Hollywood Exclusive by Marilyn Beck & Stacy Jenel Smith

The TV-viewer appetite for fantasy and horror has to be at an all-time high, considering the massive successes of ABC's "Once Upon a Time," Fox's "American Horror Story" and HBO's "Game of Thrones" in 2011 — even NBC's "Grimm" has been a brighter spot on the beleaguered network's fall schedule. Add those shows to such ongoing hits as AMC's "The Walking Dead," HBO's "True Blood" and the CW's "Vampire Diaries" and it's obvious that other-worldliness is in. With the mid-season upon us, there's more supernatural stuff on the way.

Come Jan. 16, there's the highly anticipated premiere of J.J. Abrams' time-travel prison strangeness drama, "Alcatraz," on Fox, complete with "Lost's" Jorge Garcia as a comic book enthusiast/expert on San Francisco's notorious island lockup. The same night, Syfy unveils "Lost Girl," which we're pretty sure must be the first ongoing series about a succubus (a female demon who takes human form in order to drain the souls of men by having sex with them).

Fox's upcoming "Touch" stars Keifer Sutherland as the widowed father of a mute 11-year-old son who communicates only through numbers and can see things no one else can. NBC's "Awake" stars Jason Isaacs as a man shifting between two alternate realities — one in which his son was killed in an automobile accident that his wife survived and the other in which his wife was killed and his son survived. Fox's "The River," starring Bruce Greenwood, boasts Oren Peli as executive producer; he's the creative mind behind the "Paranormal Activity" films. "The River" also relies on video-camera realism, only this time, it's out in the Amazon jungle, where a famous wildlife expert has gone missing and his family is on a search for him. Things get very scary out there.

Whether this proliferation of paranormality is all due to TV's practice of rushing to copy itself when something succeeds, or just a desire to escape from the harsh shape of the real world these days — or both — there's no sign of the trend letting up in 2012. For instance, among the current crop of shows in development that are already getting buzz: a reboot of "Frankenstein."

GRITTY REALITY THRIVES HERE: Fans of TNT's critically admired "Southland" police drama can expect to see things lighten up some for Shawn Hatosy's character on the new season of the show launching Jan.

17. Last season, his Detective Sammy Bryant went into a tailspin following his partner's death in a gang shooting. But now, once again a uniformed patrol cop, Bryant is partnered with Ben McKenzie's Officer Ben Sherman, and they've developed "a certain levity that was missing," Hatosy says. "This is an opportunity for us to see cops in a very masculine setting, at their best and having fun, in their element and enjoying themselves."

Hatosy notes, "When I first came on 'Southland,' I thought that being a detective was going to be cool, and it was. I was resistant to the idea of changing into a street cop — until I saw what the episodes were looking like. Yeah, I like driving on the show, and driving fast, and taking sharp turns and driving up alleys. I haven't experienced all this before. It's just as fun as it looks." In fact, he says, "For me, it's a whole new character. I think he's never been more comfortable than he is now. This suits him better."

Hatosy himself has undergone changes, too. "When I started on 'Southland,' I had just quit smoking and I was 30 pounds heavier — I couldn't believe it. If you don't smoke, don't start," he digresses. "Now I've had three seasons of getting into shape. We're a cast that is very in-shape. The show requires a lot of physicality," he says of the series, on which Lucy Liu makes her debut Jan. 17. "The style is our own. The cameras we use are small and mobile, and we do things that other shows can't do. Yeah, we get doubled sometimes, jumping off tall buildings and things like that, but we do a lot of our own stunts."

GETTING POLITICAL: Richard Schiff says he had a blast working with his former "West Wing" cast mate, Rob Lowe, on making the forthcoming big-screen "Knife Fight." "The movie's ironic and funny. I play a character who's kind of a fixture in this strip bar — kind of off the beaten path for me," Schiff tells us. The film has Lowe as a political operative "who represents candidates he tries to save from PR nightmares and crises. I'm the guy who gets the dirt. It was fun to hang out with Rob. I hadn't seen him since year four of 'The West Wing.'"

Schiff draws comparisons between Lowe's character and the real-life GOP pollster Frank Luntz — "someone whose brilliance I admire greatly even though he's responsible for all the evil in the world," Schiff says wryly. "He's into exploring the energy of language — like saying 'right-to-life' instead of 'anti-abortion,' or 'energy exploration' instead of 'oil drilling.' That came from him. We've done panels together and he's hysterical. A very, very good friend." Politics makes strange bedfellows, indeed.

To find out more about Marilyn Beck and Stacy Jenel Smith and read their past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2011 MARILYN BECK AND STACY JENEL SMITH

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