THE NEW TV SEASON : You Can Laugh All You Want . . . : Of the 38 new series, five are stellar comedies. That’s nice. But where are the dramas with something to say about life?

I f it’s September, this must be . . . .

I’m hearing the question that TV critics always hear this time of year: How’s the new season?

The answer: Terrific.

The answer: Terrible.

The explanation behind this preliminary report:

There are 38 new series spread among ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox. Of the 32 I’ve seen, there are five--NBC’s “The John Larroquette Show,” ABC’s “Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman,” and Fox’s “Townsend Television,” “The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.” and “Bakersfield, P.D.”--that I want to watch again, that I would look forward to watching again, that, call me crazy, I could consider watching regularly throughout 1993-94.

At least another half-dozen or so are newcomers that I’m curious or intrigued about enough to tune in again.

Back to the first figure. Think about it: five new bouncing-baby series that you don’t want to shove back into the womb. These are the mother’s milk of happy viewing:

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Larroquette is understatedly effective in his sitcom as a recovering alcoholic battling to stay off the bottle and on the good side of his employees as night manager in a crummy bus depot. The “Lois & Clark” hour lifts Superman to a stratospheric level of tongue-in-cheek heroism. “Townsend Television” is a cleverly written sketch-and-variety hour starring that renaissance entertainer, Robert Townsend. “Brisco County” is a galloping-good hour of Western spoofing. And I laughed so hard at “Bakersfield,” a half-hour of knee-slapping police parody that premieres Tuesday, that I couldn’t think of a good way to finish this sentence.

I can hear you now: He likes those shows? Isn’t this the same TV maven who was initially cool to “St. Elsewhere,” started off hating “Moonlighting” and fell head over heels for a spittoon full of stinkers that lasted about five minutes?

Why bring up bad memories?

The point is not whether you agree or disagree with my list (catch me later in the season, and I may disagree myself). This is where the subjectivity really hits the fan, after all, and your definition of good television should be television that pleases you, not me or anyone else.

No, the point is that if, like me, you can locate five new series that you look forward to seeing on a regular basis--not merely ones you wouldn’t mind watching or find less objectionable than others or can tolerate without succumbing to nausea--then fall to your knees and give thanks for a memorable new season. Big time. World class. Suitable for framing.

As a group, in fact, the 21 new half-hour comedies in the class of ‘93-94 are as pleasant as any that have come along in years. I’ve mentioned two that earn an “A” (“Larroquette” and “Bakersfield”) and there are a bunch more that appear at least promising, another cluster that is harmlessly benign, and only a couple that turn my stomach. Only two stomach-turners? I believe that’s a record.

So why, then, is this new season also terrible?

Because with its carry-over obsession with comedy and stand-up comics, it aims, with rare exceptions, only to make America laugh. Laughter is nice, but laughter is not everything. At least it shouldn’t be.

Yet even though inexpensive, potentially lucrative newsmagazines are surfacing here and there like measles spots, comedy remains the big profit center of prime time, the hour drama series having become television’s vanishing dinosaur, the last remnant of its Mesozoic Era.

Instead, this is the era of the big yuck, the big, toothy, gummy grin.

Look around and behold a world that not only is a stage but also merits a stage, one on which the dramatic form can be used to enrich and experiment as well as to entertain. Even as the topics for serious discussion in drama expand like an epidemic, however, the laugh machine plays on.

The vast, cratered landscape of prime time is rarely about anything anymore. It doesn’t say anything on a regular basis. It doesn’t aspire to say anything. One of its few series that did speak with authority on life beyond fluff, NBC’s “I’ll Fly Away,” has been banished to PBS. And of the returnees, only CBS’ plucky “Picket Fences” and NBC’s geriatric “L.A. Law” have been occasionally bold enough to challenge viewers in addition to diverting them.

The 1993-94 bloc of additions is similarly starved for drama to chew on. Whether the networks’ coming miniseries and TV movies plug that hole remains to be seen, but don’t bank on it. Meanwhile, there are only five serious dramas among the new crop of series, and only one of these, NBC’s “Against the Grain,” about a small-town Texas football coach and his family, creates an environment that appears conducive to scripts regarding American values or any other theme that doesn’t involve shootouts--criminal, sexual or otherwise. Unfortunately, “Against the Grain” also appears conducive to quick fixes that are rushed in just before the ending commercials.

ABC’s unique “Roseanne” has demonstrated that sitcoms, too, can capture the essence of a nation, that pathos as well as humor can be grist for a struggling blue-collar family whose weekly TV visits somehow embody our own hopes and frustrations in the 1990s.

In addition to stand-up comics, families continue as the overwhelmingly dominant race in prime time. Single-parent families. Double-parent families. Extended families. Foster families. Merged families. Funny families. Funky families. Foolish families. They’re rich, poor, middle-class, blue-collar, white-collar, open-collar, starched-collar, no-collar. Families everywhere.

