THE FALL GUIDE WHAT TO EXPECT IN THE COMING SEASON.

Byline: David Kronke Television Critic

It may not be long before kids, when fall lurches into view on the calendar, begin looking forward to the start of school more than to the new TV season. Before that unholy day, we handicap the new network shows, as ugly as it might get.

SUNDAY

NBC's ``Boomtown'' is predicated on an old idea, one that creator Graham Yost (screenwriter for ``Speed'') insists he hasn't seen on TV - Akira Kurosawa's classic film ``Roshomon,'' in which sundry witnesses offer their perspectives to a specific act. In this cop-show iteration, a crime is played out from the different viewpoints of police officers, city officials, journalists and other players. By network TV standards, it's an adventurous and potentially intriguing premise, with the bonus of a good cast.

Also on NBC, ``American Dreams'' offers a look at the more innocent - certainly by today's standards - 1960s, particularly through the eyes of a family living in Philadelphia, where it survives both the decade's turmoil and the city's hosting the TV phenomenon ``American Bandstand.'' (This series seems to belong in the 8 p.m. time slot on CBS more than what CBS has placed there.) The '60s are also evoked in ``Oliver Beene,'' a Fox comedy about younger kids who recall grosser bodily urges of that era and beyond.

CBS' ``Bram and Alice'' - in the time slot once held staunchly by ``Touched by an Angel''- is a stale father-knows-worst retread that promises to alienate most of its viewers with its pilot episode, which is one long incest joke (incest gags aren't by their very nature evil, unless they're promulgated in drearily staid sitcom fashion). ``Bram and Alice'' would be the worst show on any night that didn't feature Fox's ``The Grubbs,'' a tiresome celebration of underachievers that serves as an unwittingly sage metaphor for the new fall season in general.

MONDAY

``CSI: Miami'' (CBS) is the lone gimme of the fall season, a reasonably solid spinoff of a white-hot police procedurals series. But don't discount the WB's ``Everwood,'' a smart and heartfelt family drama about a father attempting to reconnect with his estranged family in an exotic local and whose only sin is trying too hard to find unique characters and situations.

After that, the quality falls off significantly. CBS' sitcom ``Still Standing'' is a standard-issue family sitcom that benefits greatly from a good cast (including Mark Eddy and Jamie Gertz) and some pithy one-liners. UPN's ``Half and Half'' is programmatic piffle about an upscale teen befriending one who's slightly downscale. Fox's ``girls club,'' from creator David E. Kelley, was unavailable at press time, but from a smattering looks to be little more than rehashed ``Ally McBeal.''

TUESDAY

ABC's ``8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter'' looks to be its lone bid for new-found respect, though that's not saying much. John Ritter stars as a beleaguered father trying to make sense of the New World Order, in which teenage girls are more attuned to the way things are these days than hopelessly recherche fathers; viewers will likely be able to relate, no matter which side of the generation gap they're on.

After that, you might want to tune out. ``Life With Bonnie'' (ABC) offers the talented Bonnie Hunt in a curiously humdrum comedy as a working mom whose job just happens to be hosting a local morning TV show. (Series about TV have been notorious crash-and-burn affairs - think ``Action'' or ``Wednesdays at 9:30 (8:30 Central)'' - but that somehow doesn't keep the networks from trying again and again.) ``The In-Laws'' offers the usually reliable Dennis Farina and Jean Smart as domineering parents of newlyweds - alas, the jokes could've just as easily come from the '50s.

UPN's ``Haunted'' re-creates ``The Sixth Sense'' as a cop show: A private detective sees dead people - is one of them his missing son? As grim as it sounds, it'll likely have more laughs than the evening's two remaining new sitcoms - ``Less Than Perfect'' (ABC), a you've-seen-it-a-million-times-and-funnier corporate satire starring the likable Sara Rue, and ``Hidden Hills'' (NBC), a suburban comedy too out of touch with reality to be considered horrifically cliched.

WEDNESDAY

Fox's pilot for ``Cedric the Entertainer Presents'' offered iffy comedy but a very funny cast; it has bolstered its writing staff with members of those from Bob Oedenkirk and David Cross' sketch-comedy show.

UPN's ``The Twilight Zone'' (unavailable at press time) will live and die on its weekly premises, but it has an undisputable imprimatur. ``Birds of Prey'' (WB) isn't exploiting its legacy enough - it's drawn, loosely, from the ``Batman'' mythology - but probably represents the dodgiest pilot with the greatest chance of getting fixed as the show goes to series.

``Presidio Med'' (CBS) has a good cast but humdrum story lines, and ``MD's'' (ABC) has both humdrum story lines and characters. Fox's ``Fastlane'' is both aggressively stupid and sexy, which could make it a surprise hit or a predictable embarrassment.

THURSDAY

Inexplicably, the WB thrusts its promising comedy ``Do Over,'' which boasts a livelier take on the same concept as ABC's Friday throwaway ``That Was Then'' - a 30-something relives his high-school years - into the ``Friends''/``Scrubs''/``Survivor'' time slot.

CBS' ``Without a Trace'' gets an iffy time slot (opposite ``ER'') with a decent if terribly familiar premise - it concerns an FBI missing-persons team - while NBC's ``Good Morning Miami'' reaps a decent time slot with an iffy premise: a romantic comedy about a news producer taking on a hopeless morning show because he's smitten with the staff cutie. Question: How long, realistically, would this shmo sit around waiting for her to fall for him until he'd just wise up and accept one of his better job offers?

After that, it's all mush. ``Family Affair'' (WB) re-creates the '60s sitcom with not enough notably new spin. ABC's ``Push, Nevada'' offers a humdrum mystery in faux-eccentric drapery with an interactive spin - it'll appeal to folks who think they have a chance of winning the money because everyone else is watching ``CSI'' and ``Will & Grace.''

Fox's offerings are clearly bottom-drawer: The reality drudges ``30 Seconds to Fame'' and ``Meet the Marks,'' which premiered to subpar ratings over the summer, and ``Septuplets,'' about a lot of horny teens seducing guests at their parents' beachside resort (there are already a lot of people convinced this will never actually get on the air).

FRIDAY

I get the sense the networks, save Fox, aren't even trying on this night, and Fox seems to be aiming at a crowd that isn't home on Friday evening. Fox's ``Firefly,'' from Joss Whedon (``Buffy the Vampire Slayer'') and CBS' ``Robbery Homicide Division,'' from Michael Mann (``Ali,'' ``Miami Vice'') didn't even bother to grace critics with pilot tapes, but nonetheless they seem more promising than the other new shows. Whedon's is a western couched as a sci-fi epic; Mann's is yet another cop procedural.

The WB's ``What I Like About You'' at least boasts the eminently likable Amanda Bynes in very familiar sitcom environs. Fox's ``John Doe'' has a dopey premise - a guy who knows everything on Earth except his own identity - with a charismatic lead.

``Greetings From Tucson,'' from the WB, is a multigenerational and multiethnic comedy that could be funnier. ABC's ``That Was Then'' is the WB's ``Do Over'' writ as an uninteresting hourlong dramedy, while CBS' ``Hack'' squanders talent like David Morse and Andre Braugher in a turgid melodrama about a crime-fighting cab driver.

SATURDAY

It's the same old, same old.

CAPTION(S):

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Photo:

(1 -- 3) New on the tub: ``Life With Bonnie,'' ``Less Than Perfect,'' ``The Grubbs''

(4 -- 5) Flashback: ``American Dreams,'' ``Family Affair''