Fall Pilots Hold to the Safe Course : Television: For all of their talk about looking for new ideas, all four networks’ offerings remain, for the most part, remarkably familiar. Upstart Fox continues to be the most innovative--at least on paper.

During ABC’s annual fall pilot preview this week, “Soap” creator Susan Harris summed up much of what will be appearing on all four networks later this year with her personal tale of how her new sitcom, “Good and Evil,” finally made it to prime time after sitting on a back burner for eight years.

It began with a pilot script she wrote in 1983, centered on the antics of two brothers--one good and the other evil. When the network passed on it, Harris shrugged it off and went on to create such hits as “The Golden Girls” and “Empty Nest.”

But a few months ago, ABC executives told her that they finally had decided to put “Good and Evil” on the air. The only problem was that they had Teri Garr set to star in it and so they wanted it to be about sisters, not brothers. By the time Harris changed all of the genders--giving the two sisters husbands and children and other assorted relatives--she discovered she had an entirely new script with an utterly different set of characters.

She told a small army of advertising representatives--gathered in Hollywood this week to get a peek at what the four networks have in development for them to wrap around their commercial spots next fall--that the moral to her story was: Write a pilot, get it rejected, let it sit for a decade and . . . Voila! A network executive will see its value, promising to put it on the air if the writer will only make a few “minor” changes.

The overriding message for Harris, the advertisers, “Good and Evil’s” potential audience and the producers and writers of 80 other new pilots that may be showing up on a network near you next season is that the more things seem to change, the more they remain the same . . . as long as they are rewritten.

Take the CBS drama pilot “Mimi and Me,” from Warner Bros. As described by the network:

“This one-hour screwball comedic mystery revolves around the strange relationship between Howard Radner and Mimi Molloy, a bizarre combination of talents who inherit a run-down detective agency.” Howard is an orthodontist and Mimi is a “free spirit”--so any resemblance the program might have to “Moonlighting’s” David Addison and Maddie Hayes would appear to be incidental because the genders of the wacky and the conservative lead characters have been swapped.

For all of their posturing about new ideas and contemporary storytelling, all four networks’ offerings remained, for the most part, remarkably familiar, and their programming strategies appear to be as conservative and cost-conscious as a post-war, recessionary economy would seem to dictate.

In terms of the pilots outlined this week, upstart Fox continues to be the most innovative--at least on paper. The fourth network unveiled projects that include outrageous comic Sam Kinison as a six-inch alter ego to actor Tim Matheson in “The Brave New World of Charlie Hoover”; a melange about safe sex, video dating and personal ads titled “Dates From Hell”; a Claymation comedy from “In Living Color’s” Damon Wayans about a family with enormous heads called “The Wayneheads”; and a new offering from Michael O’Donoghue, a former “Saturday Night Live” writer and the author of “How to Write Good,” simply titled “T.V.”:

“This rapidly-paced show . . . allows you to watch as much television as you want in 30 minutes without changing channels,” according to the cryptic description given out by Fox executives.

The wackiest that top-rated NBC gets in its pilots is “The Adventures of Mark and Brian,” which features the two KLOS-FM morning drive-time deejays in “reality-based” situations, including tryouts as astronauts and a failed attempt to sit down to tea with Princess Diana in Buckingham Palace.

Most of the 11 sitcom and 12 dramatic pilots commissioned by NBC are standard fare: romantic comedy, warm family drama and law-and-order shows. The most unusual twist on cop shows since the failure of “Cop Rock” will be featured in “Robosaurus,” about a crime-fighter teamed with a robot dinosaur.

“Cop Rock” creators Bill Finklestein and Steven Bochco accent the trend away from risky innovation by returning to ABC this fall with an “L.A. Law”-like drama about a pair of New York divorce lawyers.

ABC is joining the animation trend, sparked last year by the success of “The Simpsons,” with two cartoon pilots, one of them from Arsenio Hall. CBS also plans a prime-time cartoon detective series from Hanna-Barbera called “Fish Police.”

Of the three major networks, CBS’ pilot roster of 15 comedies, nine hourlong dramas and four reality-based programs is not only the most numerous but also the most distinctive--even though it is comprised chiefly of tried-and-true TV producers.

“All in the Family” creator Norman Lear, for example, will offer up “Balls,” a half-hour comedy about a family of tennis ball salesmen set in the 1890s; “Coach” creator Barry Kemp is filming “Princesses,” about a Jewish-American princess (Fran Drescher), a WASP princess (Julie Hagerty) and an authentic British princess (Twiggy) living together in New York City; and “Quantum Leap” creator Don Bellisario is developing a new cop-and-dog drama in which the pooch’s thoughts on crime-fighting are delivered to the audience via voice-overs.