May 2002 Archives

Q. What do you get when a network runs its breakout hit game show into the ground, cancels all its good shows, incites a media frenzy with an ill-timed attempt at poaching late-night talent, and somehow makes football a ratings liability?

A. ABC

It's no secret that ABC's in trouble; for months, the most riveting thing about the network has been reading about its assorted vagaries in the business section: the hit the network took after it belatedly realized that nobody wanted to be a millionare badly enough to watch four nights a week; the firings of Stu Bloomberg, co-chairman of the ABC Entertainment Television Group, and Steve Bornstein, president of ABC Television; the embarrassing attempt to woo David Letterman away from CBS -- much to Ted Koppel's very public surprise; the recent revelation that ABC has somehow managed to lose nearly every desirable demographic to another network. Watching ABC screw up is more entertaining than watching any of the network's shows.

Of course, that's not hard, given ABC's habit of pulling the plug on its best material. Remember, this is the network that yanked Gideon's Crossing, Cupid and Relativity after one measly season. This year, they sacrificed the sleek, tongue-in-cheek Thieves and the brutally funny The Job -- easily two of the three most watchable shows on the network. (The third show, of course, was Alias, which seemed to be less a reflection of any ABC programming savvy and more a lucky fluke.)

I have no explanation for this persistent cancellation pattern: perhaps those annoying anti-TV blowhards have somehow infiltrated ABC's inner offices and are deploying an insidious scheme to destroy television from the inside out. Perhaps ABC kills the good shows early so we don't have time to notice how bad the rest of the network's programming is. The point is, if you're working on a good show that's been picked up by ABC, you can go ahead and make reservations for a winter vacation because you'll surely have the free time.

ABC's explanation for killing the cream of the crop is, inevitably, "low ratings" -- this was the reason the Zwick-Herskovitz vehicle Once and Again got killed this year despite a near-fanatical following and universal kudos from the critics -- which seems suggest that the network is actually run by five-year-olds hopped up on Pixie Stix; there is no patience for cultivating a show and, by extension, a new demographic, nor is there any evidence of human reasoning beyond the capacity for faulty syllogism: the show isn't getting ratings, ratings mean a show is good, therefore the show isn't good.

And ABC wonders why its ratings are in the toilet. Most of the show on its schedule were unwatchable (I still have half a Philly review on my hard drive, because it took me three separate tries to sit through an episode, and I haven't been able to piece together anything cogent from notes that read "GAH! Brain hurts!"), there was better material on elsewhere much of the time, and a segment of the audience is probably wondering why they should bother tuning into the Already Been Cancelled network.

It doesn't help that ABC has no idea who's watching them anyway. While other networks have aggressively profiled and sought certain demographics -- NBC is targeting affluent, urbane professionals; Fox goes for the 18-45 male and UPN goes for the leftovers; the WB is hoping to capture the 18-45 female audience; and CBS just sits back and chortles because sooner or later, all those other audiences will fit into its core audience -- ABC just mewls that it's the "family" network. Unless they're targeting families composed entirely of individuals not in any of the other demographic segments listed above, it's going to be an uphill battle for the network.

Naturally, the Alphabet is not making it any easier on itself in 2002-2003. Let's look at what the Alarmingly Bad Crap network is showing the American public this fall.

Mercifully, they will not be showing us Philly, Spin City or Dharma and Greg, as all three shows have been cancelled. Unfortunately, neither Drew Carey nor NYPD Blue met the same fate, so we're still not free of allegedly comedic gimcrackery or the Former Teen Heartthrob Rehabilitation Project.

Although ABC's president Susan Lyne claimed the network was reclaiming the "smart family comedies that reflect our viewers' lives" throne, the network will be showing the ham-handed George Lopez Show and introducing 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter. The new show stars John Ritter (thus retiring him from the guest-star circuit for a while, undoubtedly to John Larroquette's relief) as a "loving, rational dad" (ABC's words, not mine) who seems surprise and appalled that teenaged girls have minds of their own. It's based on a book by W. Bruce Cameron, who may very well be blameless when it comes to the televised interpretation of his opus, but I still can't help but wonder if this entire show could have been prevented by handing someone, anyone, a copy of Reviving Ophelia.

