EIGHT MILLION STORIES

Start spreading the news: Celebs aren't the only ones fleeing California's fault lines for the East Coast. At least a half dozen TV pilots for the 1995-96 season are also in a New York state of mind. Among them: Central Park West The creator of Melrose Place, Darren Star, takes his formula East. In this new CBS show, a cast of handsome thirtysomethings interacts in Manhattan-with Mariel Hemingway in the Heather Locklear role. New York News From director Michael Apted, this CBS show looks at life inside a New York daily newspaper. Think The Paper. Caroline in the City An NBC romantic comedy about the adventures of a cartoonist (Lea Thompson) in the big town. Seventh Avenue NBC goes fashionable. A chic, beautiful woman (Wendy McKenna) takes over her family's struggling clothing company. Pastor's Wife Picket Fences creator David E. Kelley offers this Fox drama about a Lutheran pastor and his wife who move to the, uh, offbeat borough of Staten Island. Putting It Together This half-hour CBS show about the managing editor (Paula Marshall) of a hip new magazine is directed and executive-produced by Nora Ephron. Making Out In this CBS comedy, David Krumholtz plays a middle-class teen starting high school in-you guessed it-Staten Island. What's behind the Big Apple boom? ''New York is a bottomless bag of stories,'' says Pat Scott of New York City's Office of Film, Theater, and Broadcasting. But Michael Chernuchin, executive producer of the NBC courtroom drama People v., also shooting in New York, offers a more Woody Allenesque explanation: ''Architecturally, New York is the most interesting place in the country,'' he says. ''And there's a whole range of people that doesn't exist in any other city.''