(3 of 5)
Why: If a woman is going to be a movie star, it's often said, the camera must love her. On television that's not the case. The little, pallid screen doesn't require that luminescent quality and usually doesn't display it to very good advantage. This is one reason why the arrival of Keri Russell on TV is so remarkable. Playing a college freshman in a new drama on the WB, Russell has an unusual lightness and naturalness. Of course, she is very pretty, and she is a fine actor as well, but these attributes count for only so much. What Russell also has is grace, a touch of bliss that falls from the heavens, and that gives her a savory presence rarely seen in this mundane medium. As for the show itself, it is far more likable than its demographic neighbors, Dawson's Creek (teens) and Ally McBeal (twentysomethings). The danger is that expectations for it have risen too high, making it the most eagerly anticipated new series of the season. But Russell herself is mostly the reason for this, thus viewers are unlikely to be disappointed. When: Debuts Sept. 29 at 9 p.m. E.T.
AND AS THE BROADCAST NETWORKS SINK SLOWLY IN THE WEST... Each fall brings tremendous excitement and anticipation about the networks' new shows. Except this fall. Not even network executives can muster enthusiasm over a generally weak season that threatens to accelerate the erosion to cable.
ABC After a miserable showing last year, ABC has nowhere to go but up. The Hughleys, which Chris Rock is producing, is one of its stronger new sitcoms.
NBC Seinfeld is gone, E.R.'s price has soared, and NBC just hopes to hold its ground. Trinity, a drama set in Hell's Kitchen, is its least formulaic new entry.
CBS Desperate to attract young men, CBS paid dearly to bring back the NFL. It has also scheduled atypically macho shows like Buddy Faro and Martial Law.
Fox Trying to find a sitcom to match its tremendous successes with dramas and animation, Fox brings us Costello. It's going to have to keep looking.
UPN A show about Abraham Lincoln's butler? That's The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer. UPN seeks a broader audience, but this is an odd way to attract it.
The WB Aside from Felicity there's Charmed, a surprisingly fun drama with Shannen Doherty as a witch. Watch too for the little noticed but intelligent Hyperion Bay.
JACKSON POLLOCK A Retrospective
Why: Pollock is the totemic figure of modern American art. After his death in a car crash at 44, in 1956, he became famous in a way that no American artist had been before (or has been since)--a sacrificial hero to some, an overblown dauber to others. His influence lies like traces of DNA through 40 years of subsequent painting. With this show--the first Pollock retrospective since 1982, in Paris--curator Kirk Varnedoe is bound to unsettle some settled views. "Jack the Dripper," as the press christened the artist (in his studio, left, with wife and fellow artist Lee Krasner), is unlikely to keep looking like an apostle of pure abstraction. More likely we will see him as, among other things, the last heir to a tradition of epic American landscape that stretches back to the early 19th century. When: Opens Oct. 28 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.