8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter will be airing on Tuesday nights at 8 p.m. EST/PST, opposite Gilmore Girls, JAG and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I'm just saying.

Tuesdays will also include Life with Bonnie (9 p.m. EST/PST) and Less Than Perfect (9:30 p.m. EST/PST) -- opposite Frasier, The Guardian, Smallville and 24. Life with Bonnie is a vehicle for the underrated Bonnie Hunt; I can only hope the promotional copy is lying when it says, " Bonnie writes, directs and stars with the same comic flair she brought to her film, "Return to Me," because I don't recall "Return to Me" (or, as the husband and I call it, "Give Me Back My Dead Wife's Heart!") having an especial comic flair. Or, for that matter, any flair. Anyway -- Life with Bonnie is another star vehicle. I'll hope that it's more smartly executed than ABC's previous star vehicles (Bob Patterson and Geena) were. As for Less than Perfect, I suspect headline writers across America will be having a field day when coming up with the title of reviews for this: it's about a "perky" secretary to a network anchor and the scheming office politics which she must endure.

On Wednesdays, The Bachelor returns. I understand one of the authors of The Rules is now available; perhaps she can participate on the show and put her money where her mouth is. ABC is also showing Meds, a medical drama set in San Francisco going up against CBS's medical drama set in San Francisco (Presidio Med) -- it makes you wonder if several network programmers are off their meds -- and Law and Order, which is not set in San Francisco. Meds is apparently about "two renegade doctors [who] bend the rules and find the loopholes in a constant quest to treat their patients. Together they practice medicine with a take-no-prisoners attitude and don't-take-no-for-an-answer tactics." There is literally nothing I can add to that.

Dinotopia was apparently enough of a success for ABC to warrant picking it up as a series to be broadcast on Thursdays at 8 p.m. This is clearly the big family gambit, as dinosaurs and kids are a natural mix. Were I anywhere in the age 4-9 bracket (when I passionately wanted to be a paleontologist), I'd watch this series. Since I'm not, I won't be. But I can tell you, based on the book (which I own) and the miniseries (of which I caught an hour), the show will likely be a continuation of the interspecies utopia where the biggest problems tend to be of a charmingly antique nature -- rogue dinos, natural disasters, the odds the modern world will discover the place -- while skipping over other historical dilemmas like the odds that Compsognathidae corallestris become Marxists or a giant comet throws the ecosystem out of whack.

Following Dinotopia, Push, Nevada hopes to attract anyone who really wants to spend their nine p.m. on Thursdays watching a show set in Nevada where there are mysteries to be solved and obtuse dialogue to be spouted. For those of you wondering how Push, Nevada will differ from CSI -- broadcast television's other show set in Nevada where there are mysteries to be solved and obtuse dialogue to be spouted -- this one is brought to you by the Project Greenlight team and is focused on setting up and solving a central riddle, kind of like "Who killed Laura Palmer?" except it's apparently a reality TV show with money involved, as opposed to smartly-dressed midgets. Either Push, Nevada will end up being one of the most inventive things to come along in years, or it's going to be unwatchable. It may well be both.

ABC's last new offering, That Was Then, airs on Friday night at 9 p.m. EST/PST. It's apparently a lot like "Back to the Future" or "Peggy Sue Got Married", i.e. predicated on the depressing premise that high school is, like, the most important thing ever and grown adults with problems can trace the origins of their woes back to their senior year of high school. Anyway, That Was Then is about a loser who can trace the origins of his woes back to high school, travels back in time to fix them, and ends up in a future not unlike the last few episodes of Felicity, where we all get reminded of the law of unintended consequences.

Frankly, it wouldn't kill ABC executives to watch this show, given the state of their own network. Let's just hope they spend the year critiquing their network and learning from their mistakes, instead of trying to build a time machine to go back to a time when they showed good programming. Knowing ABC, though, I'd put my money on the time machine.

