The football season is over, and the NFL has relinquished the TV back to those who don’t really care for contact sports. Bye-bye Super Bowl; hello regularly-scheduled programming. Here’s a handy schedule of what you should be watching.

Monday

House
7 p.m. FOX
I always find myself getting drawn toward “House,” and I can’t say why, exactly. The medical plots rarely change, and even if they did change, I probably wouldn’t notice, because the lingo is over my head anyways. Am I invested in the characters? Not heavily—I am excited to see if the not-so-charismatic Foreman will open up a little now that he’s hooked up with the mysterious Thirteen (or “Remy”), but seeing as she’s often just as stone-faced as he is, my hopes aren’t high. Maybe it all boils down to Hugh Laurie’s ingenious portrayal of House, the doctor who builds walls of insults around himself to hide his soul. Laurie may have been a comedian years ago (and it shows), but he’ll always be a jerk to me. (Percy Olsen)

Chuck
7 p.m. MSN
After being gone for a month and a half, Chuck, Sarah and Casey return to the digital airwaves to protect fictional rock star Tyler Martin (Dominic Monaghan of “The Lord of the Rings”). It’s cool seeing Monaghan back on TV in a role that seems to mirror his old one on “Lost,” but it’s even cooler seeing the ratings-challenged “Chuck” get considerable advertising on this year’s Super Bowl network, NBC. However, I’m not so sure that “Chuck” really needed the added “boost” of airing in 3-D, but what do I know? I don’t even own any 3-D glasses. (Percy Olsen)

24
8 p.m. FOX
Fox wants us to know that Jack Bauer is back—again. The man has already gone through more reinventions than Madonna, but this season’s theme, redemption, manages to strike a chord outside of the story world. There’s no getting around it: Last season drowned in its overabundance of nonsensical, and ultimately random, plot twists. Fox wants to assure us that this is a comeback season, a return to form, and since the goings-on have been so much fun, I won’t dispute them. (Percy Olsen)

Gossip Girl
7 p.m. The CW
There should be no shame in watching a television show that shows perfectly how a world of blogging, tabloids and texting surrounds a painstakingly attractive cast. “Gossip Girl” is arguably the greatest television drama of our time, with actors that live the drama offstage (Blake and Penn, hello?) and plot twists that scream nearly every issue you could imagine: From homosexuality to popularity, family deaths to mental illness, “GG” covers it all. (Rebecca Katz)

How I Met Your Mother
7:30 p.m. CBS
In the series premiere of “How I Met Your Mother,” two children of Ted Mosby (Josh Radnor) asked to hear the story of how he met their mother. What follows is an endless series of stories chronicling Ted’s love life, friendships and bizarrely-entertaining adventures. With him along the way are his quirky best friends Marshall (Jason Segel), Lily (Alyson Hannigan), Robin (Cobie Smulders) and Doogie Howser himself as Barney, a womanizing, blogging, catch-phrase hawking, high-fiving conflagration of awesomeness. After 3.5 seasons, we know about Robin’s Canadian pop star history, Marshall’s habit of singing everything he does, Lily’s loud chewing habits and Ted’s tendency to overthink—but we still don’t know who the mother is. (Indu Chandrasekhar)

Tuesday

American Idol
7 p.m. FOX
For the past eight years, January has brought us the new year, the Australian Open and “American Idol.” This February, “American Idol” continues its auditions across America in search of the next “big thing,” who will be as big as, to put it in perspective, Fantasia. So winning the thing does not entail a great musical career, fine, but that’s all the more reason to watch the auditions, because these naïve people truly believe that they will become the next big music star, regardless of their actual talent level. More amusing than the contestants are the judges, who last week nearly called the SWAT team over a colloquial farewell, but I bet this week they’ll get a little more realistic, donning earplugs instead. (Percy Olsen)

