One of the previously immutable laws of television held that good new midseason specials and programs always began at exactly the same time.

But with reruns and reality burgeoning during the writers' strike, and the TV landscape starting to resemble an ever-growing Sahara, CBS and Fox have decided to give viewers a break, staggering tonight's start times for their two entertaining premieres.

Both have a touch of the rerun themselves, but the mini-epic western Comanche Moon (prequel to the epic Lonesome Dove) and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (sequel to you-know-what) are plenty fresh and fun.

The six-hour Moon (CBS3, 9 p.m.), much the better of the two, lopes along in a howdy- pardner way with delightful characters and that ever-impressive TV tool, the sprawling landscape, courtesy this time of the great state of New Mexico.

Over on Fox29 at 8 p.m., Sarah and her darling son, John, who must survive in the present so he can save the world in the 2020s, try to hold off those ever-impressive sci-fi creatures: indestructible, shape-shifting cyborgs sent from the future to do John in.

Action fantasy fans are already agog over the project, and all but the most picky of them should be happy with the results: lots of special-effects action and an attractive young cast. As a bonus, you get Mama Sarah, played by Britisher Lena Headey, who lacks the musculature of the previous occupant of the role, Linda Hamilton, but who still can handle an enhanced isotope blaster ray gun with aplomb.

Comanche Moon is a period-and-character study, so the shoot-'em-up violence comes at a slower pace, but things do get very intense now and then, when horse-happy Indians thunder out of nowhere. Not recommended for the kiddies.

It's been 19 years since Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones moseyed across our TV sets in the greatest western mini-series (and one of the greatest in any genre) of all time, so who can remember much about how good they were?

That's a boon for the prequel, which also comes from Dove author Larry McMurtry, because the two new boys seem purdy durn good, even if the stakes are lower with two lesser-known actors in the leads. Steve Zahn (Employee of the Month) plays voluble Gus McCrae and New Zealander Karl Urban (The Bourne Supremacy) is taciturn Woodrow Call.

"I'd rather listen to hoot owls hoot than listen to you think up insults," Call tells McCrae. When we saw them originally, they were in the cattle business. Now they're younger men, hard-riding Texas Rangers, always going off on some adventure and leaving the womenfolk behind.

TV fans might recognize ER's and Freaks and Geeks' Linda Cardellini, despite her 4-foot-diameter hoop skirts, as Clara, the love of Gus' life. Elizabeth Banks (Scrubs, The 40-Year-Old Virgin) is the girl that rockhead Call can't seem to stir up the tenderness to marry.

A trio of ubiquitous American Indian actors, Cherokee Wes Studi (as Buffalo Hump), Ojibwa Adam Beach (as Blue Duck), and part-Mohawk August Schellenberg (as Idahi), lead a large contingent of characters who speak throughout in the native tongue, with English subtitles.

It's a very effective choice that contributes to the otherworldliness of Comanche Moon, which occasionally leaves the hardscrabble ground of mid-19th-century Austin, West Texas, and the border country to go flying completely off into the mystic.

On one hand, there's the fanciful nowhere that is the beginnings of the town of Lonesome Dove, where a Frenchman serves fine brandy in a roofless saloon while his madam, in lingerie, operates the barbershop.

On the other, there's the most evil outdoor torture factory south of the Pecos, under the direction of Mexican miscreant Ahumado, who will swing you in a cage high off the cliffs, toss you in the rattlesnake pit, or get his resident skinner to flay you alive. Along with the snakes, the wild critters in the area can be even more deadly.

Val Kilmer (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Batman Forever) and Rachel Griffiths (Six Feet Under, Brothers & Sisters) are the famous actors in the mini-series, with scene-shredding performances as a larger-than-life Ranger captain and his wife, an outlandish Southern gal, Inez Scull, with carnal appetites more heated than those of any of her husband's outlaw-hanging, Comanche-killing charges.

"I believe we can hold our own with the Comanche," says Texas Gov. Elisha Pease (Philadelphia's own James Rebhorn) when Capt. Scull traipses off alone in search of a fight with Ahumado, leaving Call and McCrae to lead the squad back to Austin.

"And I expect we can whip back the Mexicans, but the heavens is gonna rain when Inez Scull finds out why her husband didn't want to come home."

Fearsome though she is, Inez couldn't hold a Gatling gun to the creatures that are after Sarah Connor and her son. Lucky for them, there's a good-guy Terminator in the mix. Lucky for fantasy fans everywhere, she's played by Summer Glau from Firefly, Serenity and The 4400.

And if those credits mean nothing to you, just know that she's still foxy and smart and tough as nails. Glau's the best part of Chronicles, playing the robot who seeks to understand human stuff with a beguiling bemusement reminiscent of Jeff Bridges in Starman.

At 15, John Connor (Thomas Dekker from Heroes) doesn't really care all that much about his future as the Messiah. He'd rather sneak out and fool around with those newfangled computers over at Best Buy. It isn't giving too much away (but if you're a stone spoiler purist, hide your eyes) to mention he's a recent arrival here after blasting forward in the time machine from those ancient days of 1999.

Amid the mayhem, there will be lots of time for your normal mother/son issues and your less normal boy/robot issues, assuming the writers' strike settles sometime before the 2020s, when grown-up John will have to save us from annihilation.

With their scheduling, the TV honchos, for once, are giving poor viewers some consideration. Maybe the studios will do the same for the writers.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles moves tomorrow to its regular time slot at 9 p.m. Mondays. Parts 2 and 3 of Comanche Moon air Tuesday and Wednesday at 9 p.m.

Jonathan Storm:

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

Debuts at 8 tonight on Fox29

Comanche Moon

Debuts at 9 tonight on CBS3