Getting Ready for the Fall TV Season With a Lineup of Web Sites

That endless heat cramping your style? Never you worry. The Gulf Coast conditions are bound to end some time and the dawning of a bright, shiny new television season is nigh, all available without having to step outdoors.

Obviously, each of the networks has its own Web presence where you can access the official word on shows new and old. Each network has its own fall preview section (https://www.nbc.com/tvcentral/primetimepreview/index.html has the best design). While you could visit all the officially sanctioned sites, you could also go to https://www.UltimateTV.com/shows/98-99-fall/, which provides a meaty analysis of the upcoming season.

Here you can read about which shows were overhauled and which old shows hopped to a new channel (“For Your Love,” for example moved from NBC to the WB). Ultimate TV also provides the inside scoop on cast changes, name changes (Is “That ‘70s Show” really preferable to “Feelin’ All Right”)? The site also opines on people to watch out for: Keri Russell is the hot new face and her show, “Felicity,” is being called Ally McBeal in college.

Other critical commentary can be found at Edrive’s fall season preview at https://www.edrive.com/features/falltv98/index.html. There the resident critic will tell you which shows are the best and worst for each network and, for the purpose of whining, which shows should not have been killed at all.

For those with flimsy memory recall, it might be helpful to visit your favorite show’s fan sites so you can remind yourself just what happened in that May cliffhanger. Lots of devoted fan sites have episode guides that painstakingly detail plots.

For instance, you may have completely forgotten the final “Friends” episode when Ross mistakenly spoke Rachel’s name instead of Emily’s at their London wedding, causing the ceremony to be halted in a state of summer-long suspended animation. Read the plot synopses for the last few “Friends” episodes at https://www.friends-tv.org/. Or go to https://www.nbc.com/tvcentral/shows/friends/wedding/ for NBC’s wedding album.

While most sanctioned sites provide gobs of fluff, hype and promotional landfill, a few corporate Web sites are actually getting with the program and presenting original content on the Net. Fans of “Dawson’s Creek” will soon be treated to the launch of Dawson’s Desktop, (https://www.dawsonscreek.com), a fictitious computer screen where fans can partake of Dawson’s inner-most thoughts and personal e-mail.

This fall, the show’s young, cyber-savvy demographic will be able to rummage through the online affects of Dawson, Joey, Pacey and Jen through chats, video conferences, journals and bookmark choices. The webbed environment will follow up on story lines, supplementing and enhancing existing plots.

Erika Milvy writes about the arts and things cyberesque from her home in San Francisco. She can be reached at erika@well.com.