So they don't have any. They prefer being smarter than other people to being with other people. In place of the sexually charged and morally complicated (in other words, entertaining) stories we used to get on shows like "ER" (in its heyday) and "The Practice," we get raised-eyebrow lectures on epidemiology. No more stories about fighting the good fight and trying to conquer (or at least live with) your demons. Now we're watching stories that amount to the ultimate revenge of the nerds: vindication dramas that are brought to resolution by soft-spoken heroes with the kind of semi-autistic attention to detail that can only be developed through thousands of hours of model-airplane building. These shows aren't interested in the mere triumph of the shut-in, they want vindication of a sensibility, to ratify the worldview of the 12-year-old basement hermit: The universe can be comprehended, and even restored to order, if only you know enough.

Of course, these particular nerds are also television heroes, so they're not exactly horn-rimmed, pocket-protector types; they're as good at staring down perps as they are at peering through spectrometers. But that's just another aspect of the arrested egghead fantasy -- that the scientist Bruce Banner can turn into the Incredible Hulk and that mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent is really Superman. That a life spent cataloging knowledge will make you more of a man, not less. These are the kind of guys who don't suffer gladly anyone who dares to underestimate the capabilities of a brain that has been playing with itself for years, undistracted by the social and emotional demands of other people.

In fact, they're not just incapable of normal human interaction, they're disdainful of it. David Caruso, who's made a fitful career out of disdain, doesn't even make eye contact on "CSI Miami." He delivers his lines like it causes him actual physical pain to relate to a mere human. Vincent D'Onofrio acts as if talking to people is literally killing him -- he takes a deep breath after every three words so he can gather enough strength for the next three, like someone who's dying of lung cancer. He sometimes seems to actually be on the verge of croaking right in the middle of a line, just from the sheer boredom of having to explain things to someone who hasn't taken the time to memorize the periodic table.

I gotta tell you, it was a little depressing watching these shows. The message from the culture was: Will Everyone Over 40 Please Clear the Field and Get a Hobby.

But I started to feel better as I realized how little I, or anyone I have known, know or will know, have in common with the new heroes. Invariably there's a scene when a beautiful woman colleague will drop a piano-size hint on the head of our hero about what his life might be like with a little more fun and a little less entomology. And invariably our hero will muster just enough indulgence to dismiss her in a slightly nicer way than he would the bozos from Internal Affairs. On one episode of "CSI," Jorja Fox, who plays one of the agents, tries to get William Petersen to look up from his maggot puree long enough to notice that there is an actual living, breathing, drop-dead gorgeous girl standing right in front of him, starving for a little attention from her myopic boss. William Petersen looks up cluelessly and says "Um, well ... the lab needs you."

Now here's what I would say if Jorja Fox hinted to me that she'd enjoy it if I stopped working on my case for just a second and paid some attention to her: "Case? What's a case? I don't know what a case is. Does it have anything to do with you, or that incredibly sexy space between your teeth? 'Cause if it doesn't, I don't even want to know."

But William Petersen doesn't say that. He has to follow the rule for guys over 40 on television, the one that says: You get the job or the girl, but you can't have it all. It's like these men are the new "career women." Back in the '70s and '80s, women on television were allowed to have a job or a life -- but not both. Candice Bergen's Murphy Brown had to have a baby alone, and Mary Tyler Moore's character had to cry on Mr. Grant's shoulder 'cause she couldn't find a boyfriend who respected her commitment to the viewers of WJM-TV. And now the worm has turned. Maybe we're just getting our karmic payback for not letting Mary and Murphy have it all. Or maybe the women who watch the new procedurals (and women make up the majority of their audience) just enjoy seeing work-obsessed men pay a price for their neglect.

Or overworked middle-aged TV writers are issuing a collective cry for help. Or formaldehyde causes impotence. Whatever.

I don't care about the new guys anymore. Because after a few weeks I finally had an actual human visitor.

No, not a girl. But the next best thing: the cable guy.

Andy Sipowicz may be gone, but I still have Tony Soprano.

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