Crime touches us all in different ways. For some of us, crime is petty theft, or perhaps the occasional robbery perpetrated when you wander into a dark area by yourself a bit later than was probably wise. For others, crime can cause major scars on a life, scars caused by hideous acts that can never be rectified with a new backpack or a panicked call to the auto shop to get LoJack installed.

And then there's Les Moonves, the evil genius who runs CBS, for whom crime is not just a social problem waiting to be solved by the next generation of public servants weaned on Bill Clinton's Americorps and the golden-hued hallways of The West Wing.

When it comes to the Fall 2002 CBS schedule, crime is Les Moonves's meal ticket.

Moonves -- who often played a gun-toting hood during his days as a character actor -- is riding the crime gravy train these days. Just about the only crime-related show CBS won't be offering this fall is one in which a former character actor turned network president takes time out of his busy schedule to fight crime.

That one is slated as a midseason replacement.

Among CBS's new series are Without a Trace, which marks the return to series TV of two former leading men from cancelled shows -- Anthony LaPaglia (from the second year of Murder One) and Eric Close (from the brilliant, genre-shifting Now and Again). Without a Trace is kind of like CSI, right down to the Jerry Bruckheimer production credit -- but this one's about an FBI task force that finds missing people. During their investigations, the Without a Trace team constructs what's called a DOD, or Day of Disappearance, timeline. Once can only assume that the show would have been called DOD had CBS not run out of letters while naming some of its other shows.

Like, say, RHD/LA, a show about the Robbery and Homicide Division of the Los Angeles Police Department. This show, starring Tom Sizemore, takes the prize for the worst series name since last year's UC: Undercover and, well, CSI. The slash is what puts them over the edge, I think. In any case, RHD/LA is kind of like CSI, except the team of colorful characters on RHD/LA solve all sorts of high-profile crimes, none of which require the intervention of Gil Grissom and his unique homespun creepy-ass wisdom. Also, RHD/LA isn't produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, but rather by Michael Mann, the much-honored film director who in a past life created Miami Vice. Expect a guest appearance by Lt. Castillo (Edward James Olmos) by February sweeps.

Then there's CSI: Miami -- and you thought ABC was the Alphabet Network -- which stars David Caruso, Emily Procter, and a bunch of other people you may have seen if you saw the leaden episode of CSI which served as a pilot for this series last month. As Horatio Caine, Caruso brings his trademark empty stare and monotone back to the small screen, where it belongs. No doubt his repartee with the so-homespun-it's-painful Procter (Ainsley Hayes of The West Wing) will be a highlight of this show. CSI: Miami is kind of like CSI, except... well, it's set in Miami, and presumably Gil Grissom will not be called in to solve all the cases with his unique, creepy-ass vision. Instead, Ainsley Hayes will.

Hack, starring David Morse and the sainted Andre Braugher, shows a refreshing use of lower-case letters for a CBS show. But make no mistake -- there's crime aplenty in this story of a disgraced cop who becomes a cab driver who fights crime. Morse is the cabbie, and Braugher plays his former partner, a ghost only the cab driver can see. Okay, I made that last part up. But the rest of it? About the cabbie who solves crimes? That part is true. Hack is kind of like CSI, except there's only one guy on the team, and he won't make change for a fifty. There is no truth to the rumor that this series was original called CSI: Cab.

Rounding out CBS's slate of dramas is Presidio Med, starring Blythe Danner and Dana Delany as hard-working doctors in a San Francisco medical practice who use their great talents not to solve crimes, but to serve their patients. Who is solving the crimes in this series is unclear, but it's from the John Wells-Lydia Woodward production team who brought you ER. Presidio Med is nothing like CSI, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and say it's the exception that proves the rule.

Returning to CBS's line up are several more dramas, including The Guardian, which is very little like CSI, and The Agency, which is sort of a hybrid of CSI and CIA. Judging Amy, The District, and Touched By An Angel, also return, despite the fact that none of them are anything like CSI.

