Fall TV Preview: Tuesday's Returning Shows

HOME IMPROVEMENT
As the sitcom gears up for what will likely be its final season, Tim (Tim Allen) starts an outreach program, tooling around in a van and helping neighbors with fix-it projects, while sidekick Al (Richard Karn) woos an actress (A League of Their Own's Megan Cavanagh) who owns a pet rat. Two ex-rugrats are deserting the series: We'll see a lot less of Zachery Ty Bryan's Brad, who pursues a pro-soccer career in Europe, and Jonathan Taylor Thomas' Randy, who'll travel to Costa Rica to try to save the rain forests. Which is probably easier than saving this sinking show.

MOESHA
Randy's L.A. teen is now a high school senior, which means homecoming, prom, and thinking-about-college episodes. Plus, in the season premiere, Moesha meets her famous look-alike, pop star Brandy. Explains executive producer Vida Spears: ''Kim [Countess Vaughn] was supposed to get tickets to a Brandy concert, but she oversleeps, so she tells Moesha, 'Well, you look like her.' A security guard mistakes her for Brandy and lets them in.'' What's Brandy's reaction to her doppelganger? Says exec producer Sara Finney, ''At first she's afraid, but they wind up realizing they have a lot in common.'' Like genes.

MAD ABOUT YOU
Helen Hunt and Paul Reiser have begun shooting what will probably be the sitcom's last season on location in Manhattan, where Hunt has been starring in Broadway's Twelfth Night. While they were in town, fellow zillionaire Jerry Seinfeld shot a cameo as himself; he mistakes Paul for a crazed fan.

JAG
Expect loads of action on this military drama, and maybe even some real action for David James Elliott's Lieut. Comdr. Harmon Rabb Jr.. His ideal leading lady? ''My wife [actress Nancy Chambers] is fabulous with me — that's the God's honest truth. There's great sexual tension between us.'' One would hope.

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
With Angel (David Boreanaz) banished to hell, Sarah Michelle Gellar's Buffy tentatively reenters the dating arena. ''Hopefully, at least one of the people she dates won't be a monster,'' jokes creator Joss Whedon. Angel will rise again later in the season (he'll materialize in Buffy's dreams in the meantime) and gets his own spin-off in fall '99. There are plenty of other romances: Oz (Seth Green, now a regular) flunks 12th grade and returns to squire Willow (Alyson Hannigan), who's dabbling in witchcraft. Xander (Nicholas Brendon) continues his love-hate relationship with Charisma Carpenter's Cordelia. Even straight-laced librarian Giles (Anthony Stewart Head) may, in Whedon's words, ''get some.'' ''I was about to, and she got killed,'' says Head, referring to Giles' courtship of doomed Miss Calendar. ''It was the best contraceptive I've ever seen.'' What with Brimstone, death as birth control is getting a real workout this season.

CLUELESS
Somehow we missed this, but in last season's cliff-hanger, Clueless' rich kids lost all their money and ended up in unfashionable Bakersfield, Calif. ''We do two episodes where we try to get them back to Beverly Hills,'' says executive producer Tim O'Donnell. ''Should I tell you what happens? Okay, yeah, we get back to Beverly Hills.'' Aw, you ruined it!

SPIN CITY
Mike (Michael J. Fox) and Nikki (Connie Britton) engage in a surreptitious office romance, Stuart (Alan Ruck) and Carter (Michael Boatman) extend their odd-couple roommate arrangement, and Mayor Winston (Barry Bostwick) seeks reelection. But the contest everybody really cares about is: Can Spin City attract more voters — er, viewers — than NBC's Just Shoot Me? ''I'm biased, but I think we're a better show,'' says Ruck. ''They're just benefitting from superb marketing. It's going to be a slugfest, but I think we're going to win out eventually.'' Now, that's spin.