A Guided Tour of the New Fall TV Season

Saturday

The Family Man
(CBS, 8-8:30 p.m.)

Gregory Harrison, Gonzo on Trapper John, M.D., gets much less gonzo as the widowed father of four in this relentlessly typical sitcom. Harrison plays a fireman, but that seems like the only vaguely original touch. In addition to all the hilarity that chatting with a quartet of cute sitcom kids can yield, the show features a funny live-in father-in-law played by Al Molinaro (Al Delvecchio from Happy Days). How dumb is The Family Man? Well, the joke that gets the biggest studio-audience laugh in the debut is when Harrison wants to have some blueberry pancakes for breakfast, but Molinaro has-get this-eaten them all. This show has a line that beats even Uncle Buck in the vulgarity sweepstakes. ''When you're asleep tonight,'' says one of the show's playful tykes to a sibling, ''I'm going to spit in your mouth.'' Now that's gross.

Behind the scenes
Executive producers Thomas L. Miller and Robert L. Boyett are responsible for some of the squeaky-cleanest family comedies on network TV, and we do mean family: Family Matters, The Hogan Family, and now The Family Man. Will they follow the lead of CBS' Uncle Buck and have PG-13- rated putdowns coming from the mouths of babes? ''I think. . . the answer would be no,'' Miller said this summer. ''But, you know, we did [the movie] Foul Play, and God, we threw a dwarf out of a window. So it all depends.''

Chance of survival
Against NBC's higher-profile Parenthood, not good.

Parenthood
(NBC, 8-8:30 p.m.)

Ron Howard's 1989 film has been turned into a half-hour sitcom starring Ed Begley Jr. (St. Elsewhere) in the dad role originally played by Steve Martin. Howard's company is also producing the show, which boasts almost as large a cast as the movie, so the trick will be to keep a lot of characters and plot lines moving in each half hour. On the basis of the hour-long pilot, this could prove to be a satisfying show — thirtysomething without moodiness — and costar William Windom is the best cranky old man on the fall schedule.

Behind the scenes
Casting a TV version of a hit movie is always difficult, but Parenthood's ensemble fell into place easily — with one notable exception: Keanu Reeves, who played Dianne Wiest's housepainter son-in-law, Tod, proved difficult to replace. In the pilot, comic Pauly Shore played Tod, but when Parenthood's producers decided to make the character less of a dopehead and more of a Valley Guy, David Arquette (Roseanna's brother) stepped in to play the role. Sharp-eyed observers will recognize kids Zachary LaVoy and Ivyann Schwan from the movie, as well as 10-year-old Max Elliott Slade, who plays Ed Begley Jr.'s nerve-racked young son and who appeared in the film as the young Steve Martin.

Chance of survival
Ratings for the pilot were excellent; if word-of-mouth is good, NBC should have a new Saturday-night hit.

Fox Video Hour
(Fox, 8-9 p.m.)

The Fox folks apparently felt bad that the network was giving you only a half-hour's worth of Candid Camera-style video humor last season, so they've retooled their Totally Hidden Video show, dumped smirky host Steve Skrovan, and turned it into the more-dignified- sounding Fox Video Hour. Chances are, however, it'll prove to be much the same product. It will be interesting to see whether this and ABC's big hit America's Funniest Home Videos do well in the ratings. Doesn't the home-video fad seem to have run its course?

Behind the scenes
When Fox announced its fall schedule last May, it left the fate of the two-year-old Totally Hidden Video in doubt, calling it one of a half-dozen concepts that would vie for a slot in the new Video Hour double bill. Hidden Video made the cut, with Skrovan replaced by Bill Kirchenbauer (late of ABC's Just the Ten of Us) and Anne Bloom (HBO's Not Necessarily the News). Part two of the Video Hour is called Haywire; its host is yet to be named.

Chance of survival
Iffy- this could be camcorder overkill.

Working It Out
(NBC, 8:30-9 p.m.)

Jane Curtin (Kate & Allie) and Stephen Collins (Tattingers) are the leads in this light romantic comedy. Each has been recently divorced, and each is a parent; they fall for one another and begin dating. There's a lot of gabble about the gamble of making commitments and ''getting hurt.'' But there are also some tart jokes and a grown-up view of grown-up love affairs that doesn't usually surface on television. Creator Bill Persky, who worked with Curtin on Kate & Allie, seems to be trying to create a little Broadway comedy for prime-time each week, and more power to him.

Behind the scenes
Jane Curtin admits that her role as Sarah Marshall won't surprise any fans of Kate & Allie, but, she adds, the similarities go only so far. ''I love the character of Allie, but she went from a woman who couldn't cope with being single to a woman who couldn't cope with being married. Sarah is much sharper. And her hair's a lot blonder.'' Not sharp enough, however, was the character of Sarah's neighbor, played by Tony-winning actress Randy Graff in the first episode. A new sidekick played by Mary Beth Hurt will replace her. Completing the quartet will be Married...With Children's David Garrison as Collins' confidant.

Chance of survival
Pretty good, if the series can get viewers to fall in love with David, Sarah, and their budding relationship.

E.A.R.T.H. Force
(CBS, 9-10 p.m.)

