The fall TV menu
You want a side of Regis with that?

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By Joyce Millman

May 24, 2000 | The broadcast networks' fall TV schedules were unveiled last week, and

the 2000-01 season can be summed up in four words: Hope you like Regis!

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ABC

The big news: ABC is using up all of its lifelines on Who

Wants to Be a Millionaire, the phenomenon that (so far) will not die. "Millionaire" will now air on four nights instead of three (Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday), and producers are planning events like "college week" and "high school week" to draw in younger viewers. ABC is so confident that all you need is Reege, the network will debut only four new shows next season.

But can "Millionaire" withstand the summer onslaught of the buzz-heavy

voyeuristic CBS game shows "Survivor" and "Big Brother"? Once viewers have seen desert-island roommates reenacting "Lord of the Flies," will Regis and his nerd posse seem hopelessly quaint? Stay tuned.

The new shows: Academy Award winning actress/archer Geena Davis

returns to TV (anybody remember "Buffalo Bill"?) in the sitcom Geena (9 p.m., Tuesdays), in which she plays a successful career woman who gains an instant family when she marries a widower (Peter Horton of "thirtysomething") with kids. Among the other sitcoms: People Who Fear People (8:30 p.m., Fridays), starring David Krumholtz as a paranoid guy who thinks everybody is spying on him. Jon Cryer plays his neighbor, who's spying on him.

The lone drama is Gideon's Crossing (10 p.m., Wednesdays),

starring Andre Braugher of "Homicide: Life on the Street" and executive produced by "Homicide" creator Paul Attanasio. The ABC announcement describes Braugher's character, Dr. Ben Gideon, thusly: "The voice of reason, empathy and wisdom in a world of medical chaos, bureaucracy and hypocrisy ... he is Disease's mortal enemy." Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Yeah! Frank Pembleton, M.D.

Canceled: Being named TV Guide's "Best Show You're Not Watching"

this year proved eerily prophetic for Sports Night, which exits ABC, possibly to resurface on HBO. Also missing from ABC's lineup: Sabrina the Teenage Witch, which moves to the WB, and The Hughleys, which has been picked up by UPN.

Among those coming back: NYPD Blue and Once & Again

(sharing a time slot, like last year), The Drew Carey Show, Whose Line Is it Anyway?, Spin City (Charlie Sheen replaces Michael J. Fox), The Practice

CBS

The big news: CBS renewed Steven Bochco's low-rated medical drama

City of Angels, which has a mostly African-American cast. While "Angels" has been floundering in the overall ratings, the series is popular with African-American viewers, and CBS has already lost its most prominent black face by canceling "Cosby." Bochco also gets his wish for a later time slot; CBS is moving the show from 8 p.m. Wednesdays to 9 p.m. Thursdays -- which puts it smack opposite "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," not to mention NBC's surging sitcoms "Will & Grace" and "Just Shoot Me." Remember that saying "Be careful what you wish for"?

And, in yet another depressing display of tunnel vision from the network

that pulled the plug prematurely on "EZ Streets" and "Brooklyn South," the Eye canceled Now and Again, which was easily the network's classiest, most original, best reviewed drama of the year. Part sci-fi thriller, part romantic comedy, part family drama, "Now and Again" was an unclassifiable wonder that built a small, loyal following despite the show's dog of a time slot (9 p.m. Fridays). CBS never seemed to know how to promote the show, which is understandable, given its one-of-a-kind premise: an unremarkable, middle-aged man named Michael Wiseman (John Goodman) is gravely injured in an accident and secretly given a second chance at life when his brain is transplanted into the government-built body of a young superman (Eric Close).

But that description doesn't even begin to tell the story of "Now and

Again." In Wiseman's touching fidelity to his "widow" (Margaret Colin) and daughter (Heather Matarazzo), it was a lovely meditation on the concept of everlasting love. In the Butch and Sundance bickering of Wiseman and his droll creator, Dr. Theodore Morris (Dennis Haysbert), it was a mismatched buddy comedy with a cerebral edge. "Now and Again" was apparently too exotic a flower for the network that continues to cultivate "Diagnosis Murder" and "Nash Bridges." Here's hoping it blooms again on cable.

The new shows: Bette Midler plays a saucy entertainer in The

Bette Show (8 p.m., Wednesdays). "Cybill" sidekick Christine Baranski returns to CBS in Welcome to New York (8:30 p.m., Wednesdays), in which she plays the producer of a Manhattan morning TV show. Mike O'Malley, the comedian whose NBC sitcom lasted for one episode last fall, gets another shot in Yes, Dear (8:30 p.m., Mondays), a sitcom about two sets of new parents.

As for the dramas, Tim Daly comes back to series TV with The Fugitive

(8 p.m., Fridays), a remake of the remake. William Petersen and Marg Helgenberger play Las Vegas forensic investigators in CSI (9 p.m., Fridays). And Craig T. Nelson ("Coach") stars as a Washington, D.C., police commissioner in The District (10 p.m., Saturdays).

Canceled: Besides "Now and Again," CBS axed Chicago Hope,

Martial Law and Early Edition.

Among those coming back: Everybody Loves Raymond, The

King of Queens, Judging Amy, Family Law, Touched by an Angel. The unwatchable Ladies Man might return at mid-season -- or sooner, if that Mike O'Malley sitcom stiffs.

Attempted Regicide: CBS's Sunday movie and JAG held their

own against the Sunday and Tuesday editions of "Millionaire" last season; they remain in place next season. On Wednesday, CBS counters the old-skewing "Millionaire" with two shows that are destined to skew even older, the Midler and Baranski sitcoms. On Thursday, "City of Angels" gets thrown to Regis' lions. This is a plan?

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