Fall TV: Everything old is new again

With the economy still trying to climb out of the cellar, the new broadcast television season will be leaner – but not meaner.

BEST BETS

Here are five best bets worth watching, based on pilot episodes.

1. "Modern Family" – The premise has a Dutch film crew following a "typical" extended American family for a reality-TV show. But they've picked the most dysfunctional clan this side of "Arrested Development."

2. "Glee" – We can't get enough of high school romance, and in this musical revenge of the nerds adventure, a glee club struggles to gain fame and respect.

3. "The Cleveland Show" – Funny and irreverent, it has some interesting people supplying voices, including Arianna Huffington.

4. "The Vampire Diaries" – This stylishly done romance tale is about a vampire lad who wants to settle down in a small town with the prom queen. But his wicked brother has other plans.

5. "The Good Wife" – As a wronged woman and underdog in the courtroom, Julianna Margulies has us rooting for her character.

There are fewer shows overall debuting – only 22 newcomers if you count "Shark Tank" and Jay Leno's new talk show, which sounds a lot like his old talk show.

But with eight new comedies, a couple of light-hearted new dramas and Leno's Jaywalking gags every week night; it appears we're getting a laughter bailout.

There also will be a lot of recycling in this recession-driven season. The CW, for example, is bringing back a new group of twentysomethings on "Melrose Place" and ABC's "Eastwick" is a remake 1987 flick "The Witches of Eastwick."

Couch spuds will see more of the same: more lawyers, more cops and more doctors. Apparently there's not a health care crisis in prime-time because three new medical dramas are on the way.

And familiar TV faces are resurfacing such as Kelsey Grammer, Jenna Elfman, Courteney Cox Arquette, Patricia Heaton, Chevy Chase, Ed O'Neill and Julianna Margulies.

NBC is recycling Leno five nights a week. His new talk/variety show wipes out the need for those costly dramas because talk is cheap – to produce that is. But it's a gamble. If Leno bombs, it's back to the drawing board for the hit-starved peacock gang. If it works, it could be the end of prime-time drama as we know it.

Generating the most buzz is Fox's "Glee," an offbeat musical dramedy about a sincere high school teacher struggling to turn the social misfits in a glee club into campus heroes.

Also getting high marks from TV critics is ABC's "Modern Family," a laugh-out-loud funny half-hour comedy about three very different dysfunctional families (including a gay couple). It is easily the best comedy pilot of the new fall season.

And the CW could have a hit with "The Vampire Diaries," a teen romance that cashes in on the "Twilight" craze.

Some thought the election of the country's first black president would usher in more high profile roles for black actors but it's still predominately white in prime-time.

However, Fox has two new comedies with lead black characters – and both are good: "The Cleveland Show," an animated spinoff from "Family Guy," and "Brothers," with former NFL star Michael Strahan and comic Daryl "Chill" Mitchell.

Viewers might be confused at the outset of the season because the networks have shuffled returning shows. "Ugly Betty" moves to Fridays. "The Mentalist," the only new hit last season, moves to Thursdays, and "Medium" jumps from NBC to CBS.

The networks seemed have shied away from those brain-numbing sci-fi dramas such as "Lost" and "Heroes." The only new series that's "out there" is ABC's "FlashForward."

Loosely based on a sci-fi novel by physicist Robert J. Sawyer, "FlashForward" is about a world in which everyone gets a short glimpse of their future. Some set out to change it, and the FBI gets involved.

CBS seems to have the only safe bet in "NCIS: Los Angeles," a predictable but entertaining spinoff about undercover cops. It won't get buzz but will most likely get renewed.

Recession blues comes to the little screen in several new series such as "Hank," where Grammer's character is a laid-off pompous Wall Street CEO forced to stay home.

And in "Community," Joel McHale is a suspended lawyer forced back to community college, where he encounters other misfits. Meanwhile, on "The Middle," Patricia Heaton is a mother in a family struggling to make ends meet.

Cougars are also in vogue this season in the comedies "Accidently on Purpose" and "Cougar Town," where older women (Elfman, Arquette) are involved with younger men.