Quite aside from the fact that the title is incredibly annoying to type out (all those pesky periods; try it sometime), E.A.R.T.H. Force is one of those shows, like Emergency (1972-77), that some viewers and many critics instinctively dislike: an hour-long drama about noble problem-solvers who deliver their fact-filled lines as if reciting public- service announcements. In this case, they're a group of trouble-shooting environmental experts led by Gil Gerard (Buck Rogers in the 25th Century). Despite predictions of swift cancellation (see below), it's conceivable that E.A.R.T.H. Force could become a hit with viewers who'll look past the stiff acting for the action and information the show provides.

Behind the scenes
To ensure that E.A.R.T.H. Force is accurate in its depiction of ecological crises, executive producer Richard Chapman has enlisted the Environmental Media Association, a watchdog group that persuaded 25 network series to include pro-environmental plot lines last season, as a consultant. But accuracy probably won't be enough to woo viewers to what looks like a socially conscious version of The A-Team. In recent seasons, Saturday night has been a ratings abyss for CBS, and many TV-industry observers are predicting that the Australia-based E.A.R.T.H. Force will be the first new series to get the ax. One warning sign: The network has ordered just six episodes.

Chance of survival
Slim.

American Chronicles
(Fox, 9:30-10 p.m.)

The team that brought us Twin Peaks, producer-directors David Lynch and Mark Frost, have created this weekly documentary series for Fox. Except for a certain dreaminess of tone, American Chronicles couldn't be less Peaks-ian: The debut episode offered an exploration of New Orleans that was an exceptionally well-shot travelogue, nothing more, nothing less. Future shows are scheduled to explore everything from the Miss Texas Pageant to fighter George Foreman. If you combine the dolorousness of American Chronicles with the mixed-to-negative reviews received by Wild at Heart, Lynch's latest feature-film freak-out, you might conclude that the public will soon begin to overdose on Lynch.

Behind the scenes
Frost's quest for subjects that are ''intrinsically or quintessentially American'' will find the Chronicles cameras roving all over the country in the coming weeks. Among the ''docu-poems'' in the works are glimpses of Manhattan's nightlife and Los Angeles' car culture, a visit to a bikers' convention in Sturgis, S.D., and a peek at a high-school reunion in Elmhurst, Ill.

Chance of survival
A nonfiction series with no characters, no plot, not much dialogue-don't look for it in Nielsen's top 10 (or 20, or 30. . .).

American Dreamer
(NBC, 10:30-11 p.m.)

Robert Urich (Spenser: For Hire), having earned raves in recent years for his acting in such TV movies as Lonesome Dove and Blind Faith, brings his unassuming charm to situation comedy here. He's an ex-network journalist and father of two children who gives up his glamorous career to write a column for a newspaper in a small town in Wisconsin. Somehow or other, this town has produced the gloriously eccentric Carol Kane, costarring as Urich's secretary. The teaming of Urich and Kane may not automatically summon up comparisons to Tracy and Hepburn or Gable and Lombard, but the pairing may prove to be a big part of the show's originality; they're an intriguing odd couple.

Behind the scenes
The unusual style of American Dreamer — minimal, abstract sets and sudden flashes of memory and nostalgia — might seem straight out of Our Town, but executive producer Gary David Goldberg was actually inspired by an episode of his own Family Ties in which Alex Keaton talked to a psychiatrist and literally wandered through his own past. Dreamer marks Urich's eighth stab at a prime-time series in 18 years, which makes him the most popular actor in network television — or the unluckiest.

Chance of survival
No comedy has yet flourished in a 10:30 p.m. time slot, but Dreamer will get a big boost from its lead-in, Carol & Company. If it can't hold on to most of Burnett's audience, don't look for it beyond November.

Want to find out who killed Laura Palmer? According to Twin Peaksexecutive producer Mark Frost, the show's two-hour season premiere Sept. 30 should satisfy curious viewers — how's this for a David Lynch touch? — ''up to a point.'' Lynch (who will direct four of the first eight hours this season) and Frost are keeping plot twists under wraps, but count on the appearance of several new characters, the demise of some old ones (at last glance, Leo Johnson and Nadine Hurley were looking especially unwell), and the fast recovery of Agent Cooper from the shooting that ended last season's final episode. Cooper is certain to stay in town long after Laura's killer is revealed; ''there are a lot of crimes that the FBI gets involved in,'' Frost said this summer, ''and most of them are being committed in Twin Peaks even as we speak.'' Those crimes, however, won't take as long to solve as Laura's murder; in its second season, Peaks is planning shorter, tighter story lines.

ABC's China Beach, on the other hand, will attempt to entangle viewers in an innovative, season-long gimmick. Executive producer John Sacret Young has planned a complex series of stories that will follow McMurphy (Dana Delany) from her arrival at China Beach in 1967 all the way up to 1985, and perhaps beyond. The post-Vietnam fates of several other characters will be revealed as well, including a tragedy whose nature will become evident in the show's Sept. 29 season premiere.

Three other Saturday shows are planning cast changes: Magnum P.I.'s John Hillerman will join CBS' The Hogan Family as Mike Hogan's father, Don Franklin will become the first black member of The Young Riders in a plot line that will edge the series into the Civil War, and Saturday Night Live will begin its 16th season on Sept. 29 with a new face in the ensemble: 23-year-old comedian Chris Rock, who will reportedly become SNL's first black regular since Damon Wayans and Danitra Vance left the show in 1986.