The New Season : Not Much in Bloom . . . Except Chat : Talk shows: Seven new daytime programs--with hosts such as Marilu Henner and Susan Powter--will premiere in the coming weeks.

What do a sitcom star, a former sitcom star, a 6-foot-7 Australian, a screaming diet guru and three local radio personalities have in common?

*

They all want to be this year’s Ricki Lake.

Seven new daytime talk shows, most doing little more than tweaking the same old formula pioneered by Phil Donahue and perfected by Oprah Winfrey, will join the already overpopulated landscape of television talk. Five of them arrive Monday, two the following week.

When it comes to talk shows, no one in TV has ever heard of birth control, even though most of these Oprah wanna-bes, if statistics from the past few seasons hold up, will be no better remembered than Les Brown or Bertice Berry--last year’s new hosts on the block.

Yet the slim chance of making it big, the way Lake did, has lured Suzanne Somers--former star of “Three’s Company” and the mom on ABC’s current hit “Step by Step”--to sign on to do her own show. And Marilu Henner, now that her sitcom “Evening Shade” is dead. Gordon Elliot, the big guy from down under, has a show. Susan Powter, escaping from the wee-hour nether world of the infomercial, has one. So do local radio talk-show hosts Bill Handel, Marilyn Kagen and Dennis Prager.

Michael Binkow, vice president of program development at KCAL-TV Channel 9, the station responsible for making room for three of these newcomers--in addition to being the home of “Rolanda,” “Jerry Springer,” “Maury Povich” and, starting Monday, “Rush Limbaugh”--said that talk shows are proliferating because they are relatively inexpensive to produce and have vast long-term earnings potential.

“And the audience seems to have an insatiable appetite for them,” he added, “although it does seem like we’re getting to the point that saturation is soon upon us, and then there will be some other hot new genre.”

Binkow believes that in today’s crowded television landscape--where there are nearly 30 weekday talk shows already--it’s a flamboyant personality, “someone who jumps out of the screen,” who has the best shot.

“People you either love or hate--like Rush Limbaugh or Susan Powter--but you have to watch them,” he said.

Here’s a rundown of the new hopefuls:

* “Marilu,” airing weekdays at 9 a.m. on KNBC-TV Channel 4--hosted by Henner, a frequent guest on talk shows herself--intends to be a happy sort of talk show, focusing on the positive side of life and on solutions to human problems. The show promises to be rich with emotion, but free of confrontation and anger. Premieres Monday.

* “The Gordon Elliot Show,” weekdays at 10 a.m. on KTTV-TV Channel 11, wants to bring adventure to daytime talk. The mammoth Australian, formerly a wacky feature correspondent for “Good Day New York” and “CBS This Morning,” has been known to go diving with sharks and to set up a 7 a.m. barbecue on a stranger’s lawn. “I’d like to bring something to daytime talk that celebrates the human spirit a little more,” Elliot said. “We’re going to be a lot more adventurous, more on the edge . . . than the other shows.” Premieres Monday.

* “The Dennis Prager Show,” weekdays at 11 a.m. on Channel 11, aims to go in the opposite, more substantive direction, as the KABC-AM (790) talk-show host expands his opinionated give-and-take to television. Prager, a lecturer and author who prods his audience to think about thorny questions of right and wrong, will conduct a show that includes heated discussions as well as strong commentary on today’s pressing questions. Premieres Monday.

* “The Suzanne Somers Show,” weekdays at 1 p.m. on KCOP-TV Channel 13, will be a haven for celebrities during the day, focusing on personalities from the worlds of entertainment, sports, politics and publishing. Somers hopes to highlight the personal side of their lives through chats about their causes and crises. “When you make a strictly issue-oriented show, you get into a rat race of sleazy topics, and that’s the one thing I didn’t want to do,” Somers said. Her show will also have a live band. Premieres Monday.

* “The Susan Powter Show,” weekdays at 5 p.m. on Channel 9, features the infomercial queen and author of “Stop the Insanity.” Best known for her weight loss, her bare midriff and her screaming diatribes against traditional dieting, Powter will tackle such topics as parenting, health, children, stress and, of course, food, while offering prescriptions for dealing with specific problems during each half-hour show. Premieres Sept. 19.

* “The Marilyn Kagen Show,” weekdays at 9 a.m. on Channel 9, features the psychotherapist and KFI-AM (640) host. It will deal with the same topics and emotional turmoil as many other talk shows, but Kagen, as a trained therapist, hopes to go deeper, angling to get at the root of her guests’ emotional distress and to provide some sort of healing rather than simply parading them and their problems on stage. Premieres Sept. 19.

* “Judge for Yourself,” weekdays at 2 p.m. on Channel 9, combines both talk-show and courtroom elements. An in-studio jury will witness a discussion of a particular topic among the show’s guests--”everything from very personal and intimate stories to the monster issues of the day,” according to host Bill Handel, a lawyer and KFI-AM host. Asking questions along the way, the audience/jury will then deliberate and hand down a verdict on the day’s point of contention. Premieres Monday.