Scrubs
8:30 p.m. ABC
During the off-season, “Scrubs” changed from NBC to ABC and from luminous light bulbs to dimmer lighting. The loyal audience accepted the changes, mostly because those switches ensured that “Scrubs” would stay on the air for at least one more year. Bill Lawrence, the show’s creator, vowed to bring back the mature tone of the earlier seasons, and the loyal audience grew merry because it’s what they’d always wanted. In practice, though, the tone has not consistently lived up to the hype, but the stories are loads more intriguing than they were in past seasons. (Percy Olsen)

Wednesday

Lost
8 p.m. ABC
“Lost” is both enthralling and impossible to get into at this point, because now, in season five, every story line from every flashback and flash-forward is significant and in the mix. We’re told that the Island is in danger. Maybe that’s because it’s skipping through time and space like a broken record, and similar to a knotty “Memento,” the Oceanic Six are three years in the future, trying to get back to the skipping Island. Don’t watch this show without your Lostpedia at your side. (Percy Olsen)

Law & Order
9 p.m. NBC
The true, the proud, the original “Law & Order” is like “The Simpsons” in that it will never die. It’s seen plenty of young punks try to thrive in its domain, but none of them came close to weathering the harsh TV landscape. It’s miraculous that “L&O” has lasted as long as it has, and the craziest thing of all is that, unlike “The Simpsons,” it hasn’t declined much, at all. (Percy Olsen)

Thursday

The Big Bang Theory
7 p.m. CBS
I know this is a repeat, but I also know that you missed it on Monday because of “House” or “Chuck,” and this show is worth the watch. The main characters live on the geeked-out side of things, but they aren’t mocked as much as they thrive in the atmosphere. They play “Super Mario 64,” they settle their arguments by playing Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock, and if someone is complaining about someone else wearing the same outfit, it’s because they’re both wearing The Flash costumes. (Percy Olsen)

The Office
8 p.m. NBC
Pam and Jim are finally together, Dwight and Angela aren’t, and Michael isn’t interested in anybody. The dynamics in this show are nothing like how they were just a couple of seasons ago, but thankfully that’s not because the characters have changed; they’ve just moved around. Michael still yearns to be the good guy in a “doggy-dog” business world, Pam has learned to speak her mind, but she reins it in, you can still count on Jim for a good prank and Dwight never stops lathering on the unintentionally hilarious bravado. (Percy Olsen)

30 Rock
8:30 p.m. NBC
Now in its third season, “30 Rock” is only getting better. Never before has a show been able to hold on to the “zany” moniker while staying so deliciously subtle, but “30 Rock” is here to show us how it’s done. It’s brilliant; it’s “Newsradio” reincarnated, turned inside out and then the rug is pulled out and it’s told that it’s none of these things, after all. When you get angry at the TV because it’s showing a rerun, but you still go on and laugh at every joke as if the episode were brand new, then you know you love the show. And I heart “30 Rock.” (Percy Olsen)

Friday

Friday Night Lights
8:30 p.m NBC
“Friday Night Lights” should not be confused with “Friday Night Smackdown!” You see, “Friday Night Lights” has characters that are in fierce competition with each other…er—and there are love interests (gulp). And a there’s a guy named “Coach?” Wow, they’re harder to separate than I thought they would be…but even if you find yourself lost in all of my Wrestling-nerdology, make sure to give “Friday Night Lights” a shot. It perfectly captures the pulse-pounding adrenaline of the big game, and Dillon High always feels like a breathing, authentic portrayal. Most importantly, the show has a great deal of heart, and no, I don’t mean Bret. (Percy Olsen)

Everybody Hates Chris
8 p.m. The CW
“Everybody Hates Chris” is the last vestige of UPN’s sitcoms to survive the trip to the CW, and it is certainly worthy of carrying the baton. It’s a little like “Malcolm in the Middle,” except it’s less frenetic, and it’s a little like “The Wonder Years,” except it’s more wicked. I don’t know what it says about Chris Rock that he’s created a show where everybody hates his childhood self, but the result is undeniably funny. (Percy Olsen)