NETWORKS SERVE UP MORE OF THE SAME; FAMILIAR FACES AND OLD IDEAS JAM SCHEDULE.

Byline: Keith Marder Daily News Television Writer

At age 6, Jonathan Lipnicki is about to embark on his second television show.

The ``Jerry Maguire'' scene-stealer's career in TV is right on schedule. Television networks spend more than half the year repeating what we have already seen, then when it's time for another season, they recycle familiar faces and themes for the new shows.

The 1997 fall season just announced by the six networks is jam-packed with familiar faces. Tony Danza returns in a self-titled show to play a guy named Tony - for the fourth time. Tom Arnold is back for his fourth series, this one called ``The Tom Arnold Show.'' Bob Newhart (sixth sitcom) and Judd Hirsch (fifth series) are back - and together - in ``George & Leo.''

In 35 new shows, there are 36 recognizable former series regulars, including Scott Baio (his eighth series), Kirstie Alley (her third), Kevin Nealon (third) and Annie Potts (fifth). Lipnicki, a ``Jeff Foxworthy Show'' alum, is paired up with Bronson Pinchot (fifth).

These aren't the big names the networks trotted out a year ago, when shows were built around Bill Cosby, Ted Danson and Michael J. Fox. These are television journeymen (and women), guns for hire. Television's repeat offenders.

Now, having time-tested actors is no guarantee of success. Just ask Mary Tyler Moore, who despite five tries has never come close to repeating the success of ``The Mary Tyler Moore Show.'' Danza, Arnold and Newhart all failed last time out.

The premises of the new shows hardly appear to be on the cutting edge, either.

``You look at the schedule and you just hope that one of these sitcoms will stop being paint-by-number, connect-the-dots sitcoms by committee,'' said Dorothy Swanson, president and founder of Viewers for Quality Television. ``They are definitely playing it safe. It's getting more and more like that.''

Of the new entertainment series, 10 of the shows feature some sort of legal-system character (cop, ex-cop for hire or lawyer), seven are about nontraditional families, five deal with supernatural themes ranging from aliens to genies to scientists studying dreams, and two focus on the lives of men of the cloth.

We have seen all of this over and over again. The safe approach is noteworthy in the face of the audience erosion during the networks' most competitively challenging period ever in the face of cable and increasing use of home computers.

``Television to some extent has always been recycling, but now they are doing it on a much grander scale,'' said Robert Thompson, director of the center for the study of popular television at Syracuse University's Newhouse School of Journalism. ``TV, for the most part, by nature of its market, is consistently recycling and has little evolutions and little mutations that change things.

``We are well overdue for a major mutation.''

When something works on television, it's a sure bet to expect a lot more of the same. Remember the cloning of ``Friends'' two years before scientists cloned a sheep, and last year's attempt by NBC and Fox to tap into ``The X-Files' '' audience? If there wasn't a ``Seinfeld,'' do you think there would be 20 shows on the schedule featuring stand-up comics?

Still, there is a sense of denial among network executives. During NBC's ``Up Front'' presentation, in which the network unveiled its new lineup to the advertising world, entertainment president Warren Littlefield said, ``If ever there was a time to sit back and put our feet on the desk and smoke a Cohiba, this is it. We've embraced change, not complacency, and that's how we'll stay on top.''

Change, though, amounted to changing the time slot of eight of the network's entertainment shows and adding eight new ones that are remarkably like those in the existing lineup. Little innovation was noticeable.

``If people don't start turning the channel or turning the set off, this is what we are going to get - the networks think the American public wants them,'' Swanson said of the current slate of shows, dubbing NBC's string of Monday-night comedies starring high-profile women ``Mindless Monday.''

``These NBC sitcoms, you can see why they keep putting them on. People watch them.''

Addressing the tendency of networks following NBC's lead with epic miniseries, NBC West Coast president Don Ohlmeyer said, ``Imitation is the sincerest form of television.

``If we see something someone is doing well, we will imitate it also.''

Which brings us back to the problem. Syracuse's Thompson says the last major shift in the way shows are put together was in the early '80s, when shows such as ``Hill Street Blues'' and ``Cheers'' offered a new, upscale, literate approach to television.

He dates the beginning of this theory back to the '50s, when it all started with live theater being introduced to the masses. In the mid-'50s, film and then the western made their television debut. The next trend, he said, was the rural sitcom concept that introduced ``The Beverly Hillbillies'' and ``Green Acres'' in the early '60s. A decade later, television offered up the satirically and politically oriented comedies: ``Mary Tyler Moore,'' ``All in the Family'' and ``MASH.''

