ABC Heads the Class as Networks Scramble for Fall : Television: Shows such as ‘The Wonder Years,’ ‘Twin Peaks’ and ‘thirtysomething’ set ABC apart. But watch out for Fox as it shifts ‘The Simpsons’ against NBC’s ‘Cosby.’

After all the huffing and puffing over the networks’ new fall schedules during the last 10 days, one simple fact stands out: ABC is still the place to be when the 1990-91 season debuts.

More than 30 new series were announced by NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox. And when the dust cleared, ABC again looked like the class of the field, by far, with “The Wonder Years,” “Twin Peaks,” “China Beach,” “thirtysomething,” “Roseanne,” “Life Goes On”--and the promise of a real gamble in Steven Bochco’s new musical police drama, “Cop Rock.”

On paper, no competitor even looks close to ABC when it comes to the only thing that really matters to intelligent TV viewers amid the crazed maneuvering of the networks: Where are the best shows?

That could change as the networks unveil and refine the programs for fall, but it’s unlikely. For viewers, the most exciting single event of the new season, aside from the return of “Twin Peaks” and the “Cop Rock” experiment, will probably be Fox’s nervy attempt to unthrone NBC’s “The Cosby Show” by counterprogramming it with the animated hit, “The Simpsons.”

In fact, attempts to unseat the Bill Cosby sitcom, the most profitable series in TV history, are a prime focus of the new season. Besides “The Simpsons,” Cosby will have to fight off CBS’ “The Flash,” an hour action show based on the comic strip--and a key series in CBS’ efforts to discard its old-folks image and attract a young audience.

There are other highlights to watch for. Will the sitcom “Fresh Prince of Bel Air,” which stars pop rapper the Fresh Prince, be the huge hit that NBC predicts? Can the drama “WIOU,” about the news department of a fading TV station, be the quality show that CBS thinks it is? How will Fox fare with “True Colors,” a sitcom about the marriage of a black man and white woman?

And will Fox be bigger than ever--and a real threat to the Big Three networks--as it expands to five nights a week? Or is it committing suicide by betting the farm on wholesale changes--including its matchup of “The Simpsons” against “Cosby”?

“We’re not worried,” Cosby said upon learning of his new, hugely popular foe. “It doesn’t bother us.”

But the TV industry buzzed excitedly and phone wires burned after Fox’s dramatic announcement that it was going after NBC’s most successful show--and night. And much of the word-of-mouth was that Fox had made a brilliant gamble with “The Simpsons” and has a good chance of succeeding.

“I think it’s a gutsy move on Fox’s part,” said analyst Larry Gerbrandt of Paul Kagan Associates, which specializes in media-watching. “Fox also thinks ‘Cosby’ is finally vulnerable. If it is, and they do respectable numbers, they have a chance of owning that night in the future.”

Several TV observers also think that if “The Simpsons” cracks Thursday night wide open, ABC should switch “Twin Peaks” back to that evening. It’s been moved to Saturdays, but the rationale of these observers is that the same audience is attracted to both “The Simpsons” and “Twin Peaks”--and that the Fox show could thus turn ABC’s cult soap opera into a ratings hit.

While front-runner NBC and comeback network CBS, like a couple of wary boxers, seem to be punching out conventional new shows as they vie for dominance, ABC and Fox are clearly taking chances to win back viewers from cable and VCRs. Just by renewing the borderline ratings entries “Twin Peaks” and “China Beach,” ABC made a statement.

“The network business right now is about taking risks, bringing back some showmanship, some flair,” said Peter Chernin, president of the Fox Entertainment Group. “There’s a lot of complacency in our business. I think viewers are looking for networks to take risks.”

Pitting “The Simpsons” against “Cosby,” Chernin added, is a chance for Fox to “establish another beachhead.”

Gerbrandt said that the networks “are taking more chances than ever before. The success that cable and Fox have had in counterprogramming is coming full circle. There’s ‘The Flash,’ for instance--not a sitcom, but a takeoff on ‘Batman’ in a way. And there’s ‘Twin Peaks.’ ”

There’s no doubt to Gerbrandt that “ABC is taking the most chances.”

