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The tent is open, but will anyone come in?

 
Published Sept. 7, 2003|Updated Sept. 1, 2005

For most TV producers, an audience decline of 30 percent would be a sure sign of trouble.

But ask Star Trek producers Brannon Braga and Rick Berman about the precipitous shrinkage in fans for the 37-year-old sci-fi franchise's last surviving TV show, Enterprise, and you need sandbags to hold back the flood of denials.

"I don't think, creatively, we were doing anything wrong," Braga told TV critics in July. "It can be debated from many different angles whether there are problems with the show. (But) we believe very strongly that Star Trek is still a very viable franchise."

Still, when the series returns Wednesday, fans will notice substantial changes, including a new mission (chasing after an alien race that used a distant weapon to kill millions on Earth), new enemies (the Xindi, a race comprising five types of creatures that resemble dolphins, sloths, reptiles, insects and humans) and a new setting (a Bermuda Triangle-type area of space called the Delphic Expanse).

All of which makes Braga's denials sound a bit desperate _ as if acceding to the premise of all the "Can Star Trek be saved?" speculation could only make matters worse.

In an odd way, that also reflects a bit of the quandary facing executives at Enterprise's network, UPN, these days.

Several signature series _ Enterprise, WWE Smackdown and Buffy the Vampire Slayer _ are off the schedule or down in viewership. Which means its schedules need a boost: from a Buffy-less Tuesday now filled with half-hour comedies to a sagging Enterprise (down from 6-million to 4-million viewers), and a stagnant Smackdown.

As the curtain rises on its new season this week (the action starts Wednesday with Enterprise and a new series about a computer geek turned superhero, Jake 2.0), UPN tries to knit together a schedule that too often has felt disjointed _ working to herd African-American viewers, sci-fi geeks and wrestling fans under the same sprawling tent.

All the while, executives insist, nothing much is wrong.

"Rome wasn't built in a day," said Les Moonves, chairman and CEO of CBS, which now oversees sister network UPN (both are owned by media giant Viacom). "We're trying to evolve into a network. (And) anybody who thinks they can overturn a network in one year only has to look at ABC."

To make it happen, UPN is focused on viewers ages 18 to 34, particularly men. Tuesdays will feature four half-hour comedies that start with a staple of the network's black-centered Monday night shows, Flex Alexander's One on One, and slowly gets more mainstream (read: white), ending the night with a broad satire of working class white guys, The Mullets.

The idea, at least according to UPN president Dawn Ostroff, is to provide a night of comedies appealing to the sprawling interests of young viewers who listen to Eminem and Kid Rock as easily as Missy Elliott and 50 Cent.

"It's an evolution, not a revolution," said Ostroff, pointing to the network's summer reality success, America's Next Top Model, as a show that punched all the right buttons. "We're hoping it will start to not be a wasteland, and start to be a key destination for people."

Perhaps, but UPN's schedule includes a show widely regarded as fall's worst pilot, The Mullets. And few expect the network's Tuesday shows to emerge unscathed.

To beat the rush of the official fall TV season's Sept. 22 start date, both UPN and rival the WB will debut new shows this week _ UPN unveils its Wednesday and Thursday schedules (including a special preview of The Mullets after Smackdown at 9:30 p.m. Thursday), while the WB launches Thursday and Friday night lineups.

It's a strategy that makes so much sense, market leader NBC followed suit _ bumping up the Whoopi Goldberg comedy Whoopi and the John Larroquette/Christine Baranski sitcom Happy Family to start Tuesday, while the other networks are still buried in reality shows and reruns.

And though most network types won't admit it, there's a simple method to their madness: an early start gives lesser series a chance to make an impact before the real bloodletting of fall begins.

For proof, consider the shows the WB is previewing this week: the stupid human tricks-meets-Showtime at the Apollo talent show Steve Harvey's Big Time, Amanda Bynes' sitcom What I Like About You and the Joey Lawrence family series Run of the House on Thursdays.

Friday brings a one-hour Reba and comic actor Anthony Anderson's sitcom All About the Andersons, a show based on his life as a struggling actor living with an irascible dad (Good Times alum John Amos). Next week, Holly Robinson Peete's sitcom about a middle class black family that takes in a single white mom and her rebellious teen son, Like Family, debuts.

All this early comedy highlights the WB's trouble in finding sitcoms to equal the critical and cultural success of signature dramas such as Dawson's Creek, Smallville, 7th Heaven and Gilmore Girls.

Another twist: these shows will alternate between series with black stars, such as Harvey and Anderson, and mostly white casts (Reba, Run of the House and What I Like About You).

"You send a message to an audience when you clump like-minded shows together," said WB entertainment head Jordan Levin. As he pointed out, ABC found success in its TGIF lineup years ago by alternating black-centered shows such as Family Matters and Hangin' With Mr. Cooper with Step By Step and Full House.

"When you . . . create a night of programming that features largely African-American leads, it starts to say to the non-African-American audience, "This isn't for you,' " added Levin. "We wanted to send a message to our audience that this is an open tent, and these shows are for you."

And that's perhaps the best thing about this time of year in television-land: before the real competition starts, every show's a possible winner and the small screen is just one big tent waiting to welcome potential fans. In the end, only time and ratings will make the difference.