Not Much in Bloom . . . Except Chat : Networks Offer Lineup Devoid of Vision, Humor

Where have all the flowers gone?

More than any garden of new fall series within recent memory, the 1994-95 season is so gloomily flat and defoliated that you gag on the odor of napalm drifting up from the wasteland.

Unlike recent seasons, no rare new species brighten television’s four-network landscape, no radiant colors peek through the powdered barrenness of its 27 series (14 dramas and 13 comedies), all but four of which were available for previewing.

It’s come to this. The networks are afflicted with a sort of creative Alzheimer’s. Their ideas are progressively sparse and sparkless. Oh, prime time still has the franchise on O.J. and Roseanne movies, and plenty of klutzy newsmagazine shows to promote them. When it comes to entertainment series, though, there’s nothing new with verve or vision, nothing fragrant to exhilarate you, nothing controversial to anger you, nothing to excite you, challenge you or get under your skin. Nothing even meriting a double-take (except Chicago’s red-coated Mountie in the CBS series “Due South”).

The difference between this new season and its 1993-94 predecessor is the difference between a brick and a bloom. When you recall last season’s newcomers, you think of the playful inventiveness of ABC’s “Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman,” the nippy satire of Fox’s “Bakersfield P.D.” and “The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.,” and the flashes of witty irreverence in Fox’s “Townsend Television.” You think of ABC’s “Grace Under Fire” and NBC’s “Frasier” and “The John Larroquette Show,” all much funnier and more promising than any of their 1994-95 counterparts.

And thinking back to the 1992-93 season, you remember the creative fires beneath Fox’s “Key West,” “Likely Suspects,” “Great Scott” and “The Ben Stiller Show.”

The bulk of the above series did not live long, evidence that networks--even once-bold Fox--can’t thrive fiscally on a steady diet of shows that flout convention even moderately. But that doesn’t mean they should be abandoned entirely. Forget breaking ground. When it comes to originality in the new season, you can’t even detect footprints.

Despite such continuing shows as NBC’s “Seinfeld” and “Frasier” and ABC’s “Roseanne,” “Home Improvement” and “NYPD Blue” having captured the nation’s fancy, prime-time’s crater of sameness is expanding, leaving less and less room around the edges for tinkering with alternatives. With the specter of a 500-channel cosmos looming as we enter this season, mainstream television appears wed monogamously to its own one-channel universe.

In this remarkable age, cable and over-the-air networks themselves have become tasty smorgasbord goodies sought by corporate investors ravenous for behemoth slabs of the communications pie. It’s a time of bigness and big appetites. Yet simultaneously, the menu of entertainment programs is shrinking.

Is this only a glitch, a temporary malfunction, a season merely a little worse than most, and not to worry? Or is the fall lineup an ominous signal of irreversible atrophy, the calm before the advancing lull that will arrive next season and every season thereafter?

Whatever the case, the most encouraging sign about the new season is that its best five series are not comedies, offering hope that hourlong, serious drama series at last may be somewhat transfused after lengthy anemia.

Heading the Fairly Watchable Five is NBC’s “ER,” an ensemble series depicting the highs and lows of young doctors toiling in a Chicago hospital’s emergency room, one so frenetic that just observing them wires you up like an overdose of caffeine. The point is, you do observe.

Facing “ER” at 10 p.m. Thursdays (beginning Sept. 22) will be another somewhat arresting Windy City hospital drama, CBS’ “Chicago Hope.” At a large hospital where medical miracles routinely proliferate like white lab coats, Adam Arkin and Mandy Patinkin star as super-surgeons who do everything but wear capes and fly.

Neither of these series promises to eclipse memories of the late, sometimes-great “St. Elsewhere.” Yet the outcome of Thursday night’s dueling Chicago stethoscopes promises to be one of the season’s more interesting sidebars, even though the clash of titans--ABC’s top-rated “Home Improvement” versus NBC’s up-and-coming “Frasier” at 9 p.m. Tuesdays--will command the biggest headlines.

