Where the Unreal Rules

What would you call a world that looks just like the one you now inhabit, only when you step out your front door, people are shooting at you, trying to rob you and attempting to eat your dog?

New York?

Close. Producer Chris Carter insists his is a make-believe world, and it’s called “Harsh Realm.” Either way, it debuts on the Fox network Oct. 8 and, along with the WB’s alien-inspired “Roswell” and the vampire-heavy “Angel,” it helps take the new fall television season into another dimension.

Carter’s success with such science-fiction classics as “The X-Files” and “Millennium” no doubt inspired Hollywood’s current preoccupation with the paranormal. But he says the innovative and haunting “Harsh Realm” is actually richer in story possibilities than any of his previous series.

“It has so many different kinds of stories you can tell,” he says. “That other dimension, that other reality, allows you to break some of the rules of physical reality.”

Billed as the ultimate mind game, “Harsh Realm” explores a virtual reality world created by the military to test battle scenarios. But something has gone terribly wrong with the military’s plans, and war hero Lt. Thomas Hobbes (played by Scott Bairstow) is ordered into the top-secret computer-simulation exercise to take on the “virtual characters” who live in the realm.

It’s not, however, an unruly world. Rules, in fact, are key to the story.

“You need rules,” says Carter, “because if it were just lawlessness and rulelessness every week . . . you’d never be able to know the consequences to any particular action. On ‘The X-Files,’ you know, science provided a foil to the unexplainable. And it’s really no different. You have the real world, which provides the measure of the unreal world to tell stories allegorically.”

Building that kind of foundation in reality was vital to making “The X-Files” so popular, says David Nutter, a former Carter colleague who directed 15 episodes of the show in its first three seasons.

“The secret to its success was creating an atmosphere and an environment that’s real. And characters that the audience can relate to,” says Nutter, now executive producer of the WB’s hourlong prime-time series “Roswell,” which debuts Oct. 6. “Really, the audience’s objective is to exercise their emotions when they’re watching. They want to lean in and care.

“And once you’re able to get them to lean in and care, then you’ve got ‘em. Then you can throw the paranormal at them and it will emotionally affect them.”

Establishing that kind of creditability with “Roswell” seemed elusive at first, Nutter says. After all, three of the show’s main characters are aliens who survived a spaceship crash in New Mexico and now masquerade as normal teenagers.

“When you describe the show,” Nutter says, “you kind of get a chuckle.”

The aim, then, is to keep the audience focused on the show’s people, not its premise. So when alien Max Evans (played by “Dawson’s Creek’s” Jason Behr) uses a mysterious power to save the live of classmate Liz Parker (played by newcomer Shiri Appleby), he trusts his secret--and his future--to a girl he’s been silently infatuated with since grade school.

“It’s a love story, an old-fashioned love story,” Nutter says. “We basically wanted to tell a story that we wanted to watch.”

To do that, Nutter and Jason Katims, the show’s creator, softened “Roswell’s” science-fiction pedigree with generous doses of both humor and romance. But what may be most unique about the show--which was originally offered to the Fox network--is its attempt to blend this season’s hot genre--the teen-themed series--with the science-fiction craze.

“We wanted to try to do something that had a signature, that had it’s own voice,” said Nutter. “This is a show that has to really hit every note on the keyboard. When we looked at the material, the real attitude was not what are we going to do but, what are we not going to do? What traps are we not going to fall into? The biggest challenge is to keep it smart; not to make it contrived.”

But while “Roswell’s” main characters hail from another world and “Harsh Realm’s” cast inhabits one, the new WB series “Angel” is set in present-day Los Angeles--an environment its executive producers insist is much richer in plot possibilities than anyone’s imagination.

“You have everything in L.A.,” says David Greenwalt. “You have the wealthy in Bel-Air, you’ve got Olvera Street, you’ve got the homeless. It’s a whole cornucopia.”

“L.A. is 14 different cities,” adds Joss Whedon, who created the show. “So that gives us a lot of opportunity for diversity and sort of interesting milieus and stuff to find horror in.”

A spinoff of WB’s popular series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Angel” extends the coming-of-age parable beyond the teenage years with David Boreanaz starring as the title character, a centuries-old vampire cursed with a conscience before being turned loose in a city teeming with demons.

“It’s a natural outgrowth of Buffy, but it’s also a show with enough of its own feeling, its own look and its own taste to be different,” says Greenwalt, who previous credits include “The Wonder Years” and “Doogie Howser, M.D.” as well as “Buffy.”

Still, with Greenwalt and Whedon producing both “Buffy” and “Angel”--which will run back-to-back on the WB on Tuesday nights, beginning Oct. 5--plot crossovers will be difficult to avoid. In fact, two of “Angel’s” first eight episodes will feature visits from “Buffy” cast members, and other crossovers are anticipated.

“Angel” will be darker, however, with a more mature tone, although its mix of horror and drama will be tempered by “some funny stuff too,” Greenwalt says. “Otherwise, we’d just be bored to tears.”

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“Angel” premieres Oct. 5 and airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. on the WB; “Roswell” premieres Oct. 6 and airs Wednesdays at p .m. on the WB; “Harsh Realm” premieres Oct. 8 and airs Fridays at 9 p.m. on Fox.