On the non-crime side of the slate, CBS is adding two comedies, neither of which is about fighting crime. Still Standing is a family comedy starring Mark Addy and Jami Gertz; apparently the pilot has been carefully fashioned by a team of engineers to slide directly into the "innocuous family sitcom" slot right after Everybody Loves Raymond. Who would believe that it's from the iconoclastic geniuses who brought us Yes, Dear? Bram and Alice is a show about a head-case of a novelist (Alfred Molina!) and his devoted fan (the girl from Two Guys and a Girl!), and is produced by two Frasier veterans. So which is this one going to be, Veronica's Closet or Encore! Encore! -- any bets?

Finally, Mr. Moonves unveiled his crowning achievement: a midseason replacement series that you may be familiar with.

Yes, it's true. Returning to the CBS schedule next winter will be Baby Bob.

Remember what I said about the CBS schedule being criminal? I rest my case.

For all of our scientific advances, our devotion to Aristotelian logic, our fancy book-learning, we've done a frightfully bad job at coming up with definitive answers for The Big Questions. Sure, we can rattle off why the sky is blue and how a bill becomes a law and who led the American League in home runs in 1987. But gather together the best and brightest minds, throw out one of those Big-Picture-meaning-of-life-type questions -- Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Where do we go when we die? Are we all alone in this big, wide universe? -- and you'll be lucky to get some half-baked theories cribbed from the footnotes of Stephen Hawking's latest opus and enough hemming and hawing to drown out jet engines.

We may keep coming up snake eyes whenever it's time to noodle out some of the great metaphysical puzzlers of our day. But we have within our grasp the answer to at least one question that's flummoxed scientists, stumped philosophers and touched off many a bar argument for well nigh a generation. And we'll likely have the answer by September.

Because this fall, we finally learn whether NBC can broadcast a watchable show at 8:30 p.m. on Thursdays.

You may recognize the 8:30 Thursday night time slot by its more common designation as the roach motel of NBC's prime-time lineup -- sitcoms check in, but they don't check out. Ever since Alex P. Keaton packed up his tie and blazer and headed off to entertain America with clever, life-affirming fare like "Doc Hollywood" and "Life with Mikey," the Peacock Network has filled the Thursday-8:30-p.m. slot with an unending parade of slop, the sort of shows that make films like "Doc Hollywood" and "Life with Mikey" actually seem clever and life-affirming by comparison.

Jonathan Silverman, Brooke Shields, Christina Applegate, whoever that simp was in Inside Schwartz -- all of them have watched their hopes and dreams disappear into the gaping maw of NBC's Thursday night sinkhole. Each year, the network swears on a stack of Bibles that it's finally found the show that will break its decade-long losing streak, and each year, we wind up with another serving of The Single Guy. And the stars of these shows, who once entertained dreams of joining the likes of David Schwimmer and Kelsey Grammer and that guy who plays Will (or possibly Grace) in the Must-See TV firmament are reduced to starring in community theater productions, soft-core pornography or, worst of all, direct-to-cable movies.

Well, no more, NBC has decided. The sound you hear at 8:30 p.m. every Thursday will no longer be that of a million remote controls changing the channel the second Friends ends. Instead, NBC vows, you will hear laughter -- honest-to-God laughter. And damn if the Peacock Network isn't poised to deliver on its promise.

Of course, the network isn't filling its haunted time slot with a newly developed program. That would be foolish -- this is NBC, after all. Instead, the network plans to airlift in Scrubs, a fresh, funny sitcom that's unlike anything you've seen on NBC in years, largely because it is fresh and funny. With superb writing and strong performances, Scrubs gives NBC something it hasn't had in a long time -- a good show in that Thursday-Night-at-8:30 hole. And it gives you and me something to do after Friends, other than clean the dishes or polish off that Cervantes novel or maybe even check out the last half-hour of Survivor.

