Fall TV Preview: Tuesday's New Shows

BRIMSTONE
CONCEPT New York City cop (thirtysomething's Peter Horton) kills the man who raped his wife, then gets killed himself and is shipped off to hell. The devil (who, in the pilot, was played by John Glover) gives Horton a chance to redeem himself, sending him back to Earth to recapture 113 sinners who've escaped from hell.
THE SCOOP ''I thought if I was going to go back to television, it had to be different than the usual lawyer/doctor thing,'' says Horton. ''We've come up with some cool story ideas: Do dead people who come back from hell get hungry? Can you get colds? Can you have sex? You can have sex and [being dead is] built-in birth control.'' For the record, Horton also said without apparent irony, ''It's a hell of a lot of work.''
BOTTOM LINE If you dig the concept, you'll dig this broodily shot horror show. From here, it looks like holy hokey hooey.

MERCY POINT
CONCEPT ER in outer space: Let's get an IV in this martian — stat!
THE SCOOP Set in a Deep Space Medical Facility staffed by doctors and Mednauts (otherwise known as EMTs), Mercy Point is headed up by Joe Morton — who, appropriately enough, made his feature-film mark in 1984's The Brother From Another Planet. His character here ''is the primary alien physiologist...he's just so excited about the discoveries he can make.'' Morton says he's proud to be in a UPN show with an ''African American as the lead in a drama, as opposed to a sitcom, with a completely diversified cast, including aliens.''
BOTTOM LINE Facing competition like Spin City, Just Shoot Me, and The WB's Felicity, this thing'll warp into a ratings black hole. What it does have is the makings of a sci-fi camp cult classic, with dialogue like "''his is not some low-orbit HMO'' and ''Kiss my outer rim!''

FELICITY
CONCEPT Small-town girl with really great hair goes to big-city college.
THE SCOOP Follically blessed Keri Russell is the New York City-bound Felicity, who, says executive producer J.J. Abrams, ''is at a point in her life where she could do anything — she could be a doctor, she could be an astronaut, she could be a lawyer. She's incredibly naive and optimistic, and New York City is the perfect obstacle course [for her].''
BOTTOM LINE In addition to being the most talked-about show of the season, it is also the year's most sensitively written new young-adult drama; the question is, will it hold WB audiences who've just been whooping it up with the in-your-face Buffy the Vampire Slayer?

SPORTS NIGHT
CONCEPT Jock sportscasters (Josh Charles and Peter Krause) horse around while hosting a cable sports show.
THE SCOOP Executive-produced by feature-film writer Aaron Sorkin (A Few Good Men, The American President), this comedy draws an obvious comparison to an ESPN show. ''SportsCenter and ESPN are frequently referred to on our show: We're [supposed to be]competitors,'' says Sorkin. ''It's made clear that SportsCenter is in first place, and we are in second, [that] they are the guys who always manage to do it right and we don't.''
BOTTOM LINE The pilot does a good job of capturing the frenetic pace of live sports-TV broadcasts, but can the show avoid the abrupt, boring soul-searching that flattens the pilot's final scenes?