Do not adjust your set. The spate of thirtysome new shows (depending on how you count them) discussed elsewhere in this section really do comprise the TV networks’ fall lineups.
How many of them can find the audience’s wavelength and how many are, at best, on vertical hold will be determined as the season unfolds. But on this page is a preview, of sorts, of the competitive picture at this anticipatory moment in television time. For this tube test, you’ll need a firm grip on the remote and a high tolerance for pop-culture excess.
ABC
Focus
Network goals for the new season
– To successfully launch some new shows that do not involve Regis Philbin or Drew Carey, especially after cutting “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” back to two nights (Monday and Friday).
– To make America fall in love with Jim Belushi, um, all over again (“According to Jim”).
– To have Jason Alexander (“Bob Patterson”) prove something that Michael Richards (“The Michael Richards Show”) and Jerry Seinfeld (annoying advertisements) couldn’t: There is life after “Seinfeld.”
– To rebuild 18-to-49-year-old audience after “Millionaire” aged the network’s demographic.
Brightness
Potential bright spots
– Kim Delaney lawyer drama “Philly” in her old “NYPD Blue” time slot (9 p.m. Tuesday) looks strong.
– “Patterson” has a great concept: Alexander as “America’s No. 3 self-help guru.”
– Quality “Once and Again,” moved to 9 p.m. Fridays, has no time-slot competition for sophisticated soap opera audience.
– Joan Cusack vehicle “What About Joan” returns to schedule, but only after some much-needed behind-the-scenes tinkering.
– NBC’s weak new Tuesday comedies should help ABC’s marginally better laugh slate (“Dharma & Greg,” “Joan,” “Patterson,” “Spin City”).
– The Dennis Miller “Monday Night Football” experiment works, should catch on better with fans in second season.
Contrast
Likely slippery spots
– “Patterson” has disappointing pilot, full of puerile sex jokes.
– Move of “NYPD Blue” to Wednesdays is acknowledgment that longtime hit is on its last legs.
– Cusack vehicle needs remodeling, not just tinkering, to compete with top class of TV comedy.
– Jim isn’t the Belushi America was once in love with.
– Strongest returning reality show is “The Mole.” You remember “The Mole,” don’t you?
– Writers’ insistence on sex business could keep returning “My Wife and Kids” from fulfilling destiny as breakout all-family comedy hit.
CBS
Focus
Network goals for the new season
– To try to swap some of its oldest-in-business viewers for younger ones — and to do this with a new lineup that includes shows about a middle-age college prof (“The Education of Max Bickford”) and a social-worker type (“The Guardian”).
– To relaunch Ellen DeGeneres as a sitcom star (“The Ellen Show”).
– To cross fingers tightly, hoping third time still charming for “Survivor,” this time set in Africa.
– To maintain image of stability while dumping “Diagnosis Murder” and “Nash Bridges” and launching highest number of new series (eight, tied with WB).
Brightness
Potential bright spots
– Only remaining Sunday-night movie slot gives network big competitive edge for that audience.
– Intact Monday lineup bodes well for ratings growth there.
– Hot new reality show, “The Amazing Race,” is genre’s best since “Survivor”; should bring in young viewers by truckload.
– Saturday family drama “Citizen Baines,” from “ER’s” John Wells, could be sleeper, especially against other networks’ movies.
– Underrated sophomore charmer “That’s Life” gets chance to shine in new Friday time slot.
– No more “Walker, Texas Ranger.”
Contrast
Likely slippery spots
– Here’s a good one: Network thinks Daniel Stern (“Danny”) is a comic leading man.
– “Danny” pilot is as treacly as contemporary TV gets.
– Third trip to “Survivor” watering hole could find it dry, especially if charges of rigging events gain any traction.
– Nobility is admirable, but who really wants to watch a show about a scummy lawyer transformed by community-service sentence (“Guardian”)?
– “Wolf Lake,” attempt at “X-Files”-style drama with werewolves, undergoing — uh-oh — more changes than its shape-shifters.
– Richard Dreyfuss (“Max Bickford”)? Every week?
NBC
Focus
Network goals for the new season
– To overcome critics’ perception of new shows as weakest batch among big networks.
– To prove that the nation needs yet another Emeril Lagasse cooking show, this one a sitcom (“Emeril”).
– To successfully launch second night of “The Weakest Link.”
– To introduce, on a network once known for comedy prowess, first successful sitcom since “Will & Grace.”
To build the audience for “Ed.”
Brightness
Potential bright spots
– Third in “Law & Order” franchise (“L&O: Criminal Intent”) looks stronger than creepy but reasonably popular second (“L&O: SVU”).
– No contestant has punched Anne Robinson (“Weakest Link”) yet.
– Jill Hennessy as coroner in smart, hard-edge drama (“Crossing Jordan”) looks like good bet for women viewers — and not a few men — in 9 p.m. Monday time slot.
