ABC: Pushing Daisies, about a man whose touch brings the dead back to life; Suspect, a crime procedural; Cashmere Mafia, from Sex and the City creator Darren Star, about a set of successful women; the potential Grey's Anatomy spinoff with Kate Walsh that was road-tested last week.
CBS: Babylon Fields, a zombie drama; Demons, about a priest standing against Satan; Viva Laughlin, a musical mystery series with Hugh Jackman; Swingtown, set in 1970s suburbia and the swingers scene; and an untitled Hispanic family drama with Jimmy Smits.
Fox: Them, based on a graphic novel about alien spies; K-Ville, about police who hung on in post-Katrina New Orleans; The Sarah Connor Chronicles, based on the Terminator character; New Amsterdam, with a police detective who happens to be centuries old.
NBC: Journeyman, with a time-traveling problem solver; Fort Pit, about police banished to a tough New York precinct; Life, about a wrongly jailed ex-cop who rejoins the department; The Bionic Woman, a new version of the 1970s superhero series.
In one of the more spectacular examples of TV networks following a trend straight off a cliff, more than a half-dozen densely plotted new serial dramas failed this season.
Not since the flood of misbegotten Friends knockoffs of the 1990s or the turn-of-the-century Who Wants to Be a Millionaire game-show frenzy has broadcast TV been so betrayed by a genre.
As networks shape their fall 2007 schedules, the canceled ghosts of serialized Day Break, Vanished, Kidnapped and others are hovering. But they have company: the winning spirit of Heroes, the high-concept freshman serial that made good.
So while crime shows may be the hot trend for next season, TV executives and observers say that, despite the duds, serials will continue to find their way into the network lineups.
Just not as many.
"We're going to see fewer than last year because networks copy what works and shy away from what doesn't," said analyst Steve Sternberg of ad-buying firm Magna Global.
"It always has to do with what was the success the most recent year," agreed Bill Carroll of ad-buyer Katz Television.
"So we're going to see things that either have a crime fighter, a superhero or the supernatural."
The pilots that were "greenlighted" by the major networks for consideration lean toward crime procedurals, the most viewer-friendly genre for those who want to dip in and out of a show and not keep tabs on elaborate story arcs.
Of the serialized dramas angling for a network spot, the balance is in favor of comfy soap operas instead of complex thrillers.
It won't all be mundane, however, with some exotic concepts under consideration.
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