NEW YORK (AP) – Maybe it's true that "fall season" is an outdated concept in a world where TV series are introduced year-round. But if there were a Fall TV Season '08, the harvest would include only three more notable new shows.

All are dramas. Each is wildly different (though, come to think of it, you'll see people packing knives in all three series). And – guess what! – each of them is terrific.

NBC's "Crusoe" puts a magnificent spin on green living, as demonstrated by 17th-century British castaway Robinson Crusoe and his chum Friday on their action-packed tropical island. This isn't a starchy visual recitation of the Defoe classic, or a comic-book rehash aimed at kids. On the contrary, "Crusoe" makes you a willing captive, whatever your age, giddy at its spectacle and adventure. As much as Crusoe wants to get off the island, you'll insist on staying.

Also, on the Starz cable network, "Crash" picks up where the Oscar-winning film left off: With more colliding narratives of LA residents who might have reasonably thought they had nothing in common, but should have heeded that old safe driving slogan, "Let's don't meet by accident''.

And NBC's "My Own Worst Enemy" is a psychological thriller starring Christian Slater as a man rocked by the discovery that he's harboring two sets of names, personalities and lives – one of which was concocted just a few years earlier as a lab experiment. This is no Jekyll-and-Hyde tale. It's more like "Odd Couple" meets "Bourne Identity''.

Each in its own way, all three series are well worth sampling.

You could say this trio of shows is united by dreams. The characters on "Crash" dream of one-upping someone else and getting away with it. Robinson Crusoe dreams of rescue.

On "My Own Worst Enemy'', Henry Spivey dreams of Paris. Except it isn't a dream. It's mental seepage from alter ego Edward Albright, whose derring-do as a foreign operative couldn't be further removed from Henry's comfortable suburban family life, or his career as a strategic management consultant making sales trips to Akron or Albany. Henry is a guy who reads spy novels. Edward lives them, and then some.

If only things could have stayed this, um, simple. But when Henry starts to sense the presence of Edward, there's clearly a problem brewing. Henry was meant to live in blissful ignorance that his existence and identity were fabricated in the service of top-secret research.

Henry is, well, beside himself to learn that scientists equipped him with a split personality.

To his further shock, he learns that Edward volunteered for it, with Henry the unwitting byproduct.

"We didn't experiment ON you, Henry," the project director tells him. "You ARE the experiment."

This is no bicycle built for two that Henry and Edward are pedalling. Can they live with each other and defend themselves against forces threatening both of them? Can Henry cope with his existential nightmare: "I want my life to be real," he rails. Is he asking too much?

Life is all too real for Crusoe, who considers his island paradise a prison where "my only escape is into the memory of a life which seems ever more like a fading dream''.

Even so, he's making the best of it. A crack do-it-yourselfer, he has devised back-to-nature gadgetry Rube Goldberg would applaud. His self-styled amenities rival the Dharma Initiative on "Lost''.

His comrade Friday is no less capable, a reformed cannibal, to be sure, but also an intellect "who can make himself understood in 12 different languages'', Crusoe notes admiringly – and who needed a mere six months to learn Crusoe's.

Crusoe does a bit of pining for his dear wife back in England. How did he come to leave her and get stranded on this isle? The answer to this question, and others, must tantalisingly wait. The premiere keeps Crusoe (and the audience) busy with challenges like delightfully villainous pirates and ragtag Spanish marauders. (Crusoe seems to have more visitors than Fort Lauderdale at Easter.)

Philip Winchester ("Flyboys") makes Crusoe a fully human hero, as does Zimbabwean actor Tongayi Chirisa playing Friday. And they're the heart-throbbiest heroes since Crockett and Tubbs.

"Heroism" isn't the word that springs to mind concerning "Crash''.

From the producers of the 2005 film, the series is populated with new characters (and a fresh slate of actors), but there's a similar message: Everyone is corrupt or compromised, or headed that way. And this message is delivered with dark, luscious urgency.

Like the movie, the episode begins with a car crash. But the more important, figurative crashing is of one isolated LA character (a Brentwood mom, an illegal Guatemalan immigrant, a Korean gang member-turned-medic) crashing unexpectedly into another.

In the rainbow coalition of a cast, the greater among equals is surely Dennis Hopper, who has never been more Hopper-esque than here as Ben Cendars, a lushly deranged music producer.

"I count the grains of sand on the beach, and measure the sea. I understand the speech of the dumb, and I hear the voiceless," declares Ben, playing host to a street-smart young black man who came about the job as his driver. Turns out, Ben is just telling his perplexed new hire to roll a joint.

Of course, first Ben should have warned him: Buckle up. That goes for the audience too.