin program your TiVo! Just click on his best bets for the week at www.tivo.com/guruguide.

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