Then again, if you subscribe to the theory that NBC's 8:30 p.m. time-slot troubles are not a matter of competence but rather some sort of other-wordly force at work, like Warren Littlefield's alleged pact with the devil in exchange for programming success, or the possibility that NBC may have built its Thursday night lineup on an Indian burial ground. If that's the case -- and we're too circumspect to rule it out -- then we'll soon have ample proof, should Scrubs make the move to Thursday night and immediately begin sucking wind. Look for the little signs -- the additional of a laugh track to hee-haw at the slightest joke, John C. McGinley getting replaced in the cast with Carrot Top, the decision to move the show in New York, and have all the actors move into a spacious, single, swinging apartment.

We're spending so much time discussing the impending move of Scrubs -- eight paragraphs and counting -- because the rest of NBC's schedule for the 2002-2003 season is so deadly dull. The Emerils and UC: Undercovers of the world have long since been dispatched to the happy hunting ground; the only shows to get the axe this week are The Weakest Link -- we'll pause so you can enjoy your own pithy witticism at the expense of Anne Robinson -- and Watching Ellie. Meanwhile, your NBC favorites -- otherwise known as the shows I can't be bothered to watch on a regular basis -- will be returning, largely in their existing time slots. Monday, Wednesday and Friday, in fact, will maintain the exact same lineups this fall as they sported a week ago. And NBC's prime-time schedule will again be anchored by the likes of Law & Order, Fraiser, Friends and ER -- just as it was five years ago, three years ago, last year and for every year from now until the earth is a burnt-out cinder. So look for Friends: 2012 a decade from now when a toothless, crotchety David Schwimmer ends up impregnating every cast member -- yes, even Joey -- and Anthony Edwards makes his triumphant return to ER as Dr. Greene's evil twin brother, Bart.

NBC can warm over last year's offerings and make like it's serving up a brand new entree, you see, because it can afford to. It was the top-rated broadcast network during the 2001-2002 season, a fact that the Peacock Network didn't balk at mentioning during this week's fall season preview. "America's most-watched network!" the NBC press releases proclaimed. "Number one in key advertising demographics in every daypart!" crowed silver-tongued NBC West Coast president Scott Sassa. "Coasting to victory on wave after wave of inertia and indifference!" agreed yours truly.

OK -- that last one wasn't included in NBC's press materials. But if the network wants to use that as a blurb in future marketing efforts, by all means, go ahead.

There's a difference, obviously, between being popular and being good -- sort of like the difference between sitting down to watch an evening of Providence versus an episode of The Sopranos. NBC may be the ratings king, with its programming capturing the biggest number of eyeballs. But that doesn't mean it's providing those eyeballs with something worth watching. After all, more people eat at McDonald's than Tavern on the Green, but I wouldn't recommend stopping by the Golden Arches to sample the fois gras. More people probably own Michael Jackson's "Thriller" than "Birth of the Cool" by Miles Davis; I know which one I'd rather hear on the radio. And nobody got more votes in the last presidential election than Al Gore, and look at all the good that did the big stiff.

But that's someone else's problem. No one ever went broke catering to the tastes of idiots, and idiots, as it turns out, appears to be Friends' core demographic. So NBC is going to keep serving up the same schedule until ER is carted off to the glue factory, until Fraiser's heart explodes, until the emaciated cast of Friends shrivels up and flies away on the evening breeze. And then, NBC probably will still keep flogging away at its dead horse of a schedule, long after every last one of us is sick at the sight of its programs.

So until that day comes -- and I say it's going to be mid-November, at the latest -- here's what you can expect to watch on NBC for the foreseeable future.

Monday's lineup remains intact, led off by Fear Factor -- which gives grateful TV critics and social commentators something to decry for another year -- and followed by Third Watch and Crossing Jordan. On Tuesday, Fraiser marks its seventh decade of entertaining America, while Just Shoot Me moves from the coveted Must-See Thursday lineup to the much-less-coveted Tuesday night at 8:30 slot. This is the network programming equivalent of the aging, rubber-armed pitcher getting sent down to Triple-A. But don't cry, Just Shoot Me fans -- the show will likely live on forever in syndication.

