Actress Jennifer Garner turns and offers her right biceps to a group of TV critics.

        “Go ahead, feel my arm!” says the star of ABC's Alias, one of three new fall action shows featuring females who kick butt.

        • The Denison University graduate works out two hours a day for her role as Sydney, the college student working as double agent for the CIA. Think of Alias (9 p.m. Sept. 30, Channels 9, 2) as a cross between Felicity and James Bond.

        • Australian soap opera star Melissa George plays a martial arts expert and jewel thief paired a charmingly self-deprecating John Stamos (Full House) in ABC's Thieves (9 p.m. Sept. 21, Channels 9, 2).

        • Vera Farmiga (Fifteen Minutes) and Bruklin Harris (Dangerous Minds) star in NBC's ensemble UC: Undercover (10 p.m. Sept. 30, Channels 5, 22) as no-nonsense members of a secret U.S. Justice Department crime-fighting team.

        They'll join UPN's Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Fox's Dark Angel and WB's Charmed trio in a TV season that shatters the glass ceiling.

        On UC: Undercover, “both (women) are in very strong, very commanding roles, and do everything on the show that men do — and that's rare for television,” says Shane Salerno, co-creator and executive producer.

Updated "Angels'

        Women have kicked up a storm before on TV, particularly in the late 1970s and early '80s with Charlie's Angels, Wonder Woman, Remington Steele and Hart to Hart.

        The current revival traces back to the syndicated Xena: Warrior Princess (1996), Buffy (1997) and Peta Wilson's La Femme Nikita on USA (1997).

        Sarah Michelle Gellar, whose Buffy moves from WB to UPN on Oct. 2, says she was immediately attracted to the role of the quick-witted California teen who was the sole vampire slayer for her generation.

        “There just wasn't a show like it ... (with) a strong female heroine that could lead young girls and boys,” Ms. Gellar told TV critics at the summer press tour.

        Ms. Garner(Felicity, Pearl Harbor) credits Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and the movie remake of Charlie's Angels for this trend appealing to both sexes.

        “Charlie's Angels and Crouching Tiger are my two favorite movies this year. I left both of them feeling empowered and strong — and my husband liked both of them, thinking, "Those girls are hot!' ” says Ms. Garner, who married Scott Foley after playing his girlfriend, Hannah, on Felicity.

        “It's seeing a woman's natural vulnerability, and overcoming that,” she says.
Smart, struggling

        Alias started in the Felicity writers' room when creator J.J. Abrams wondered what would happen if the WB's college student, played by Keri Russell, were recruited by the CIA.

        “(She would) do these missions internationally, kick butt, be in these incredibly high-stakes, life-and-death situations, come back, and she couldn't tell Ben. She couldn't tell Noel,” Mr. Abrams recalls.

        A short time later, he was pitching the admittedly “ludicrous” premise to ABC. To him, the heart of the show is the lonely personal journey of Sydney (Ms. Garner), whose boyfriend was murdered after she told him about her double life. She also distrusts her estranged father (Victor Garber from Titanic, Annie), a fellow CIA double agent.

        Alias, he says, is “a show about a very strong, very resourceful, very smart — and ultimately struggling — young woman trying to sort of live a normal life. I think people will get that,” says Mr. Abrams, a fan of the 1990 French film La Femme Nikita.

        What makes Alias one of the best new shows is Ms. Garner's impressive performance and the expensive special effects.

        Sydney is tortured by having her teeth pulled and nearly drowned — in addition to being shot at and chased for most of the show.

        “I actually looked in the Yellow Pages and found somebody who taught taekwondo, and went every day for a month. Luckily, I was a ballet dancer growing up, so I had pretty good aim with my kicks,” says Ms. Garner, a Charleston, W.Va., native.

An odd couple

        ABC's Thieves works because the aggressive, hair-trigger Rita (Ms. George) is teamed with the debonair, wimpy Johnny (Mr. Stamos). He wants to spend five minutes picking a lock; she wants to blow it up in five seconds.

        “I hate guns,” he tells her. “I don't like to be shot at! I don't like shooting!”

        Thieves relies on a mixture of elements from two popular Robert Wagner series, It Takes A Thief (1968-70) and Hart to Hart (1979-84), and a slice of Pierce Brosnan's Remington Steele. Rita and Johnny, facing life in prison for their crimes, are employed by the FBI to recover missing and stolen U.S. property.

        “I'm not afraid to let her be the stronger one or the smarter one,” Mr. Stamos says. As a producer, he helped writer Jim Leonard create the “more grown-up character” than his roles on Full House or General Hospital.

A thrill for actress

        NBC's UC: Undercover is one of three new serious spy shows. Viewers also will see The Agency, CBS' CIA drama with Madisonville native Rocky Carroll, and 24, Fox's real-time drama series about a CIA agent (Kiefer Sutherland) trying to stop a presidential candidate's assassination in 24 hours. (Each weekly episode will be one hour in that day.)

        “There's a long history of this show working, from 77 Sunset Strip through Starsky and Hutch, through Miami Vice, through Wiseguy,” says Mr. Salerno, whose credits include Shaft and Armageddon.

        “When I started talking about this show, there wasn't any form of this show on the air. ... For 10 years, this genre has kind of been off TV, and I don't know why.”

        On UC: Undercover, a federal agent (Jon Seda from Homicide: Life on the Street) infiltrates a crime ring with the help of Ms. Farmiga, Ms. Harris, Jarrad Paul and Grant Show. In the second episode, Oded Fehr (The Mummy Returns) replaces Mr. Show.

        Ms. Farmiga's Alex character punches out a pawn shop employee, double-crosses an old boyfriend (Steven Bauer from Traffic) and poses as a money-laundering expert in the pilot. She thanks Mr. Salerno for the gender equity.

        “He's given me a chance to play the federal agent, instead of the federal agent's unhappy housewife,” she says. “And that, as a woman, is very thrilling.”

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