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BY JOHN CROOK On "Bakery Boss," the Monday TLC series currently in its first season, Buddy Valastro tries to rescue bakeries teetering on the brink of disaster, but sometimes that means helping the owners in spite of themselves. "It's funny, but think about it: At the end of the day, does anybody really like to hear what is wrong with them? If I came into your office and said, 'You're not doing this right; you need to do it this way,' after a while you'd be thinking, 'I really want to kill this guy,' " Valastro says. "Realistically, though, I have to look at the situation as an outsider and try to figure out what is really going wrong. Whether you like me or not is irrelevant." In many cases, lack of organization rears its head with the struggling businesses, but Valastro says he's encountered a host of other problems as well. "There was the 100-year-old bakery that just didn't want to change and adapt to the times, and you had people who had made good cupcakes for bake sales and thought they could just quit their job, take out a triple mortgage on their home and open a bakery," he says. "The spectrum of problems is so wide it's not even funny. A lot of them, believe it or not, were buying a lot of baked goods from other vendors and then trying to resell them. Basically, they were buying crap and not getting a good profit margin on it. I was like, 'Come on, make it here, from scratch, the old-fashioned way.' " Valastro says he's been wanting to do a show like 'Bakery Boss" for about three years, but his commitments to other shows – including the hit series "Cake Boss," which returns for a new TLC season on Monday, Dec. 30 – made that impossible. Did you get yet any requests from bakeries that were too far gone to save? "Unfortunately, yeah. We had an overwhelming response, and we found the ones that we thought we could help, but some of them were dealing with economic factors or were just too far gone to be savable." What can "Cake Boss" fans look forward to in this new season? "You'll be seeing the struggle of me trying to grow my bakeries and opening more. You see us trying to make a 15-foot alligator cake with a mouth that opens. There are some fun pranks and good stuff coming up and some more news about my mom and her health. Thank God, she's doing a little better." 'Boss' Valastro tries to help the underdog BEST NEW 2013 CHARACTERS Shirley MacLaine James Purefoy Priscilla Faia 8 Buddy Valastro BY JAY BOBBIN Martha Levinson (Shirley MacLaine, "Downton Abbey," PBS):Oscar winner MacLaine as the decidedly not-shy mother of Lady Grantham (Elizabeth McGovern) ... how could this not be a match made in TV heaven? And she's back in the upcoming Season 4. Joe Carroll (James Purefoy, "The Following," Fox) Ever wanted to know what pure evil looks like? Look no further than this crafty serial killer. Elizabeth Jennings/Nadezhda (Keri Russell, "The Americans," FX) Forget what you thought you knew about the actress who was Felicity. She now plays a KGB agent posing as an '80s American wife with fierce commitment. Norma Bates (Vera Farmiga, "Bates Motel," A&E Network) For those who may wonder where "Psycho"to-be Norman Bates got his mother complex, the typically excellent Farmiga has done a great job depicting the woman responsible for it. Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen, "Hannibal," NBC) It's no small feat for an actor to breathe new life into the character so defined by Oscar winner Anthony Hopkins, and Mikkelsen has done that superbly. Sarah Manning, plus ... (Tatiana Maslany, "Orphan Black," BBC America) If ever an actress couldn't complain about being typecast, Maslany is the one, given her leeway – and her excellence – in playing multiple clones. Chloe Price (Priscilla Faia, "Rookie Blue," ABC) The appealing exuberance Faia brought to the rookie cop made it all the more unsettling when Chloe fell victim to a police-targeting shooter. Ray Donovan (Liev Schreiber, "Ray Donovan," Showtime) As a "fixer" who has problems with his father (Jon Voight) and the law, Schreiber has found the sort of part that draws film actors to series TV. Raymond "Red" Reddington (James Spader, "The Blacklist," NBC) Both hero and villain, this former fugitive is clearly one of this year's most challenging new characters ... and an ideal match for Spader's sly talent. The Mother (Cristin Milioti, "How I Met Your Mother," CBS) Well, it's about time we met her, especially since the sitcom is in its final season. And charming "Once" Broadway alum Milioti has made the wait worth it. The Goshen News • TV Spotlight • December 30, 2013-January 5, 2014

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