OK, now the rest of you, stop crying.

Wednesday features the return of Ed, a once quirky and delightful show that slipped badly in its sophomore season to become the dour chronicle of a desperately miserable cast of characters. Of course, Ed's stumble looks like a hardly noticeable misstep compared to the full-on face-plant delivered by The West Wing this past year, as the show's creator turned a once-brilliant program into a 60-minute weekly forum for settling petty grievances with critics, wrestling with his innumerable demons and otherwise producing unremitting crap. Those shows are joined on Wednesday by Law & Order, which I believe is now created entirely by a Unix-powered server running a simple perl script.

Thursday offers Friends, Scrubs, Will & Grace and ER. Please do not deviate from your pre-established viewing patterns.

Friday marks the return of Providence, Law & Order: SVU and Dateline NBC. Please do not deviate from your pre-established pattern of not caring.

As for the weekend, you'll get a second season of Law & Order: Criminal Intent and a third night of Dateline (joining the Tuesday and Friday installments of Stone and Jane's News Funhouse). On Saturday, NBC broadcasts a movie, so that it doesn't have to bear the ignominy of having to admit that it provides one less night of original programming than the Fox network. The Saturday night movie won't be anything you can't rent at the local Blockbuster without having to watch enough commercials to fill a three-hour timeslot.

For those of you keeping score at home, that's 22 hours of prime-time programming, with 84 percent of it filled by returning material. This fall, NBC only plans to introduce five new shows -- three half-hour sitcoms and two hour-long dramas. And while there's not an Emeril-esque disaster or an XFL-flavored embarrassment looming on the horizon, there's not a spark of creativity or originality, either -- certainly nothing that's going to make you want to mark your calendars four months in advance of the series premieres.

NBC, of course, sees things differently. "We're in a great position to build on [last year's] strength next season with the innovative, distinctive new programs we'll be launching in the fall," insists Sassa, who clearly doesn't read the descriptions of the shows he's touting before making such grandiose statements.

"NBC again this year sticks with an incredibly stable schedule of proven hits. Our development team cast the net wide, took some risks, and delivered some programs with real potential to break out," says NBC Entertainment President Jeff Zucker, and isn't that a particularly bizarre thing to say?

Standing pat, and yet taking risks? Stable, yet innovative? How are such seemingly contradictory tacks possible without physics-defying contortions, a crate-load of gin and enough denial to drive a case study for the psychiatric department at a leading university well into the next olympiad? The questions raised by Sassa and Zucker are simply staggering.

And even if we assume that -- perish the thought -- NBC's top programming executives aren't talking out of their respective asses, we have a whole new set of questions to consider. Like, just exactly what does NBC mean when it describes its new programs as "innovative?" Are the shows filmed entirely through a fisheye lens? Do the actors only speak French? Are we talking about a cast composed entirely of puppets and small children?

The mind reels...

Here's what NBC means. In-Laws, which kicks off Tuesday nights, features a pair of doe-eyed newlyweds (Elon Gold, Bonnie Somerville) who move in with her parents (Dennis Farina, Jean Smart) while he attends cooking school. Turns out that Dad is a bit of a grumpus and that he and the new son-in-law are always clashing.

A comedy about squabbling in-laws? Man, that's never been done before.

Also on Tuesdays, at 9:30 p.m., there's Hidden Hills. It stars Paula Marshall -- who was seen in Cupid, which TeeVee loved, and Snoops, which TeeVee didn't -- and Justin Louis, formerly of Trinity (and the less said about that show, the better for all involved.) Also in the cast are Dondre T. Whitfield and Tamara Taylor, whose past work we can neither endorse nor demean. The show, in NBC's words, "explores the wild, sexy and funny side of the 'burbs -- where apparently everyone has a lot more to reveal than what first meets the eye."

A show about suburbanites who enjoy frisky sex lives? Good Lord -- can they even put that on prime-time television?

