NBC Shakes Up Its Prime-Time Program Lineup for Fall Season : Entertainment: In addition to TV’s No. 1 show, ‘Cheers,’ the network is adding six new comedies, two dramas and an adventure series.

NBC, stung by a sharp drop-off in viewers last season, on Monday unveiled a “re-energized” fall schedule for the 1991-92 season that features James Garner, Robert Guillaume, Marlee Matlin and Sam Waterston in new weekly series.

Still buoyed by TV’s No. 1 show, “Cheers,” the top-rated network canceled Fred Dryer’s long-running police show, “Hunter”; yanked Andy Griffith’s program about an attorney, “Matlock,” promising that it would return “at a later date,” and parted company with Carol Burnett, rejecting her request to expand her half-hour “Carol & Company” comedy anthology into a weekly, one-hour, revue-style series.

In a bid to create major new hits after several seasons of near-total failure in launching smash ratings successes, NBC is also splitting up its previously untouchable Saturday-night tandem of “The Golden Girls” and “Empty Nest,” using them as lead-ins to launch two comedies.

In general, however--despite promises of “a whole new NBC”--the schedule appears to be a conservative reworking of last season’s offerings.

NBC, the network ratings leader for six consecutive seasons, will introduce nine series come fall: six comedies, two dramas and a half-hour fantasy adventure, “Eerie, Indiana,” about a 13-year-old boy who has “visions of unspeakable horrors” in the seemingly idyllic small town in which he lives.

Also returning is “Sisters,” an hour drama that debuted 10 days ago amid furor when NBC cut out a discussion of orgasms among the four siblings of the show in the program’s trademark opening scene in a sauna.

Burnett said Monday that there’s “a very strong possibility” that her hour comedy revue will wind up next season on CBS, where she starred for 12 years in one of TV’s most famous variety series. CBS is expected to announce its fall schedule later this week. The network declined comment on whether Burnett would move there.

But Burnett said: “We’re about an inch or two apart.” Asked about NBC’s denial of her request to expand her show, even though “Carol & Company” averaged a strong 24% share of the audience this season, she said: “Maybe they’re wearing their ties too tight and can’t think.”

Burnett said she had tired of the anthology format because “it was tantamount to doing a sitcom pilot a week. It was too hard.” After rejecting her one-hour series concept, NBC Entertainment President Warren Littlefield said through a spokeswoman: “We didn’t have room for an hour. We said, ‘Feel free to take it someplace else.’ ”

Garner, one of TV’s best-loved stars in such series as “Maverick” and “The Rockford Files,” will headline the sitcom “Man of the People,” playing a con artist “who is named to fill a city council seat previously held by his late ex-wife.”

Guillaume, of “Soap” and “Benson” fame, stars in the sitcom “Pacific Station” as a veteran detective “whose beat is the eccentric beach community of Venice.”

Oscar-winner Matlin (“Children of a Lesser God”) stars with Mark Harmon in the hour drama “Reasonable Doubts,” about “two unlikely partners brought together by the Chicago criminal justice system.” Matlin portrays a hearing-impaired assistant district attorney, and Harmon is a police investigator.

Waterston (“The Killing Fields”) will appear in a drama series with a provocative premise, “I’ll Fly Away,” playing “a principled prosecuting attorney in a small Southern city in the late 1950s” as the civil rights movement is taking hold. He has three children and a “forthright new black housekeeper” (Regina Taylor).

In an unusual move for such a drama, “I’ll Fly Away” will be broadcast at the family hour of 8 p.m. on Tuesday. And significantly, NBC’s back-to-back series of “I’ll Fly Away,” “In the Heat of the Night” and “Law & Order” will all feature major, continuing roles in dramatic shows for black performers. Howard Rollins co-stars with Carroll O’Connor in the police story “In the Heat of the Night,” and Richard Brooks portrays an assistant district attorney in “Law & Order.”

NBC series that have been bumped from the past season include “Ferris Bueller,” “The Fanelli Boys,” “Shannon’s Deal,” “Amen,” “Parenthood,” “Working It Out,” “American Dreamer,” “Hull High,” “Down Home,” “Lifestories,” “Dark Shadows,” “Sunday Best,” “Disney Presents: The 100 Lives of Black Jack Savage” and “Midnight Caller.” An NBC spokeswoman said several of these shows might return.

Other NBC series debuting this fall include:

* “The Adventures of Mark and Brian,” a “reality-based” comedy starring Los Angeles radio disc jockeys Brian Phelps and Mark Thompson, who will “fulfill lifelong daredevil dreams” in their weekly, half-hour outings.

* “Flesh ‘n’ Blood,” a sitcom from the producers of “Cheers,” dealing with an assistant district attorney (Lisa Darr) who is faced with a charming con man who claims to be her brother and who, with a son and daughter, provides her with an instant family.

* “Nurses,” a sitcom from writer-producer Susan Harris (“Soap,” “The Golden Girls,” “Empty Nest”), about five nurses--four women and a man.

* “The Torkelsons,” a sitcom concerning a sensitive 14-year-old girl who is mortified by her “crazy-quilt suburban family” held together by her mother, “a cash-poor single parent who will stop at nothing to provide for her children.”

NBC is moving “The Golden Girls” to the lead-off 8 p.m. slot on Saturdays and has scheduled “The Torkelsons” between the long-running hit and another success, “Empty Nest,” thus giving the new entry a choice slot. “Nurses” will follow “Empty Nest”--giving Harris three of NBC’s Saturday night comedies.

With NBC losing about 13% of its audience this past season, the 1991-92 prime-time schedule is critical for the TV network subsidiary of General Electric Co. ABC and rebounding CBS have closed in on NBC, which has not increased its audience over a previous season since the 1986-87 competition.

In the past season, some of NBC’s aging but key program staples saw serious audience declines: “The Cosby Show” dropped 26%; “Night Court,” 21%; “The Golden Girls,” 18%; “L.A. Law,” 15%, and “Unsolved Mysteries,” 13%.

Here is NBC’s night-by-night schedule:

Sunday: “The Adventures of Mark and Brian,” “Eerie, Indiana,” “Man of the People,” “Pacific Station,” “Sunday Night at the Movies.”

Monday: “Fresh Prince of Bel Air,” “Blossom,” “Monday Night at the Movies.”

Tuesday: “I’ll Fly Away,” “In the Heat of the Night,” “Law & Order.”

Wednesday: “Unsolved Mysteries,” “Night Court,” “Seinfeld,” “Quantum Leap.”

Thursday: “The Cosby Show,” “A Different World,” “Cheers,” “Wings,” “L.A. Law.”

Friday: “Real Life With Jane Pauley,” “Expose,” “Dear John,” “Flesh ‘n’ Blood,” “Reasonable Doubts.”

Saturday: “The Golden Girls,” “The Torkelsons,” “Empty Nest,” “Nurses,” “Sisters.”