Among the spate of new family comedies, though, even “Grace Under Fire,” ABC’s single-momcom, said by some to be this season’s “Roseanne,” appears incapable of in any way looming larger than its jokes. Only the Larroquette series--which has the misfortune to face “Roseanne” on Tuesday nights--appears ready to bulk up with a few ounces of social magnitude.

Just as there are no giants among the new drama series (although the relatively explicit sex in the pilot of ABC’s soon-to-arrive “NYPD Blue” created a gigantic controversy), there are no breakaway comedies in the 1993-94 crop.

Even as pleasing as some of the comedies are, the newcomers do not include a single series that has true innovative dazzle or, like ABC’s now-departed “Wonder Years,” is at once hilarious, moving and reflective of an entire generation of Americans.

There are no candidates for time capsules, based on an early sampling--nothing as mighty as NBC’s “Seinfeld” or “The Simpsons,” the animated gem that represents Fox’s little corner of genius. We wait for another “Taxi” or another “MASH,” to say nothing of something as historic as “All in the Family.”

Waiting for improvement or diversity--for network television to broaden its palette beyond the same old primary colors--goes along with being a viewer. The waiting continues even as the networks roll out their 1993-94 season, some of which is still in the wings for October.

Take “The Paula Poundstone Show,” which has a star in stand-up comic Poundstone and a network in ABC, but apparently not much else at this writing. Ask ABC for details regarding this Saturday-night hour, and the response is hemming, hawing and shuffling feet. What is “The Paula Poundstone Show” about? The answer you finally get could apply to much of television itself.

To be determined.

Night by Night Prime-Time Schedule

MONDAY

8:00 ABC: NFL Monday Night Football CBS: Evening Shade NBC: Fresh Prince FOX: Fox Night at the Movies

8:30 CBS: * Dave’s World NBC: Blossom

9:00 ABC: Local Programming

CBS: Murphy Brown NBC: NBC Monday Night at the Movies

9:30 CBS: Love & War

10:00 ABC: Day One CBS: Northern Exposure

FOX: Local Programming

TUESDAY

8:00 ABC: Full House CBS: Rescue 911 NBC: * Saved By Bell FOX: Roc

8:30 ABC: * Phenom NBC: Getting By FOX: * Bakersfield, P.D.

9:00 ABC: Roseanne CBS: CBS Tuesday Movie NBC: * John Larroquette FOX: America’s Most Wanted

9:30 ABC: Coach NBC: * The Second Half

10:00 ABC: * NYPD Blue

NBC: Dateline NBC FOX: Local Programming

WEDNESDAY

8:00 ABC: * Thea CBS: * The Trouble With Larry NBC: Unsolved Mysteries FOX: Beverly Hills, 90210

8:30 ABC: * Joe’s Life CBS: * The Nanny

9:00 ABC: Home Improvement CBS: * South of Sunset NBC: * Now FOX: Melrose Place

9:30 ABC: * Grace Under Fire

10:00 ABC: * Moon Over Miami CBS: 48 Hours NBC: Law & Order

FOX: Local Programming

THURSDAY

8:00 ABC: * Missing Persons CBS: In the Heat of the Night NBC: Mad About You FOX: The Simpsons

8:30 NBC: Wings FOX: * The Sinbad Show

9:00 ABC: Matlock CBS: * Eye to Eye With Connie Chung NBC: Seinfeld FOX: In Living Color

9:30 NBC: * Frasier FOX: Herman’s Head

10:00 ABC: PrimeTime Live CBS: * Angel Falls NBC: L.A. Law

FOX: Local Programming

FRIDAY

8:00 ABC: Family Matters CBS: * It Had to You NBC: * Against the Grain FOX: * The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.

8:30 ABC: * Boy Meets World CBS: * Family Album

9:00 ABC: Step By Step CBS: Good Advice NBC: * NBC Friday Night Mystery FOX: * The X-Files

9:30 ABC: Hangin’ With Mr. Cooper CBS: Bob

10:00 ABC: 20/20 CBS: Picket Fences

FOX: Local Programming

SATURDAY

8:00 ABC: * George CBS: Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman NBC: * The Mommies FOX: Cops

8:30 ABC: Where I Live CBS: * Cafe Americain FOX: Cops 2

9:00 ABC: * The Paula Poundstone Show CBS: * Harts of the West NBC: Empty Nest FOX: * Front Page

9:30 NBC: Nurses

10:00 ABC: The Commish CBS: Walker, Texas Ranger NBC: Sisters

FOX: Local Programming

SUNDAY

7:00 ABC: Funniest Videos CBS: 60 Minutes NBC: I Witness Video FOX: * Townsend Television

7:30 ABC: Funniest People

8:00 ABC: * Lois & Clark: The New Superman CBS: Murder, She Wrote NBC: * seaQuest DSV FOX: Martin

8:30 FOX: * Living Single

9:00 ABC: ABC Sunday Night Movie CBS: CBS Sunday Movie NBC: NBC Sunday Night at the Movies FOX: Married...Children

9:30 FOX: * Daddy Dearest

10:00 FOX: Local Programming * NEW SERIES

Source: Networks