Leno @ 10, HP6 and ‘24’ is back

What we’ll talk about in 2009:

NBC’s late-night shift.

Jay Leno’s moving into prime time. Is NBC overplaying its hand? Clobbering David Letterman in the ratings is one thing, but can Leno really topple “CSI: Miami” and “CSI: New York”? Can those monologues beat even “Private Practice”?

A 6th “Harry Potter” movie.

It will be seven months until the release of “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.” Can the hype for the next Potter film eclipse the ear-ringing caused by “Twilight” fans in 2008? Something tells me the legions of Hogwarts devotees are going to expecto patronum them right out of the water.

The new season of “24.”

The show’s been gone for a year and a half, and last season even Jack Bauer couldn’t save it from running out of gas fast. But producers have got a few tricks up their sleeve for the seventh season: a new female president (who we’re told will be at least less incompetent than the last two guys) and the return of dead CTU agent Tony Almeida (which already sounds better than the umpteenth return of Denny).

Zack Snyder’s big-screen adaptation of “Watchmen.”

Even if Warner Bros. can get it past the legal copyright mess the film’s entangled in, will fanboys be satisfied with what they see? Many directors had pondered imagining Alan Moore’s celebrated apocalyptic superhero comic on film, and only Snyder got it done. Whether he should have is the question.

The next Miley Cyrus.

Are Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato the heirs apparent to her America’s sweetheart crown? Now that Cyrus has turned 16, posed (sort of) topless for Vanity Fair and is proudly dating a 20-year-old model-country singer, the position is pretty open. Will Gomez and Lovato’s Disney Channel movie “Princess Protection Program” have the same legs as Cyrus’ “Hannah Montana”?