– Network may have renewed “Ed” out of desperation, but second season could help it catch on.
– Aaron Sorkin (“The West Wing”) apparently able to work full time, despite drug rap.
Contrast
Likely slippery spots
– Great “Frasier” now surrounded by two unpromising freshmen (“Emeril,” “Scrubs”) and very weak sophomore (“Three Sisters”) in potentially disastrous Tuesday lineup.
– Sports theme of “Inside Schwartz” will turn away high number of female viewers from “Friends.”
– Sports theme of “Inside Schwartz” really, really stupid.
– New “UC: Undercover” possibly silliest TV show name yet.
– The novelty of “Weakest Link” will be gone by December.
– Nobody even says “You are the weakest link” anymore. So, you know, goodbye.
FOX
Focus
Network goals for the new season
– To continue last year’s ratings growth among coveted 18-49s, a major rebound from preceding year’s chaos and cluelessness.
– To see “X-Files” through the departure of David Duchovny.
– To bow down and say thanks for continued greatness of “The Simpsons.”
– To build buzz for Oct. 30 debut of riveting new drama, “24.”
Brightness
Potential bright spots
– With “24” as most-anticipated drama, “Undeclared” is probably most talked-about new comedy.
– Deadpan “The Tick” is season’s funniest pilot for network that has quietly become TV’s comedy leader.
– “Dark Angel” may get chance to grow with teen audience in new Friday time period.
– “Ally McBeal” is back on track, although without Robert Downey Jr. this year.
– For, say, a night of heavy beer drinking, you can’t beat the returning Fox Saturday lineup (“COPS” / “COPS” (again) / “America’s Most Wanted”).
Contrast
Likely slippery spots
– Wretched cartoon “Family Guy” somehow finds its way back onto schedule.
– “The Tick” marooned on Thursday nights with “Family Guy” and “Temptation Island 2.”
– Splitting up of “That ’70s Show”/ “Titus” pairing on Tuesdays could wound both.
– No new offering for 7 p.m. Wednesday slot, where other network comedies will rotate.
– Twisted new soap opera “Pasadena” on Fridays could be too sophisticated for Fox audience.
– “Boston Public” continues as a live-action cartoon.
UPN
Focus
Network goals for the new season
– To make everybody understand that, despite the WB’s best efforts to make you think otherwise, “Buffy” isn’t dead. She just migrated here, to the other start-up network.
– To boldly go where no new “Star Trek” franchise has gone before: to the years before the original series with the new “Enterprise.”
– To somehow make its split programming personalities — African-American shows one night, wrestling another, “Star Trek” a third — cohere into an identity.
Brightness
Potential bright spots
– It’s costing the network dearly, but you can’t argue with the wisdom of picking up an established, quality show like “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”
– Pairing “Buffy” with a compatible partner, the WB castoff “Roswell,” also looks sound. They’re the network’s best two returning series.
– Series idea for “Enterprise” is one even a non-Trekkie can like. Less wandering through space, more figuring out how to get there.
– The struggling network, now part of the Viacom family (CBS, MTV), is still in business.
Contrast
Likely slippery spots
– African-American comedies do well with target audience but offer little crossover appeal beyond “Girlfriends.” New “One on One” is especially unpleasant.
– Turning over network to Vince McMahon on Thursdays for “WWF Smackdown!” earns UPN good young-men ratings, but McMahon, not network, banks bulk of ad dollars.
– “Special Unit 2,” pickup from midseason last year about supernatural crime solvers, is absolute dog of show and poor follow-up to “Enterprise.”
– Can’t even come up with a sleazy reality series that people like.
WB
Focus
Network goals for the new season
– To recover from loss of franchise series, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” to archrival UPN.
– To finally launch some comedies that do more than fill up schedule space. It’s trying five.
– To sell country radio star Reba McEntire to America as a sitcom mom (“Reba”).
– To bolster critically adored but underwatched “Gilmore Girls” so it can stand up to “Buffy” in direct competition Tuesdays.
Brightness
Potential bright spots
– “Smallville,” story of Superman as high school hunk, is well regarded by many critics.
– “Gilmore Girls” has real chance to get audience it deserves.
– Former Marilyn Manson squeeze Rose McGowan replaces Shannen Doherty in “Charmed.” Breakup means Manson guest spot unlikely.
– “Dawson’s Creek” kids move to college, meaning show might put oar in water, move forward again.
Contrast
Likely slippery spots
– Delicate “Gilmore Girls” has real chance to crack under the pressure of replacing “Buffy.”
– To have reality on schedule, network reduced to running version of syndicated love-match series “Elimidate.”
– Second version of “Popstars” on schedule, meaning more prefab teen pop a la Eden’s Crush.
– None of new comedies likely to make more of an impression than, say, “Nikki” did last season.
– Bob Saget (“Raising Dad”)?
– To fill Sunday schedule, network reduced to picking up “Ripley’s Believe It or Not!” I don’t believe it.
