A Drama-Heavy Fall Lineup Unveiled by Fox : Television: Five dramas and two comedies are on the network’s schedule. Thirteen series, including the venerable ‘In Living Color,’ are canceled.

The Fox Broadcasting Co., newly armed with National Football League games that helped the network land a dozen stations in a landmark deal this week, on Tuesday announced a drama-heavy prime-time lineup for fall in its latest bid to achieve parity with CBS, ABC and NBC.

Fox, known for dropping bombshells in late announcements of its schedules--in 1990, it switched “The Simpsons” in a successful move to counterprogram and neutralize NBC’s “The Cosby Show”--disclosed the coming acquisition of its latest affiliates in time for the presentation of the new schedule to advertisers.

For nostalgia-prone couch potatoes, Fox also announced that one of its back-up series for the 1994-95 season is an updated version of the famous 1960s sitcom “Get Smart,” reuniting Don Adams and Barbara Feldon as secret agents.

According to Sandy Grushow, president of the Fox Entertainment Group, the youth-oriented network will have the new version of “Get Smart” focusing on their son, who is in his late 20s and, like his incompetent father, is a “bumbling agent.”

At the same time, however, Fox is using its flair for showmanship to dilute the impact of serious setbacks in the past season. It flopped in two key areas: late night, where Chevy Chase’s show folded quickly, and news, where its magazine series “Front Page” failed in the ratings and now is canceled, to be replaced eventually by a new effort called “Assignment,” Grushow said in a phone interview from New York.

In addition, Fox, known for its outpouring of series featuring black performers last season, has canceled five of them, including the prestigious “Roc,” the controversial but much-praised and ambitious “South Central”--which reportedly is seeking a home elsewhere--and “In Living Color,” “Sinbad” and, previously, “Townsend Television,” which starred Robert Townsend.

Several returning series, including “Living Single” and the racy “Martin,” star black performers. Grushow maintained, “We’re not walking away from our commitment to program black television series.”

He noted that one of the new one-hour dramas, a police show called “Uptown Undercover,” pairs two officers, one African American, the other Latino. In addition, he said, another drama, “M.A.N.T.I.S.,” is about a “black superhero.”

“Roc” and “South Central,” however, were known for attempting to focus, in both serious and comic tones, on black family life. Grushow said that in “Uptown Undercover,” a “significant amount of the show” deals with the black officer’s “personal life. He has a son, and their relationship is positive.”

With the cancellation of “In Living Color,” Fox is losing one of its trademark series, an irreverent collection of sketches from a black viewpoint. Said Grushow: “We felt it was pretty well played out. Obviously it was a landmark series for our company. For years, it defined who we were and what we were about.”

Fox has scheduled as another back-up series a new sketch comedy called “House of Buggin’,” which stars Latino comedian John Leguizamo.

Grushow said “Sinbad,” which features the comedian of the same name, was canceled because it “had a huge ‘Simpsons’ lead-in and was unable to capitalize on it.” As for “Roc,” although its quality rarely diminished, it has had a difficult time in the ratings, finishing near the bottom.

In another negative development this season, Fox canceled 13 series. In addition to longtime key players such as the high-profile “Roc” and “In Living Color,” other Fox shows from this season that got the ax include “The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.,” “Bakersfield P.D.,” “Daddy Dearest,” “Herman’s Head,” “Monty,” “Code 3” and “Comic Strip Live.”

Yet another series, “The George Carlin Show,” failed to make the fall lineup but is expected to return as a back-up entry, as is “The Critic,” an animated program canceled by ABC but picked up by Fox.

A spokesman for Fox estimated it will take 1 to 1 1/2 years before all of the new stations that were reeled in this week are lined up for the network. With Fox going to seven nights a week this past season and now upgrading its affiliates in such major cities as Cleveland, Atlanta, Detroit, Milwaukee and Dallas, the ratings of the 8-year-old network will certainly go up, but just how much depends in great part on the new programming, which consists of five dramas and two comedies.

Grushow said the deal with New World Communications to land the stations will have “no effect whatsoever on the programs. These New World stations are jumping into bed with us because they like our business plan. They’re interested in the 18-to-34 and 18-to-49 demographic.”

“The Simpsons” now will return to Sundays at 8 p.m., where Fox hopes that it and “Fortune Hunter,” a new, James Bond-style spy adventure that precedes it at 7 p.m.--and will challenge “60 Minutes”--can benefit from the lead-in of the NFL games.

Aaron Spelling is also becoming a bigger player at Fox, where his “Beverly Hills, 90210” and “Melrose Place” will be joined by another hour drama from his company, “Models Inc.” It stars Linda Gray, formerly of “Dallas,” as the head of a Los Angeles modeling agency. It gets an early start June 29.

Other new Fox series:

* “Party of Five,” a drama in which five brothers and sisters “forge new lives following the sudden loss of their parents” in a car crash.

* “Hardball,” a “rowdy” sitcom that takes “a locker-room look” at baseball.

* “Wild Oats,” a Generation X sitcom about “a group of out-all-night 20-somethings in search of romance and friendship.”

Here’s Fox’s night-by-night lineup for fall:

Monday: “Melrose Place,” “Party of Five.”

Tuesday: “Fox Night at the Movies.”

Wednesday: “Beverly Hills, 90210,” “Models Inc.”

Thursday: “Martin,” “Living Single,” “Uptown Undercover.”

Friday: “M.A.N.T.I.S.,” “The X-Files.”

Saturday: “Cops,” “Cops 2,” “America’s Most Wanted.”

Sunday: “Fortune Hunter,” “The Simpsons,” “Hardball,” “Married . . . With Children,” “Wild Oats.”