Hey, anything worth looking at?

FROM all appearances, television fans have a lot to look forward to right now. With the start of the fall season, there are an unusual number of great-looking, well-acted, carefully plotted series to choose from. Even with the networks’ steady improvement in quality in recent years, this crop seems superlative.

But, jaded speed daters that we are, we’ll need to adopt a Buddhist stance and renounce attachment to lower our expectations. Inevitably, more than a few of those intricate plots will unravel, or that character who seemed so clever in Episode 1 will grate horribly four episodes later. Or there will be commitment issues -- ours, or the network’s.

Commitment is at the heart of the fuss that’s been made over the seemingly unsustainable number of serialized action dramas pouring onto television these days. At the semiannual press tour in July, during which television journalists get to grill network executives and the shows’ creators, critics were slitty-eyed about all of the serialized shows. Most viewers have only a finite amount of time to devote to watching TV, and it’s asking a lot to expect them to tune in to new weekly thrillers when they’re already in the thrall of “Lost,” “Prison Break” and “24.”

A second beef was that fans were burned last season by the unresolved mysteries on canceled series. In Fox’s “Reunion,” each episode unfurled clues to a murder. On ABC’s “Invasion” and CBS’ “Threshold,” aliens seemed to be taking over the country. (And if memory serves, last we saw NBC’s “Surface,” sea creatures were getting comfortable in a flooded North Carolina.) How did it all turn out? Who knows?

We loved and we lost, was the message repeated ad nauseam. Why should we get involved again? Of course, there was no good answer to these questions, possibly because a good show is a good show, and attraction isn’t always rational.

So the serial flirtation continues. In this trendy category, NBC offers “Kidnapped” (Page 12) and “Heroes” (Page 10); CBS has “Smith” (Page 4) and “Jericho” (Page 10); ABC has “The Nine” (Page 14), “Six Degrees” and “Daybreak”; and the CW gives us “Runaway.” Fox has already put out “Vanished” among its late-summer premieres, and the missing-person mystery (not to be confused with “Kidnapped”) has done OK despite mixed reviews. Is the next “Lost” in this group? Let’s hope.

But if you’re looking for a new half-hour comedy, you’ll have to look hard this season. With drama rising, the short-form sit-com has dwindled. CBS and the CW have one each, “The Class” and “The Game,” respectively. “30 Rock” and “Twenty Good Years” fill out an hour on NBC, and “The Knights of Prosperity” (Page 14) and “Help Me Help You” will span another on ABC. (There were two more on ABC, “Big Day” and “Notes From the Underbelly,” but they were pulled from the September premiere schedule: a mystery worthy of another serialized drama in fall 2007?)

And Fox’s formulaic “‘Til Death” and “Happy Hour” already premiered. Even the pilot episodes looked exhausted, and few people noticed.

Plenty of people noticed “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” (NBC) in the months before the season even began, and everyone will finally be able to see the high-stakes Aaron Sorkin drama Monday night. ABC’s “Brothers & Sisters” has been the recipient of a different kind of buzz: the kind that sounds like, “Oh, no, what have we done?” amid cast changes and behind-the-scenes scuffles. ABC might have better luck with “Ugly Betty” (Page 8), in which the appealing America Ferrera wins over everyone she encounters.

Beyond the new network shows, Showtime gives us the serial-killer-as-hero show “Dexter,” Ric Burns looks at the life of Andy Warhol on PBS’ “American Masters” this week, and our old prime-time favorites will be back soon (Page 16). There’s also an embarrassment of riches in the world of football (Page 6) as ESPN will broadcast “Monday Night Football” for the first time, and NBC is hoping its Sunday night games will lead it out of the ratings basement.

If none of this sounds appealing, then here’s a Hail Mary pass, and if it doesn’t work, nothing will: “Meerkat Manor,” Season 2, Sept. 29 on Animal Planet.

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kate.aurthur@latimes.com

Aurthur is The Times’ television editor.