New fall TV season filled with memories. (Midyear 2002: What's Ahead?).

NOSTALGIA, not reality, is the common denominator among many of the several new shows debuting this fall on broadcast networks.

Led by Burbank-based WB Network and NBC, the fall TV season will feature a handful of series set in the 1970s and 1980s as well as some out-and-out revivals of TV shows from the 1960s.

And a number of Valley-based production companies are at the heart of this drive to profit from nostalgia as the broadcast networks try to retrench and attract viewers.

"Shows about the '70s or '80s appeal to people because things were so much simpler then," said Stacy Lynn Koerner, an analyst with Initiative Media Inc.

With Valley-based companies like Dick Clark Productions Inc. producing "That Was Then," Sid & Marty Krofft Productions' "Family Affair," and Universal Pictures' "Dragnet," the fall TV season may look familiar to many viewers.

Already, Studio City-based Carsey-Werner-Mandabach LLC has tapped the nostalgia theme with its three-year-old "That 70s Show" and its recently canceled "That 80s Show."

As perhaps a reaction to the horrific Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the fall TV schedule will have no courtroom dramas, spy shows or programs based on unsolved criminal conspiracies. Instead it will focus on sitcoms, dramas and crime shows with a positive view of law enforcement and government authorities.

WB, which finished fifth in the ratings race among the six broadcast networks during the past TV season, is hoping nostalgia will fuel its fall hopes with its remake of the 1960s comedy "Family Affair" and its new "Do Over," set in 1987.

"Do Over" follows 34-year-old Joel Larsen, an unmarried and dissatisfied salesman, after a freak accident jettisons him back to 1981 and his freshman year of high school.

Produced by former NBC Entertainment President Warren Littlefield, the show aims to strike a chord with those who recall the 1980s Reagan-era conservatism and the New Wave music movement among teens.

"It was a very strange era which really pitted this Reagan conservatism with the rebelliousness of youth of the period," Littlefield said. "We want to bring back some of the feeling of that period and give people a sense of nostalgia."

ABC is trotting out "That Was Then," a one-hour drama with a theme similar to the WB's comedic "Do Over." The ABC version deals with the life of a teenager in 1987. Jeff Kline, the show's executive producer, said it is really about second chances in an era known for its conservatism and excesses.

"The '80s were really a lot of fun for a lot of people," he said.

Likewise, NBC is counting on "American Dream," a one- hour drama which deals with a Philadelphia family in the 1970s, to put some pop into its fall Sunday night lineup. The show is produced by Burbank-based Dick Clark Productions.

NBC Entertainment President Jeff Zucker told reporters last month that the show is a departure from the network's successful formula of hard-edged dramas like "Law & Order" and "West Wing."

Besides shows set in the past, series from the past will make their mark with new casts and story lines set in the present.

New versions of the 1960s hits 'The Twilight Zone" and "Family Affair" also will make their network debuts this fall, on UPN and the WB, respectively. Two other '60s relics, "Dragnet" and "The Time Tunnel," are set for debut in January.

The focus on nostalgia is a deliberate response to a year of television news focusing on terrorist attacks, the war in Afghanistan and worsening economic news, Koerner said.

"These shows bring people back to a time when things were simpler and you didn't have to worry about terrorists or anthrax," she said.

With combined losses of more than $4 billion in advertising revenue last fall due to round-the-clock news coverage in the aftermath of terrorist attacks, the broadcast networks are hoping to attract viewers and bolster their bottom lines, Koerner said.