Joining NBC's Thursday night lineup -- and apparently moving the Curse of the 8:30 Time Slot back by an hour to 9:30 -- is Good Morning, Miami. The show marks the latest attempt to put over Mark Feuerstein as a sitcom star, while the still smoldering ruins of Conrad Bloom burn fresh in the memory. Feuerstein plays a talented TV producer -- clearly a part not based on anyone in NBC's employ -- who takes a gig with the lowest-rated morning show in the country and its cast of crazies. When not dealing with his wacky co-workers, Conrad Blo... er... the Mark Feuerstein character is pitching woo with a down-to-earth hairdresser (Ashley Williams) and matching wits with his "risqué" grandmother. "Risqué," incidentally, is NBC marketing-speak for "Nana talks dirty."

And I don't think you need me to tell you how a wacky workplace comedy complete with a down-to-earth hairdresser and a bawdy grandma redefines the word "innovative."

Really, if NBC wanted to really innovate, it would be better off taking its three new shows, throwing them into a blender, and hitting "liquefy." Give me a show about a talented young TV producer who moves in to his father-in-law's suburban home to work on the lowest rated cooking show in Miami while pitching woo with a risqué grandmother. That way, I have only one rotten show to assiduously avoid next fall instead of three. And I don't have to find nearly so many synonyms for "banal" in my thesaurus.

As for new dramas, NBC gives us American Dreams -- an "evocative drama set against the memorable, upbeat sounds of the early 1960s." Those are NBC's words, not mine. I would have gone with "tedious nostalgia show."

American Dreams, airing on Sunday, focuses on two girls -- one of them "good" in the "doesn't tramp around with boys" sense of the word, the other "bad" in much the same way. They both dream of becoming dancers on American Bandstand.

No -- I'm not being snide. They actually want to be dancers on American Bandstand. That's the show.

Please. I'm deadly serious here. Stop looking at me like that.

The other new drama, also slated for Sunday, is Boomtown. It's an ensemble drama focusing on the lives and loves of Los Angeles cops, paramedics, reporters, and officials. Any differences between this and Third Watch are completely lost on my tiny brain.

Not that NBC entertains the notion that any of these shows will falter, but just in case America's taste for gruff in-laws, horny suburbanites and Mark Feuerstein and his risqué grandma prove to be fleeting, the Peacock Network also has a trio of mid-season replacements waiting in the wings. It's Not About Me is another one of those innovative comedies, this time about a corporate lawyer who chucks it all to become a schoolteacher. How is that innovative? Well, the corporate lawyer's pal talks directly to the camera.

Apparently, no one at NBC has ever watched Malcolm in the Middle. Or Titus. Or The Bernie Mac Show. Or the thousands of other programs that have used this device since the dawn of time.

Not that I'm complaining. It's Not About Me also features Nikki Cox, and that's innovation enough as far as I'm concerned.

The other replacement shows are a pair of dramas. Kingpin is a Sopranos-like crime drama with a distinctly Latin flavor. And Mister Sterling is the story of an idealistic new senator from a West Wing writer. Apparently, NBC is hoping to capture that show's good government vibe without its off-camera hallucinogenic hijinks.

Look for these shows to appear on NBC's schedule some time around January. Or even earlier if it turns out that the bad juju of the Thursday at 8:30 time slot turns this year's Scrubs into next year's Inside Schwartz.

Every year, one show appears on the schedule that appears to have wandered in from some alternate universe where television programmers try to get as low ratings as possible. This year, Family Affair takes center stage on Thursday at 8:00 as it updates the, um, "classic" show with the central role of Mr. French taken by Tim Curry.

The President of The WB's Entertainment division alleges that Family Affair will be "sure to be one of the most talked-about comedies anywhere this fall," which sounds like a good idea until you remember how much smart-ass websites talked about Wolf Lake last year. Uncle Bill will be played by Gary Cole. I want to make fun of him for having played Mike Brady in the Brady Bunch movies, but he's also the voice of Harvey Birdman, so he gets a pass.

