Early on in the new season of NBC’s “Life” — one of the best, quirkiest and most underrated shows of last year — a stripper tells Det. Charlie Crews (Damian Lewis) that her late colleague, whose death Charlie is investigating, would’ve loved him.

Why is that?, Charlie wonders aloud.

“You’re broken,” she says with a knowing smile.

Ah, how we women do love our broken men. And no one knows that better than TV execs, who’ve loaded the fall lineup with enough damaged guys to satisfy the most ardent repair-shop cravings.The new crop of American brittle boys — few of whom, if any, are played by Americans — owes a great deal, of course, to House and to “House,” which returns to form at 8 tonight. Gone is the game-show nonsense of last season, in which brilliant but misanthropic diagnostician Gregory House (brilliant and not misanthropic Hugh Laurie) auditioned a new team of masochists to assist him as if he were Simon Cowell (which, in a way, he is). Season Four had trouble integrating the new players with the old. Season Five brings us back to basics as House must confront his inadvertent role in the death of Amber Volakis (Anne Dudek), the beloved of House’s friend, Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard).

One of the great things about fiction is that it lets you hate without the guilt. I’ve always detested the super-ambitious, super-self-absorbed Amber, and I guess I’m not the only one, because the producers decided to off her. In fairness, her death enables them to explore the essence of House, his very Houseness, which is his inability to allow himself to love, to even feel his own humanity. (Early in the new season, there’s a typical House moment in which he watches his favorite soaps in a comatose patient’s room, using the oblivious patient as a cup holder.)

It’s this abject wound — deeper than Philoctetes’ or the Fisher King’s — what makes House so fascinating, so infuriating, so attractive, so haunting. It’s what makes him so broken.

The season’s first two episodes — in which House’s inhumanity forces one of the key supporting players to make a shocking decision — are as good as the series has been in a long time. “Life” (10 p.m. Fridays, beginning Sept. 29), on the other hand, hasn’t been around long enough to stray from its roots. The crimes are still crazy — scientists frozen to death; victims suffocated in numbered trunks strewn around L.A.

The characters are still crazy, too. Charlie’s former lawyer, Constance Griffiths (Brooke Langton) is still pining for him as he pines for his ex, Jennifer Conover (Jennifer Siebel).

Charlie is still exasperating his roomie, Ted Earley (Adam Arkin) —who’s trying to start a teaching career (no thanks to Charlie) — and his partner, Dani Reese (Sarah Shahi), who’s getting some major attention from their new boss (Donal Logue’s Capt. Brian Tidwell replacing Robin Weigert’s Lt. Karen Davis).

Most of all, Charlie is still trying to figure out who really framed him for murder and sent him to prison for 12 brutal years. The show and its star are getting better and better at creating metaphors for the prison of the past and of the mind that Charlie cannot leave. Watch Lewis as Charlie considers the caged rats in the frozen scientist’s lab. Within a matter of seconds, he conveys all the colors of anguish, dread, disgust and rage. From his stiff gait to his manic delivery, so at odds with his Zen obsessions, Lewis’ Charlie remains a revelation.

What House and Charlie share is a sense of irrevocable loss and a point of no return. The Broken Man mesmerizes because he can never really be put back together again. In CBS’ “The Mentalist” (9 p.m. Tuesdays, beginning Sept. 23), a flimflam psychic’s pride leads to a tragedy for which he will spend the rest of his life trying to atone. The catch here is that while he’s a con artist who probably can’t communicate with the dead, his powers of intuition and observation make him a valuable asset to the California Bureau of Investigations, even if he is an enormous pain in the butt.

The pilot is only mediocre. But fortunately, the title character is played by Simon Baker. If you were a fan of his stunningly self-centered lawyer in the late, lamented series “The Guardian,” then you know that when it comes to playing scoundrels in need of redemption, Baker has few peers. He’s reason alone to watch.

And you’ll want to keep tuning in to “True Blood,” in part because the flashbacks, which have begun to flesh out the supporting characters, will be offering insight into how Bill Compton (Steven Moyer) became a vampire.

He, too, experienced a moment he can’t take back, however much he wishes he could. Now all he can do — like the rest of his broken brethren — is find the courage to go on.