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FALL FALLOUT Just when you got used to predicting doom and gloom for the broadcast nets, they go and take a turn for the better. After the first two weeks of the new season, the nets are only down 2 percent in total viewers (as opposed to 6 percent last year). Don't get me wrong, losing viewers is bad, but if they can keep cutting their losses, maybe that'll mean gains aren't so far out of reach after all. Here's a look at the Big Four's hits and misses in the early going:
-- Thanks to astounding performances from dramas Judging Amy and Now and Again, crusty old CBS has been successfully wooing 18- to 49-year-olds. (Now has even managed to win its time slot in that demo). The Eye's Wednesday nights, however, are in dire shape, due in part to the ratings-bankrupt sitcom Work With Me.
-- NBC has two disaster areas: The Mike O'Malley Show (which the Peacock canceled after two airings) and Frasier lead-out Stark Raving Mad. Stark's first two episodes lost 22 percent of the TV shrink's viewers, leading NBC Entertainment prez Garth Ancier to admit he's ''disappointed.'' On the bright side: The West Wing's been solid, as has Third Watch -- which, in its second airing, finished tops among 18- to 49-year-olds, the first time NBC's won the 8-9 p.m. hour in that demographic since May 1997.
-- ABC's Once and Again has rocketed out of the gate on Tuesdays, and there's already mutterings that the drama's eventual evictor, NYPD Blue, should be the one to find a new home. On the down side: It's like, you know...is like, you know, bombing, losing much of its Spin City lead-in and crippling lead-out Dharma & Greg.
-- Fox doesn't have a lot of good news to report. Numbers for Action and Get Real are dreadful, and the new Ally played like -- big surprise -- a rerun. On the plus side, That '70s Show was amazingly solid in its new Tuesday slot, and The X-Files season premiere is still out there.
AND SO ON Saving Private Ryan alums Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks will try to bring military drama to TV. Spielberg is near a deal at NBC to exec-produce Semper Fi, while Hanks has signed on to exec-produce West Point for Fox.
