Faces to Watch in ’96 : The Year’s in Their Hands : Well, maybe not just theirs (notice we don’t list Jim Carrey). But these artists and entertainers--some you know, some you don’t--are most likely to make some kind of splash in ’96. Ready? Everybody into the pool. : TELEVISION : Kristen Wilson

Kristen Wilson is looking to get picked up.

More specifically, she’s anxiously waiting for word about whether her new CBS series, “Matt Waters,” will be returning to the fall lineup. The drama, which premiered Jan. 3 and is set at an urban high school, begins what’s likely to be a promising 1996 for Wilson, who made her first big splash last year playing fellow thespian Robin Givens in HBO’s “Tyson.”

“My characters are all very different,” Wilson, 25, says from her Manhattan digs. On “Matt Waters,” she plays a dedicated teacher and romantic interest of fellow instructor Montel Williams.

In March, she co-stars in Spike Lee’s “Girl 6” as a lesbian phone sex operator known as Salesgirl No. 1. And in the indie film “The Pompatus of Love,” produced by and starring Jon Cryer, she plays his girlfriend, a SoHo artist.

The Boston native danced for the Boston Ballet from the ages of 13 to 16, when she switched to singing and acting, and made her professional debut in December 1991, as a supporting player in the Broadway musical “Nick and Nora.”