Ten years after the beginning of Mary, Hawkeye and Archie, we had a dichotomy in jiggle-vision featuring scantily clad bombshells in comedy shows (for example, Suzanne Somers in ``Three's Company'') and the literate show that exists today in the likes of ``NYPD Blue'' and ``Homicide.''

``I think we're about five years overdue for the next major move in network television,'' Thompson said.

Thompson said that there was one hope for a new genre in the past 16 years - the dramedy, a serious half-hour show that took its shot at the end of the '80s. The only successes were ``Doogie Howser, M.D.'' and ``The Wonder Years.'' Later tries such as ``South Central'' failed.

In addition to sticking with proven faces, network programmers tend to go with producers who have proven past performances. Three of five shows on CBS' almost-all-new Friday night are from Miller-Boyett-Warren Productions, which all but invented the kidcom. Onetime ABC staples ``Family Matters'' and ``Step by Step'' will be joined by ``Meego,'' which returns three actors to television - Pinchot, Lipnicki and Ed Begley Jr.

Stephen Bochco, the king of the cop shows (``Hill Street Blues,'' ``NYPD Blue'') has two new law-enforcement series on the schedule - ``Brooklyn South'' on CBS and ``Total Security'' on ABC.

David E. Kelley, who got his start on ``L.A. Law'' and created the lawyer show ``The Practice,'' is at the helm of ``Ally McBeal,'' an offbeat legal drama on Fox.

The Bright/Kauffman/Crane team, which gave us ``Friends,'' has created another NBC Thursday night sitcom, Alley's ``Veronica's Closet.''

Such track records are a safety net. Generally, these TV veterans are not daring or innovative.

If only the rest of America were as good as the networks at recycling.

TV veterans and their new

assignments

Here's a look at some of the actors who are making a television comeback:

Judd Hirsch (``George & Leo,'' CBS), David Caruso (``Michael Hayes,'' CBS), Kadeem Hardison and Tommy Davidson (``Between Brothers'' Fox), Kelly Coffield and Richard Roundtree (``413 Hope Street,'' Fox), Tim Curry (``Over the Top,'' ABC), Richard Lewis and Eugene Levy (Hiller Diller,'' ABC), Fred Savage (``Working,'' NBC), Kirstie Alley, Dan Cortese and Wally Langham (``Veronica's Closet,'' NBC), Jenny McCarthy (``Jenny,'' NBC) and Paul Winfield (``Built to Last,'' NBC).

And failure does not preclude an actor from future roles. Here are a dozen players whose last shows didn't make it to a second season.

Tom Arnold, last seen in ``Tom,'' will reappear in the WB's ``The Tom Arnold Show.''

Bill Brochtrup, last seen in ``Public Morals,'' will reappear in ABC's ``Total Security.''

Andrew Dice Clay, last seen in ``Bless This House,'' will reappear in UPN's ``Hitz.''

Tony Danza, last seen in ``Hudson Street,'' will reappear in NBC's ``The Tony Danza Show.''

Jenna Elfman, last seen in ``Townies,'' will reappear in ABC's ``Dharma & Greg.''

Flex, last seen in ``Homeboys in Outer Space,'' will reappear in ABC's ``Total Security.''

Bruce Greenwood, last seen in ``Nowhere Man,'' will reappear in NBC's ``Sleepers.''

Kevin Nealon, last seen in ``Champs,'' will reappear in ABC's ``Hiller Diller.''

Bob Newhart, last seen in ``Bob,'' will reappear in CBS' ``George & Leo.''

Robert Pastorelli, last seen in ``Double Rush,'' will reappear in ABC's ``Cracker.

Annie Potts, last seen in ``Dangerous Minds,'' will reappear in ``Over the Top.''

D.B. Sweeney, last seen in ``Strange Luck,'' will reappear in ABC's ``C16: FBI.''

CAPTION(S):

8 Photos, Box

Photo: (1--Cover--Color) Tom Arnold

show 4

(2--Cover--Color) Kirstie Alley

show 3

(3--Cover--Color) Kevin Nealon

show 3

(4--Cover--Color) Bob Newhart

show 6

(5--Cover--Color) Tony Danza

show 4

(6--Cover--Color) Scott Baio

show 8

(7) TV sitcom veterans Jonathan Lipnicki, top, and Bronson Pinchot star in ``Meego'' for CBS.

(8) After the media blitz accompanying her MTV ``Singled Out'' gig, NBC tapped Jenny McCarthy, right, to star with Heather Paige in ``Jenny.''

Box: TV veterans and their new assignments (See Text)