The Television Season That Might Have Been

I hate to be an old “I told you so,” but . . . I told you so.

The overwhelming bulk of the fall season’s new series are not only nerds creatively, but also failures in the ratings. Earliest casualties to date are “The People Next Door” on CBS and “The Nutt House” on NBC, and other cancellations seem imminent.

The only new series approaching hit status is ABC’s “Chicken Soup,” but even it may be endangered for not holding enough of the audience of its powerful lead-in, “Roseanne.”

Ah, the networks. When will they learn?

Time after time I share my ideas with them, and time after time they blindly ignore my genius. Well, this is it. I’ve said that before, but this time I mean it. Unequivocally. No more chances.

Once again, here are my own proposals for guaranteed hits:

“Alien Yiddish Comics?” Heavy social drama. A spaceship carrying 300,000 aliens from another galaxy lands on Earth. The aliens attempt to assimilate into human society, but there are problems because they all look and talk like Jackie Mason.

“Saturday Night With Connie Chungs.” In-depth news. The emphasis is on simulations, with a different actress playing Connie Chung each week and a “900” number flashed on the screen to allow viewers to vote for their favorite.

“PrimeTime Tape With Nobody You Know.” In-depth news. This is the new journalism, a trailblazing show on the edge that leaves behind the staleness of live TV for the danger and excitement of videotape, hosted by rare TV journalists who have not been featured in People magazine.

“RoboCops.” Reality/live action/ cinema verite . Camera crews closely follow squads of cyborg police, capturing the action and intense personal drama as they annihilate an entire city and themselves in pursuit of drug dealers and users.

“Living Dulls.” Comedy. Four really dull young models live with a really dull woman who owns a modeling agency. Together they do really dull things. A very relaxing show.

“Rod ‘n’ Red.” Police/action. The unlikely pairing of two detectives results in riveting drama that’s not for the fainthearted. Rod is totally off the wall and loves roaring around town in his souped-up hot rod. Red is just the opposite, doing everything by the book. Unfortunately for Rod, Red’s book is The Communist Manifesto. That’s where they clash, producing dialogue that’s electrifying.

Rod: “The price of spark plugs is getting out of hand, man.”

Red: “See here, Rod, property in its present form is based on the antagonism of capital and wage-labor. Let us examine both sides of this antagonism.”

“Dif’rent Notes: The Adventures of Bing Cosby.” Comedy. A white family adopts a pipe-smoking, tiny black crooner who constantly irritates them by singing Christmas carols.

“Me.” Interview. Each week Barbara Walters is interviewed by a different celebrity.

“What If ...?” News. Fascinating docudrama-style simulations of speculations on the impact of wildly improbable likelihoods. The premiere episode (“Bread Against Bullets”) has Israeli troops occupying the Left Bank in Paris, thereby incurring the wrath of the residents, who dramatically resist by hurling their breakfast baguettes at the heavily armed soldiers.

“Doogie Quixote, W.K.” Comedy/drama. Idealistic Doogie Quixote juggles two lives. To his fellow 8-year-olds and oafish best friend, Sancho Panza, he’s just one of the guys. To those who encounter him roaming the countryside on his bicycle and challenging windmills and flocks of sheep, however, he’s Doogie Quixote, Wandering Knight. After suffering the insults of other wandering knights four times his age, he ultimately wins their trust. A fine tribute to the Cervantes classic.

“Just the 36 of Us.” Comedy. A widower with four children marries a divorcee with five children. She dies, making him a single parent with nine kids. After marrying a widow with 10 children, he dies, leaving her with 19 kids to look after. She marries and moves in with a single man who lives with his parents, grandparents and five sisters, one of whom adopts six unruly orphans. Then the high jinks begin.

“Phantom of the Soap Operas.” Horror. Still bitterly resentful of being taken off the air, a deranged and hideously contorted Blake Carrington of ABC’s defunct “Dynasty” haunts CBS, methodically murdering the characters of “Dallas,” “Falcon Crest” and “Knots Landing.”

“Rescue 30 Share.” Reality. Go behind the scenes of the television industry for re-creations of actual attempts of networks to courageously rescue shows from cancellation. Sample: “Maybe if we change the title, no one will notice it’s the same show.”

“Wise Goy.” Drama/intrigue. An undercover Gentile infiltrates the Jewish Defense League.

“Capitol Game.” Drama/adventure. A dynamic young congressman also finds time to play quarterback for the Washington Redskins.

“Anything But Roseanne.” Comedy. A young couple meet and are attracted to each other despite having absolutely nothing in common. Nothing, that is, except their mutual dislike of a certain TV series. Their friends and family try every hilarious scheme imaginable to change their minds, but it’s no use. This stubborn pair will watch just about anything on television, anything but “Roseanne.”

“The Tammy Faye Movie Package.” Light drama. Tammy Faye Bakker puts the past behind her, affirming her acting talents in a series of TV movies about a naive country girl: “Tammy Faye and the Bachelor,” “Tammy Faye and the Doctor,” “Tammy Faye and the Millionaire” and “Tammy Faye Tell Me True.” For a change of pace, there’s also “Tammantula,” with Tammy Fay playing a huge spider that sings hymns as it devours the countryside.

“The Zsa Zsa Package.” Zsa Zsa Gabor rebounds from her troubles, displaying her versatility in an array of exciting projects. The Zsa Zsa hot line: She calls you. The Zsa Zsa talk show: “No Guests Needed.” The Zsa Zsa game show: “What’s My Age?” The true cornerstones of the package, however, are the dramatic projects. The adventure film: “Zsa Zsa Dawn,” where a company of British soldiers in 19th-Century Africa is ambushed and wiped out by hordes of Zsa Zsas. The horror film: “Zsacula,” in which Zsa Zsa sucks not only the blood from her victims, but also the intelligence.

As a companion, finally, there is the Zsa Zsa Jokebook. Sample: How much is one Zsa plus one Zsa? Two Zsas too many.