Kristin Chenoweth, from Pushing Daisies, has reportedly signed on to David E. Kelley’s new Legally Mad.

ABC / SCOTT GARFIELD

’Tis the season to promise ourselves that we’ll do better.

And with TVs in the average U.S. household on for a record eight hours, 18 minutes a day, according to Nielsen, a New Year’s resolution involving some rest for one of our busiest appliances isn’t a bad idea.

Therefore, in 2009, I resolve:

• To never again recommend a show, even to myself, using the argument that it’s so bad it’s good.

• To seek treatment for my addiction to the CW and its rich, spoiled teens, to admit that I am powerless when it comes to Gossip Girl (and only slightly more in control of the flash-forwarded denizens of One Tree Hill) and that my DVR has become unmanageable as a result.

• To at last erase the series finales of Veronica Mars, The Sopranos and Gilmore Girls from my DVR, recognizing that this is what DVDs are for. And to acknowledge that I’m probably never going to watch that episode of Lifetime’s Army Wives I recorded in October.

• To read at least one of the books that’s mentioned on ABC’s Lost.

• To stop citing ABC’s According to Jim as evidence of life after death.

• To rewatch all five seasons of The Wire before the next season of True Blood comes around to remind me that sometimes HBO is just television, but that it can be much more.

But the best New Year’s resolutions are ones we make for other people:

• For Shonda Rhimes, creator of ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy: To spare Kevin McKidd and his refreshingly no-nonsense character, Owen Hunt, the McDreamy/ McSteamy/McWeenie treatment that’s helped turn Seattle Grace into a junior high school where the students are actually encouraged to carry knives.

Because if ever a show needed another grownup, it’s this one.

• For American Idol judge Simon Cowell: To stop whispering in Paula Abdul’s ear as she’s trying to talk, if only to eliminate one of the excuses she’s given over the years for her inability to speak in even partial sentences with millions of people listening.

• For Simon Baker of CBS’ The Mentalist: To keep smiling. Because it seems to be really good for ratings.

• For Kristin Chenoweth, late of ABC’s Pushing Daisies, who’s reportedly signed on to play a lawyer with “flashes of psychosis” in David E. Kelley’s latest show, Legally Mad: To keep eating, no matter what, because Kelley heroines for some reason are at high risk for extreme weight loss.

• For NBC honchos Jeff Zucker, Ben Silverman and Marc Graboff: To remember that no matter how well all those NBC Universal cable channels do with Real Housewives of Pittsburgh and close-ups of Tori Spelling’s dog’s poop, you’re still running a broadcast network that controls a hefty chunk of the public airwaves.

Which should make supersizing The Apprentice a white-collar crime. Punishable by being forced to watch Momma’s Boys with your eyes taped open.

• For CBS entertainment president Nina Tassler: To accept that you’re programming a network largely devoted to the detection and capture of serial killers or to give the next show you pick up to try to expand your base longer than you gave The Ex List.

And, hey, maybe even a better slot than 9 p.m. Fridays.

• For ABC entertainment president Steve McPherson: To muster the courage to look beyond Desperate Housewives.

Because no matter how well things seem to be going on Wisteria Lane right now, all this talk of four more years feels, well, desperate.

• For Fox entertainment president Kevin Reilly: To find a worthy time slot for Bones, and stick with it.

• For CW entertainment president Dawn Ostroff: To not let yourself be talked into spinning off Gossip Girl, or any of those other rich-kid shows, until the economy improves and someone other than the devil can afford Prada.