CBS Readies 9 New Shows for Fall

“The Equalizer” and “Kate & Allie” were canceled and “Beauty and the Beast” was relegated to backup status as CBS made room Friday for 7 1/2 hours of new prime-time programming for the 1989-90 TV season.

Replacing them and such first-season fare as “Jesse Hawks,” “Hard Time on Planet Earth,” “Live-In” and “Heartland” will be three comedies, one reality-based series and five dramas, including one in which Richard Chamberlain, who achieved stardom on “Dr. Kildare” in the early 1960s, returns to series TV as a doctor.

CBS’ other new shows are also peppered with former series stars, among them Lindsay Wagner, Tim Reid, Gerald McRaney, Jack Scalia and William Katt.

Of 14 series that CBS introduced in the 1988-89 season, only the Candice Bergen comedy “Murphy Brown” and the family series “Paradise” were renewed for a second season. Among the casualties were “TV 101,” “The Van Dyke Show,” the Mary Tyler Moore vehicle “Annie McGuire,” “Dirty Dancing,” “Close to Home,” “Almost Grown” and “Coming of Age.” Also being dropped come fall is the Tuesday night movie slot.

Kim LeMasters, president of CBS Entertainment, said that declining ratings had necessitated the cancellation of the four-year-old “Equalizer” series, but he emphasized that the network has not abandoned the two-year-old “Beauty and the Beast,” whose ratings also dropped this season. Twelve episodes have been ordered, he said, but they will not begin in the fall because the fantasy drama is going to undergo creative revamping.

In a satellite press conference from New York, LeMasters said that “Beauty and the Beast” had suffered more damage from last summer’s Writers Guild of America strike than many other shows because its literate scripts required extra writing time. It was dealt another blow by the Teamsters strike, he said, which forced writers to keep most of the action cloistered in the underground world that the Beast inhabits because that was “literally the only standing set” and new ones could not be built.

Also being revamped, but on the fall schedule nonetheless, will be CBS’ low-rated news magazine “West 57th,” now to be anchored by Connie Chung following her well-publicized defection from NBC in February. LeMasters said the series’ tentative new title is “West 57th With Connie Chung.”

CBS’ other prime-time news hours, “60 Minutes” and “48 Hours,” also will return in the fall.

The fall schedule features an all-comedy night on Monday, with three new shows--”Major Dad,” “The People Next Door” and “The Famous Teddy Z”--interspersed with the network’s successful comedies of last year, “Murphy Brown,” “Designing Women” and “Newhart.”

The lineup also will introduce an all-new Tuesday night, with the reality-based show “Rescue 911,” featuring real-life acts of heroism by firefighters, paramedics and other emergency workers, hosted by William Shatner, followed by the hour drama “Wolf,” a private eye show set in San Francisco and starring Jack Scalia, and “The Hawaiian,” which sets miniseries king Chamberlain (“The Thorn Birds,” “Shogun”) loose on “Magnum, P.I.” turf as a doctor at a large metropolitan hospital in Hawaii.

Here are descriptions of the other new CBS series:

“Major Dad”: Stars Gerald McRaney (of “Simon and Simon”) and Shanna Reed in a comedy about a peacetime marine adjusting to life on a stateside base, as well as entering into a new marriage with a newspaper reporter and becoming father to her three daughters.

“The People Next Door”: Stars Jeffrey Jones, Mary Gross, Jaclyn Bernstein, Chance Quinn and Christina Pickels in a fantasy-comedy about a cartoonist with a new psychologist wife and two children whose imaginary characters magically spring to life.

“The Famous Teddy Z”: Features Jon Cryer (“Pretty in Pink”) as young Teddy Zakalokis, a kid from the mail room of Unlimited Talent Agency who inadvertently becomes the agent for the “greatest actor in the world.” The show co-stars Alex Rocco, Milton Selzer, Jane Sibbett, Tom La Grua and Josh Blake. Lainie Kazan had been cast as Teddy’s mother, but she left the show because of creative differences with the producers; the role is being rewritten as Teddy’s grandmother and will be played by Erica Yohn.

“A Peaceable Kingdom”: A family drama starring Lindsay Wagner “The Bionic Woman,” “Jessie”) as Rebecca Cafferty, the managing director of a large metropolitan zoo, trying to juggle job duties with raising her young children. Tom Wopat stars as Dr. Jed McFadden, a curator with a romantic interest in Rebecca.

“Top of the Hill”: A drama involving the adventures of a 29-year-old surfer and outdoorsman who is the “newest, youngest and most unlikely” member of Congress.” William Katt (“The Greatest American Hero”) stars.

“Snoops”: “Frank’s Place” duo Tim and Daphne Maxwell Reid star in a mystery drama as Chance and Micki Dennis, a Washington, D.C.-based criminology professor and head of protocol for the State Department.

The night-by-night schedule:

Monday: “Major Dad,” “The People Next Door,” “Murphy Brown,” “The Famous Teddy Z,” “Designing Women.”

Tuesday: “Rescue 911,” “Wolf,” “The Hawaiian.”

Wednesday: “A Peaceable Kingdom,” “Jake and the Fatman,” “Wiseguy.”

Thursday: “48 Hours,” “Top of the Hill,” “Knots Landing.”

Friday: “Snoops,” “Dallas,” “Falcon Crest.”

Saturday: “Paradise,” “Tour of Duty,” “West 57th.”

Sunday: “60 Minutes,” “Murder, She Wrote,” “CBS Sunday Movie.”