-- CHANCE OF A LIFETIME Comedy Central and MTV have counterprogrammed broadcast rivals with out-there animated fare (Beavis and Butt-head, South Park), but can cablers compete with the nets on their own turf? Lifetime Television will find out next month when it premieres Big Four-like fare Maggie (Ann Cusack), a sitcom about a wife and mother who falls for her veterinarian mentor; Oh Baby (Cynthia Stevenson, Joanna Gleason), a comedy about a single woman who decides to have a baby; and Any Day Now (Annie Potts, Lorraine Toussaint), a drama about two women -- one white, one black -- who grew up together in Birmingham, Ala., during the 1960s.
While the shows look promising, it won't be easy. For starters, the net's chosen Tuesday -- arguably this fall's most competitive night (thanks in part to Fox's moving King of the Hill to 8 p.m.) -- as a launching pad for all three new entries. There are also greater financial risks; programming broadcast-quality shows requires spending broadcast bucks -- several hundred thousand dollars more per episode than the usual cable fare.
But Lifetime president and CEO Doug McCormick is counting on the increasingly conservative programming climate: ''The broadcast networks have ceded so many time periods to newsmagazines; they're keeping their risks down.'' Furthermore, unlike the Big Four, a mere mid-twos (i.e., 2.4 million viewers) rating equals cable success. Eat your heart out, NBC.
-- RESTORING ORDER Law & Order got a little too personal for exec producer Dick Wolf last season. Plotlines included Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach) confronting his daughter's death and Jamie Ross (Carey Lowell) locked in a custody battle. This season, Wolf vows a return to strictly cases. Why the shift in the first place? Wolf says many of the actors weren't under contract, and creating character cliff-hangers allowed the show to survive if cast members chose not to return. In the end, only Lowell left. She'll be replaced by Baywatch Nights' Angie Harmon.