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Another CBS series making the quasi-elite is “Under Suspicion,” a nicely produced, well-acted police drama at 9 p.m. Fridays (beginning Sept. 16). Karen Sillas stars as the only female detective in a squad room where a flak jacket may be her only protection from a fusillade of sexist remarks. Although only modestly distinguished as a female tome compared to “Cagney & Lacey” and especially those superb “Prime Suspect” miniseries on PBS chronicling British cop Jane Tennison, this CBS newcomer has enough promise to hold your interest initially.

Fox’s contribution to this group is “Party of Five,” a little too warm and fuzzy for comfort, yet a sensitive and generally intelligent series about barriers facing siblings trying to stay together as a family after their parents have died. It airs at 9 p.m. Mondays (beginning Monday).

And finally, ABC’s now-airing “My So-Called Life” is worth a look at 8 p.m. Thursdays, if only to catch the acutely convincing performance of Claire Danes as a high schooler enduring teen-age hell while trying to cope with her emerging sexuality and her often-combative parents. Better watch while you can, though. With ratings dipping faster than its 15-year-old protagonist’s grade average, “My So-Called Life” is a candidate to become one of ABC’s earlier expulsions.

Most of the season’s new, so-called comedy series deserve a swifter heave-ho, with only two appearing to have above-average promise. From the creators of HBO’s “Dream On” comes NBC’s “Friends,” whose eclectic singles are roomies in a Manhattan apartment, giving off glints of bent humor at 8:30 p.m. Thursdays (beginning Sept. 22).

A full notch below but still somewhat worthy is CBS’ “The Boys Are Back,” which finds Hal Linden and Suzanne Pleshette as a couple looking forward to a cozy, orderly, uncomplicated life alone when their adult sons gum up the works by moving back home. It premieres Sunday, then will be seen Wednesdays at 8 p.m.

Showing much less potential are three comedies with a common denominator that you’d think would ensure each of them success. CBS’ “Daddy’s Girls” with Dudley Moore, NBC’s “The Martin Short Show” and NBC’s “Madman of the People” with Dabney Coleman all boast actors who have proved they can deliver hilariously with good material.

Unfortunately, they don’t get much of it here, although this assessment of the NBC comedies is based on a “Martin Short” episode that the network says will not air and a “Madman of the People” episode that is being altered significantly.

Even as previewed, though, this undistinguished trio of series is scintillating compared to the two biggest bozos of the fall newcomers: the already premiered Fox singles comedy “Wild Oats” and ABC’s excruciatingly bad “On Our Own.” The latter is a comedy about orphaned kids whose eldest sibling hatches a bold scheme to keep everyone together: He cross-dresses like Mrs. Doubtfire. Lest you think this is derivative, he’s black, Mrs. Doubtfire white.

If some of these new series are fusing in your brain, meanwhile, pay attention. The orphans of “On Our Own” should not be confused with the orphans in “Party of Five,” which, it should be noted, is unrelated to the CBS series “The Five Mrs. Buchanans.” Nor should “The Boys Are Back” be mixed up with ABC’s “Me and the Boys,” nor “Daddy’s Girls” with ABC’s “All-American Girl.”

Fox’s returning “Martin” is definitely unrelated to “The Martin Short Show.” ABC’s new “Blue Skies” is no “NYPD Blue.” Although both are about singles, “Friends” is not even a distant cousin of “These Friends of Mine,” the returning ABC comedy whose title has been trimmed to “Ellen.” Nor, except for its emergency room setting, does this season’s “ER” remotely resemble the old CBS comedy “E/R.” Nor does Fox’s new “Hardball” bear any resemblance to the old CBS series “Ball Four,” other than that both are unfunny comedies about the behind-the-scenes antics of major-league baseball players.

Above all, finally, the 1994-95 season should not be mistaken for a field of spectacular plantings. Even with all the network promos forecasting greatness, there’s no danger of that.