After Family Affair, the WB will present to us Do Over at 8:30. In what is somewhat inadequately described as a "freak accident," a 34-year-old salesman is flung backwards in time to land in his own 14-year-old body. And then he starts living his life again, until he gets canceled about two months later.

At 9:30, the Jamie Kennedy Experiment show does whatever it's been doing. I don't know much about it, really. Then at 10:00, Off Centre has also managed to elude my attention, although not TeeVee's.

The most female-friendly show on the air, Gilmore Girls has been reasonably successful on the WB (considering that it's still scheduled directly against Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which is the second most female-friendly) so it gets to stick around for another year on Tuesday at 8:00. And on Sundays at 7:00, something called Gilmore Girls: Beginnings isn't a comic-book-style Origin Story in which Lorelei gets bitten by a radioactive coffee bean; it's actually just the first season of Gilmore Girls being aired again. If you missed it, you should watch it, because it was really good the first time.

One of the WB's returning shows is Smallville (still on Tuesday at 9:00 right after Gilmore Girls), which features a young Clark Kent and his relationship with Lex Luthor, a relationship that some have called "gayer than Queer as Folk."

Flush with success, the producers of Smallville are now bringing out Birds of Prey, a show about three female crimefighters in Gotham City. It starts with Catwoman dying, Batgirl being crippled, and Batman leaving town. So Batgirl renames herself "Oracle" and picks up a couple of hottie assistants: Huntress and The Black Canary, who really needs a catchier name. Those three are the Birds of Prey, and they will presumably be waging telegenic battle against supervillains. For those who wonder whether Smallville's homoerotic overtones will carry over onto Birds of Prey, one piece of information should suffice: one of the villains will be Twin Peaks's Sherilyn Fenn. Rrrowr!

Birds of Prey will be on Wednesdays at 9:00, right after Dawson's Creek, which is, yes, still on the air.

Last time the fall schedules were announced, it didn't make sense to anyone that Angel came on right after 7th Heaven. Most people figured that the people who design the schedule hadn't ever seen either show and just assumed "heaven" and "angels" were similar concepts. This time out, 7th Heaven stays on Monday at 8:00, and it's now followed by Everwood, which involves a neurosurgeon whose wife dies, so he and his two kids move from Manhattan to Colorado. Then he opens a general practice and doesn't charge any money. It's a little like Northern Exposure but, you know, without the quirkiness.

Angel has moved to Sundays at 9:00, where it will follow the much more similar Charmed.

The WB Friday will be anchored by Sabrina, the Teenage Witch at 8:30 and Reba, the country singer, at 9:00. The night starts at 8:00 with What I Like About You, starring Amanda Bynes, who is being described as "Nickelodeon's hottest star since Melissa Joan Hart," which clearly ignores the fine work being done by Kenan and Kel. She plays the wacky 16-year-old sister of straight-arrow Jennie Garth. And hilarity, it is implied, ensues.

The night ends at 9:30 with Greetings from Tucson, which clearly ignores the ancient comedy rule that Arizona should never, ever be mentioned. I can't bring myself to read the description too carefully, but it includes the phrases "the challenges of growing up sane," "proud yet impossibly pragmatic," "diva of an older sister," "irreverent uncle," "grandmother," "hipper than most teenagers," "eternal adolescent dilemma," and "unconventional family comedy." Also, the word "Mexican," which doesn't appear in too many show descriptions. So that's something, at least.

In the event that one of these shows somehow gets canceled, The O'Keefes will present Judge Reinhold in the role he was born to play: a father who has home-schooled his children without letting them ever watch television, experience pop culture, or even, barbaric though it sounds, read sarcastic web pages. And then the children (who "can speak six languages, but are unable to converse with kids their own age") somehow go to public school. It's fish-out-of-water meets schoolyard hijinks! It's Due South meets Welcome Back, Kotter! It's, well, it's a WB midseason replacement. I hope you weren't expecting genius here.