They're Baaack...
...and we couldn't be happier. This season, four of our favorite stars are making a welcome return to the small screen.

Jon Cryer
TWO AND A HALF MEN

He has been on and off television shows for the past 14 years. He's been an out-of-sorts talent agent (The Famous Teddy Z), a jealous architect (Partners), and a paranoid pest (The Trouble With Normal). However, there is one role Jon Cryer did not get the chance to play. But, man, was he close.
     "I was doing a play in London and got a call at 3 a.m. saying 'We've got this show called Six of One, and we'd really like you to audition for it,"' recalls Cryer. "So they faxed me the script, and I said, 'Sure, I'd love to go in on this.' I went in and read with a British casting person; they took the tape and said they'd get it to L.A. So I went home, and a few days later was told the tape didn't get there in time for the network executives to see." Too bad. That role went to Matthew Perry, and the show ended up changing its title. To Friends.
     "So that was my pathetic stab at Chandler Bing," chuckles Cryer. Of course, the 38-year-old can laugh now, because after years of floundering in series that never caught on, he's landed a hit with CBS' Two and a Half Men. Cryer stars as the greatest of all oxymorons, a spineless chiropractor who, along with his son (Angus T. Jones), moves in with his party-boy bachelor of a brother (Charlie Sheen).
     Summoning his inner geek is not new to Cryer, who still incurs shout-outs of "Duckie!" on the street thanks to his role in 1986's Pretty in Pink—"although the ferocity of the pointing and yelling has diminished somewhat, just with people's age," he says. After Pink, Cryer continued to geek out in several TV series, none of which made it past a full season. Initially, his lack of small-screen success stung the actor. "When Teddy Z didn't catch on, I was mystified and bitter," he recalls. "But if you don't love the struggle, you have to get out of the business. Sometimes it seems like rolling a boulder uphill, but until you can love the boulder-rolling, you're gonna be disappointed."
     Disappointment is no longer a problem. Two and a Half Men debuted in the top 10 and has netted 16.5 million viewers per week. According to Cryer, "It's exciting. There's a palpable lack of terror, which is very nice." But just because he's now on top, don't expect Duckie to become too cool for school. "My inner geek is hardwired to my spine," insists Cryer, who lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Sarah, and 3-year-old son, Charlie. "He won't go away. If there's an upside, it's that I'm confident enough to be a dork." A dork? Perhaps. But a dork who finally finds himself with plenty of friends. —Dalton Ross

Lucy Lawless
TARZAN

She's best known for playing a ball-busting warrior who—if you believed the scuttlebutt—engaged in hot girl-on-girl action when she wasn't busy laying the smack down with a flick of her chakram. You really didn't want to get on her bad side, which is why it's so...odd to hear Lucy Lawless describe a peaceful life since Xena: Warrior Princess ended its six-year run in 2001. "I've been doing mom stuff like growing a baby!" says the 35-year-old New Zealand native, who gave birth to a third child, son Jude, last year. "Getting healthy! Catching up with friends! Visiting my husband's family in Michigan!"
     But everyone knows you can't keep a good mercenary down—and that's why Lawless, who admits to "some nervous moments where I thought I'd never work again," agreed to channel those maternal instincts for her role as newspaper magnate Kathleen Clayton on The WB's Tarzan. She plays auntie to hunk Travis Fimmel's ape-man. "It's stylish and gnarly, and targeted to a demo that's not so bad for career longevity," she says, clearly aware of TV's economic realities. "I hate to be calculating, but I want to broaden my audience."
     And to think she didn't accept the producers' original offer. Uninterested in signing a multiyear contract, Lawless declined the role only to return—at the producers' behest—after they nixed American actress Jenna Stern in late August. (The situation strangely parallels her Xena breakout: Lawless took the part after the original lead fell sick as shooting began. Asked about the coincidence, Lawless replies with characteristic flippancy: "Eh, I'm building a career on the dregs of other actresses!") She agreed to sign on for the first season of Tarzan and struck a development deal with The WB that could lead to her own show next year.
     Though not engaging in the sort of butt kicking for which Xena was famed, Lawless admits she's trying to spice up her story. "I suggested [Kathleen] get infected with crazy monkey blood." (If only!) "And that went down like a cup of cold coffee," she says. "Then I said, 'Tarzan and I could wrestle on the floor, and it could turn sexual. You know: Tarzan does his aunt." (Um, honey, this isn't the Spice Channel.) "They weren't jumping on that bandwagon, either."
     But Lawless insists she doesn't need to be manhandling bad (or good) guys to enjoy a role. "I'm terribly happy mincing about in high heels. Nobody's saying, 'Lucy! Go lie in that puddle of blood!' It's 'Lucy! Sit in the limo and stay warm while the other actors sit under the rain machine!' I just sit there and go tee-hee-hee!" —Nicholas Fonseca

Jason Bateman
ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT

Maybe the 10th time's the charm. For years, Jason Bateman has been the only memorable element of nine forgettable series, such as Chicago Sons, Simon, and Some of My Best Friends. Now with Fox's dark dysfunctional-family comedy Arrested Development (debuting Nov. 2), he has finally found a show as sharp as he is. "It's the kind of stuff that makes me laugh, as opposed to the softer material I've been doing for pretty much my whole career," says Bateman. As the uptight son who takes over the family business when his father (Jeffrey Tambor) is jailed on embezzlement charges, Bateman brings a snide edge to what could've been a bland straight-man role. "It's not the sexy part, but it's vital to making the comedy work," says Bateman. "I like having the responsibility."
     The 34-year-old actor, who's married to actress Amanda Anka (Paul's daughter) and has no children, is less comfortable with playing the father of a 13-year-old boy (Michael Cera). "He shaves more often than I do," deadpans Bateman. "And he's grown six inches since the pilot." Bateman knows all about growing up on TV. At 12, he played an orphan adopted by Michael Landon on Little House on the Prairie. While older sister Justine scored with Family Ties, Jason also segued into sitcoms as scheming adolescents on Silver Spoons and It's Your Move.
     He enjoyed a longer run as one of Valerie Harper's sons on Valerie, which morphed into The Hogan Family after the contentious star was replaced by Sandy Duncan. "I never really had a problem with Valerie," Bateman says. "I've worked with people a thousand times worse." It's this kind of showbiz experience that gives Bateman the air of an old pro. "He's savvy," says Arrested creator Mitch Hurwitz. "It's not like dealing with a comic getting his first shot."
     Starring in a string of flops has been "frustrating," says Bateman. "But this is my best job in 24 years. If it lasts, that would be really fortunate." And definitely an arresting development. —Bruce Fretts

Laura Leighton
SKIN