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Published on Tuesday, August 19, 2008 - 12:46am

HOUSE!! TERMINATOR!! HULK!! STAR TREK!! HOME MOVIES!! JUSTICE LEAGUE!! ULTRAMAN!! HercVault!!

I am – Hercules!!

The fourth season of Fox’s ratings blockbuster “House” was the one modeled on elimination-driven reality shows, with the title character assembling his new diagnostic team by hiring dozens of doctors and whittling them town to three as the season progressed. A diverting strategy.

Curiously, House’s old team – the three doctors played by Omar Epps, Jennifer Morrison and Jesse Spencer – all eventually returned to the series and Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, albeit to greatly diminished screen time.

Extras on the new set include:

* “House’s Soap: Prescription Passion” (6:45). A handful of funny scenes from the medical drama within the medical drama.

* “New Beginnings” (26:02). Learn that the actors playing the doctors vying for slots on the team did not know who would remain on the show as House continued his firings. Learn that Olivia Wilde, who played Number 13, would read each new script backwards to see if her character survived. Learn that showrunner David Shore and his writing team had far more difficulty ditching the players than House did. Learn Anne Dudek, who played Cutthroat Bitch, was devastated by her dismissal. Learn that she didn’t know she was coming back until after she gone. Learn that producers found incorporating House’s former team into the show a challenge. Learn that, following the writers strike, Fox wanted to just start on season five but Shore insisted on four more episodes to wrap up the fourth season’s storylines. Learn that the very expensive season finale was originally intended as the show’s post-Superbowl episode (rather than the Mira Sorvino installment).

* “Meet The Writers” (14:46). Learn that the show utilizes two teams of writers. Learn that enormous amounts of time, effort and research go into each week’s medical mystery.

* “The Visual Effects of House” (15:28). Learn that David Shore feels the show used too many special effects in its early episodes. Learn how they made the building collapse at the start 4.2. See effects house Encore Hollywood create thousands of extras. Learn how they created the ice station exteriors for the Sorvino episode. Learn that multiple versions of the drilling-into-Sorvino’s-skull shot were prepared in case the network deemed that business too gory.

* “Anatomy of a Scene: The Bus Crash” (5:47). Get a gander at the gimbal approximated the flipping bus. See the elaborate storyboards prepared for he sequence. Learn that the effects were so special even the writers all came down to have a look.

* “My Favorite Episode So Far … ” (6:48). The cast and crew pick what they enjoyed most. Executive producer Katie Jacobs picks the pilot. Shore goes with “Three Stories.” Wilde liked the episode with the gravedigging. Dudek liked the rock star episode and the unusually moving two-part season-four finale. Lots of others like the two-parter also. Hugh Laurie claims to like all episodes equally.

* Showrunner Shore and director-producer Jacobs contribute (barely) a fairly boring commentary on the season’s terrific antepenultimate episode, “House’s Head.” The duo talk so little viewers should have little difficulty following the episode’s story with the commentary track switched on. Learn that the director of photography did an amazing job on this episode. Learn that the special effects people did such a great job. Learn that Hugh Laurie could have delivered one line 900 different ways. Learn that Lisa Edelstein’s strip scene was fun to write.

James Cameron’s two “Terminator” movies are action/suspense perfection; if one stumbles upon either on cable, they must be watched to completion. “Terminator 3” is tolerable but sloppy and bankrupt of ideas. (The big selling point of “3” was a cyborg with breasts, as if we didn’t see the T-1000 morph into Jenette Goldstein and Linda Hamilton in the first sequel.)

“Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles,” last season’s highest-rated new scripted hourlong, is another step backward for the franchise. The terminators have somehow turned stupider and less lethal, fumbling one can’t-miss opportunity to kill humanity’s savior after another.

Sarah Connor grew stupider also, enrolling her future-savior son in public school with full knowledge of the deadly robots programmed to end him. John Connor grew very stupid indeed, jeopardizing humanity’s survival out of boredom and pouting about his mom forgetting his birthday. (You’ll wonder if there was some sort of robotic clerical error; have the terminators in this universe targeted the wrong “John Connor” after all?)

In any case, terminators and humans alike now seem to be nakedly commuting in from the future as a matter of routine -- suggesting John Connor’s survival may no longer be as pivotal to a future resistance movement as previously believed. Not only does the conceit diminish our concern for the increasingly unlikeable John, it serves to lessen the gravity of the events depicted in the features.

The pilot built little confidence in the project. I watched the first season’s other eight hours largely because talkbackers insisted the series got better. It did not. Just as “Smallville” managed to turn me away from a Superman project, “Sarah Conner” threatens to turn me away from this “Terminator” timeline.

A huge fan of Josh Schwartz’s “The O.C.,” I watched every episode of The CW’s low-rated first season of “Gossip Girl” and I’m here to tell you it engendered little more than regret. The high school kids engage in lots of cocaine abuse, underage drinking and pre-marital sex, which is great obviously, but if you strip away the indulgences you’ll discover these kids aren’t terribly compelling characters, and that it’s hard to relate to their choices even when they’re sober.

Humor went a long way toward helping viewers forgive “The O.C.’s” rampant improbabilities, and “Gossip Girl’s” biggest sin may simply be that it’s not funny. I'd be surprised if I found myself looking in on season two.

I love serial killer movies like “Dirty Harry,” “Silence of the Lambs” and “Zodiac,” and I always quite liked the concept of “Dexter” – a tale of a serial killer who murders only bad people. But I always found myself surprisingly bored with what I’ve seen of the series itself. Emmy voters love the show, however, handing its second season a best-drama nomination while excluding from the same category “The Wire,” “Battlestar Galactica,” “Brotherhood” and “The Shield.”

“Charmed” devotees will be gladdened to learn that the opening and closing episodes of “Dexter’s” second season, streeting today, were scripted by longtime “Charmed” fixture Daniel Cerone, who has since left “Dexter” to serve as showrunner on next season’s edition of ABC’s “Dirty Sexy Money.” It’ll be interesting to find out if fans like the third season of “Dexter” as much without him!

Herc’s Popular Pricing Pantry

If you’ve longed to examine what Judd Apatow and Seth Rogen were up to between “Freaks and Geeks” and “The 40-Year-Old Virgin, the price for the hilarious Undeclared: The Complete Series has just fallen to $25.99.