TV SERVES UP LEFTOVERS; NETWORKS TURN TIRED TRENDS INTO `MUST'VE SEEN IT' FARE.

Byline: Keith Marder Daily News Television Writer

Don't like standing in line for movies?

Think the stage is for snobs?

Not much of a reader?

Don't worry, because if anything is good in another medium, television is bound to do its own treatment - albeit a watered down and homogenized version.

Television, particularly network prime-time programming, has lost its will to take risks. And with all the new shows based on tired trends scheduled to air this season, which officially starts Monday, television is quickly solidifying its status as the lagging indicator of popular culture.

Gone are the days when a network would risk offending some viewers and advertisers for the sake of quality with such shows as ``NYPD Blue.'' This year's raciest effort is ``Will & Grace,'' about a gay man and his female buddy. But take the homosexuality away, and you have another ho-hum half-hour.

``Because of television's position of being in the home, it has a desire not to offend the mass audience,'' said Anna Everett, assistant professor in film studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. ``They need to play it safe. And when you play it safe you don't tend to be a leader. You want to rely on something that is a proven success. Television really wants to shun controversy.''

But by doing so, TV is also shunning viewers. Network ratings are at an all-time low, and viewers are moving to cable programs such as HBO's ``Oz'' and Comedy Central's ``South Park,'' which take chances and break new ground.

Industry watchers say the viewer exodus to cable is largely happening because networks are content to rehash old stories and premises. True to form, the new fall schedule is more of the same, with plenty of shows playing off themes already proven to be popular.

More than two years ago, platform shoes and hip huggers sneaked back into teen fashions. Then those '70s images resurfaced to mainstream consciousness with such theatrical releases as ``Boogie Nights,'' ``54'' and ``The Ice Storm.''

Feature films already have moved on to the '80s with ``The Last Days of Disco,'' ``The Wedding Singer'' and ``There's Something About Mary.''

And, what does television do?

It has launched ``That '70s Show'' (Fox). ``The Hughleys'' (ABC) and ``Living in Captivity'' (Fox) are updates of ``The Jeffersons.'' Syndicated game shows such as ``Hollywood Squares'' and ``Match Game'' are back. So is ``Fantasy Island'' (ABC) and ``Donny & Marie'' (in syndication).

Even ``Charlie's Angels'' is rumored to be on its way back, and Mary Tyler Moore and Rhoda Morgenstern will return as soon as they get a script they like.

Another new program, ``Buddy Faro'' (CBS), is about a guy who has been out of circulation for 20 years and finds that not much has changed. That description could almost stand for the new television season.

Spelling speaks

``I think (the '70s) was a period of sheer entertainment and escapism,'' said ``Buddy Faro'' executive producer Aaron Spelling (responsible for the original ``Love Boat'' and ``Fantasy Island,'' and ``Charlie's Angels''), who remade ``The Love Boat'' last season for UPN. ``In this country, with terrorism, the stock market going down and kids getting killed in school, we need that. `Escapism,' for the last eight years, was a dirty word on television.''

And so, to please that all-important television demographic - 18-to-49-year olds, the group with the most disposable income - television is feathering some hair, playing some disco and rolling out the shag carpet to welcome audiences back to one of the most recognizable decades of the century.

Like smiley faces and revamped old series, the sudden presence of Irish families or Irish neighborhoods in new television shows this season is no accident.

Over the last few years, the public has responded to many things that are Irish.

First Michael Flatley pranced across the stage in ``Riverdance'' and later as ``The Lord of the Dance,'' firing up a national frenzy over Irish clog dancing. Then ``Angela's Ashes,'' a memoir about an author's life in Ireland and subsequent exodus to the United States, climbed the best-seller list. Celtic music is dominating world-music sales. Even the Titanic stopped in Ireland.

Emerald envy

The men and women behind television must have smelled a good sell because, as luck would have it, the networks are launching seven shows focusing on Irish families: ``Wind on Water'' (NBC), ``Trinity'' (NBC), ``Legacy'' (UPN), ``Hyperion Bay'' (The WB), ``Turks'' (in midseason on CBS), ``To Have and to Hold'' (CBS), and ``Costello'' (Fox), the latter two set in South Boston, home to hit movie ``Good Will Hunting.''

By most accounts, the hip quotient of being Irish in American crested in the early '60s.

``I thought it had come and gone,'' said Pulitzer Prize-winning author William Kennedy (``Ironweed''). ``We had the era of James Cagney, Ann Sheridan and Dennis Morgan, and it peaked when (John F.) Kennedy was in the White House. What's happening now is the return to the origin of those people. It's a very odd thing.''

Kennedy's fascination with his people stems from the struggles they have had in their homeland. But those memories were too painful for many early Irish immigrants, so much so that some tried to hide their Irish roots.

``The renaissance has to do with this new generation being far enough removed from the hostility to their past (to be) interested about it,'' he said.

The popularity of ``Riverdance'' is clear evidence that the Irish are proud to be Irish again, says UC Santa Barbara's Everett.

``The `Riverdance' phenomenon can't be underestimated,'' Everett said. ``There is almost a kind of `me, too,' ethnicity in a kind of otherness. There is a focus back to ethnicity within whiteness, an attention to whiteness in a multicultural age.''

Give her a break

Of course, sometimes a coincidence is just a coincidence.

Joanne Waters, executive producer of ``To Have and to Hold,'' thinks any look into the Irish assault on prime time is overanalysis. Her program, she says, is more of a throwback to the romantic comedies of the '40s such as ``Adam's Rib'' and ``His Girl Friday.''

``They're not dancing jigs,'' she said of her characters. ``The only reason these people are Irish is because I'm Irish. We did not sit around with the network executives to come up with an Irish show. People are just stereotyping it. It's not like we're gonna sit around and have a major St. Patrick's Day parade.''

But if parades suddenly become a national passion, if America started doling out all kinds of money to see movies about parades, buy books about the making of parades, listen to marching band music from the country's biggest parades, don't be surprised if television networks produce competing parade programs. ``Trinity,'' set cross-town from the location of New York's famous St. Patrick's Day Parade would certainly have a very special episode to mark the event. That is, if it's still on the air.

Television is cannibalistic by nature, says Dr. Gary Burns, associate professor of communication at Northern Illinois University and president of the American Culture Association, a group of about 1,000 academics.

``It's the most voracious medium,'' Burns said. ``It eats up everything else and partially digests it and spits it back out.''

CAPTION(S):

Drawing, 2 Photos, Box

Drawing: (Cover--Color) EVERYTHING NEW IS OLD AGAIN

Jon Gerung/Daily News

Photo: (1--2) ABC's new ``Fantasy Island'' (above), starring Edward Hibbert, left, Malcolm McDowell and Louie Lombardi, updates the 1978-84 series (inset) that featured Ricardo Montalban, left, and the late Herve Villechaize.

Box: PRIME-TIME 1998-99