Save This Show!

ROB BROWN--THE WB
JUST HOLD ON: This season's adolescent dramas need some time to mature

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If any of the trio see the fall, they can thank a young fan base with little better to do than badger TV execs, abetted by websites, the fanatic's best friend. Roswellians sent the WB thousands of bottles of Tabasco sauce, a favorite condiment of the aliens. (WB flacks reshipped bottles to TV critics nationwide.) Felicityphiles have sent in cassettes like the ones Felicity mails to her friend Sally--and, creepily, locks of their own hair--and crashed WB servers with e-mail. Meanwhile, Freaks freaks are sending peanuts to networks that may buy the show (a favorite character on the show is allergic) and are taking out a full-page ad in Variety, as have Roswell fans.

Of course, TV execs have other numbers to worry about besides the Tabasco-bottle count, and one can imagine the arguments--Freaks is too oddball, Felicity has had two years to prove itself, Roswell boasts one set too many of pretty teen faces. But consider the series premises they're choosing from for next fall: a boy millionaire helps people by means of a website; a rock band contacts the dead with a magic amulet; Bette Midler plays a woman who's a lot like Bette Midler. Those nuts firing off e-mail could be the best friends TV bosses, and the rest of us, have.