But there are disturbing trends in the new season for viewers. The 8-9 p.m. opening hour of prime time will resemble a crazed battleground as the networks offer nearly 30 comedies in that period to hook the young audience. NBC, losing its grip in this time slot, and CBS, driving home its image change, have heightened the 8-9 combat to a kind of silly ferocity.

The losers in the overall schedule: one-hour dramas and the viewers who like them.

“If there’s anything the schedule suggests,” said Gerbrandt, it’s the decline “of the hour format. I think the TV viewer finds it difficult to commit to an hour. They expect things to move along quickly now. In the age of remote control, the moment they get bored or something slacks off, they’re off to another channel.

“I think what we’re seeing here is an evolution of the American viewer--wanting TV to be sped up a little, wanting it in smaller, more compact doses.”

An accurate but awful conclusion. And the facts bear it out. There are nearly 50 comedies on the fall schedule.

Between 8 and 9 p.m., young viewers will be bombarded with such new sitcoms as “Uncle Buck,” “Ferris Bueller,” “Fresh Prince of Bel Air,” “Parenthood,” “Get a Life” and “Babes,” which Fox thinks will be a big hit following “The Simpsons” on Thursdays. It’s about three heavyweight sisters--”three Roseannes,” as one Fox representative put it.

If the tandem of “The Simpsons” and “Babes” cuts into “Cosby” and “A Different World,” then the only thing standing between NBC and big problems on Thursdays is “Cheers”--and there’s talk that this might be in its final season.

Thus, if Cosby holds the fort, he could probably make the most extraordinary financial demands imaginable from NBC just to keep his show going. With NBC hurting elsewhere, he and “Cheers” are, more than ever, holding the network together.

Except for sharp winning strategies, there seems to be little on the mind of NBC and CBS in their new shows despite their disastrous slip in quality in the last year. New CBS Entertainment President Jeff Sagansky, with an obviously well-thought-out plan to get back into competition, nonetheless was asked at a news conference this week about his conventional shows.

His response? Execution counts more than ideas. There’s validity in that. “We will take more chances” as time goes by, he said. OK. But he didn’t have to make that wisecrack about “cops singing”--an obvious remark about “Cop Rock”--in arguing his point about the importance of execution as opposed to unique ideas. It didn’t turn out so badly, for instance, when those gang members sang and danced in “West Side Story.”

Sagansky did, however, bring a fresh confidence to long-suffering CBS. Tartikoff usually dominates the news conferences after fall-schedule announcements, but this week Sagansky showed his former boss that he wasn’t taking a back seat as he held his own, frank, televised briefing.

Asked about the matchup of CBS’ “Uncle Buck” with the Fresh Prince series touted by Tartikoff, Sagansky said that his staff saw the rapper’s show “and weren’t scared by it.” He said “Uncle Buck,” based on the film, has “wider demographics.” And that’s important because “Uncle Buck” leads off the CBS Monday lineup that includes “Major Dad,” “Murphy Brown” and “Designing Women,” all critical to the network.

Tartikoff has boasted about this season’s program development, and we’ll see. Meanwhile, his six consecutive comedies on Saturdays--to blow out “China Beach” and “Twin Peaks”--are what catch the eye.

Will Sagansky quickly realize that you can’t wait too long to take chances in this volatile new TV climate? Or will he be more preoccupied with adjusting “Major Dad” so there’s less focus “on the military” and tinkering with “Dallas,” where soap star Susan Lucci (the eternal femme fatale on “All My Children”) will begin the season “as J.R.’s nemesis”?

Will Fox look very good or very bad as it dumps such shows as “21 Jump Street” and “Alien Nation,” goes to five nights with at least nine new series and thumbs its nose at the Big Three networks?

For ABC, the quality-show approach could, of course, cost it the No. 1 rating it seeks. It might simply remain a distinguished No. 2. There’s nothing wrong with that.