2001 Fall Preview: Fall Forecast

LOS ANGELES (Top40 Charts) - The official launch of the new fall season is about a month away, but in the spirit of putting this depressing TV summer behind us, I'll let you in on what we'll be talking about soon, if not soon enough.

In a word: action. Thrillers that thrill provide the fall's most stimulating flavors. The top prospect: Fox's 24, which won't show up until October 30 (thanks to postseason baseball) but is definitely worth the wait.

The season's riskiest yet most rewarding storytelling experiment, 24 is an immediately gripping yarn about an assassination plot, with CIA anti-terrorist chief Kiefer Sutherland distracted on the home front by the disappearance of his rebel daughter. What makes 24 distinctive is that the entire season plays out over a single day, with each episode representing one hour, the clock always ticking.

24 makes sophisticated use of split-screen editing to heighten suspense. It's a great idea, visually and viscerally exciting and never so murky as to confuse or scare away viewers.

Also worth a look: ABC's Alias, an improbable but riveting adventure about a grad student (the impressive Jennifer Garner) who doubles as a rogue CIA agent. Sounds silly, but the series creates a dark aura of danger around its heroine's precarious secret identity. ABC may also have a sleeper hit with the lightweight caper Thieves, in which the raffish John Stamos and newcomer Melissa George are teamed as cute cat burglars forced to work for the government.

For those with more fantastic tastes, UPN offers Star Trek fans the as-yet-unseen "prequel,"; Enterprise. And WB finds a new twist on the Superman legend in the evocative Smallville, in which a teen Clark Kent comes to terms with his destiny.

As usual in recent years, the news isn't so good for new comedies. But among the duds are a handful of offbeat shows, many adopting the Malcolm in the Middle approach of being filmed without laugh tracks. This shortlist includes NBC's Scrubs, a slapstick ER about the chaotic rounds of harried medical interns, and Fox's Undeclared, a college charmer reminiscent of Freaks and Geeks.

And after sitting on the shelf for a year, Fox's giddy comic-book parody The Tick will unveil its gallery of bumbling superheroes. Too bad their nemesis is a doozy: CBS's Survivor: Africa.