Dancing with the Upfronts: Likely Series Contenders at ABC, CBS, FOX, and CW

This has been an odd development season, to say the least.

While networks claim to be moving towards year-round development, it's put an odd crimp into this season, which struggled through the writers strike and truncated the time necessary to develop and produce a whole slew of pilots for network and cable, many of which will now be shot this summer... after the network upfront presentations next week. Which means that while the broadcasters will announce their fall schedules--which stand to include quite a few familiar faces along with a few new, high-profile projects--look for them to be deliberately coy about plans for midseason as they'll likely wait to make decisions about midseason pickups until late summer when these late pilot orders will be completed.

So, other than NBC (which made their announcements about fall, winter, and next summer already, ordering most projects to series directly from the script stage), what can we anticipate will end up on the networks then? Let's take a look.

ABC: The Alphabet will likely only be ordering just a few series next week. Chalk this up to the fact that most of their pilots won't shoot until "Phase 2" (or June/July) and they have the most returning series out of any other broadcaster and will be relaunching freshman dramas Pushing Daisies, Dirty Sexy Money, and Private Practice (which wrapped their seasons in light of the strike) this fall. Which leaves only a few timeslots to fill. The main contender is Life on Mars, David E. Kelley's US remake of the brilliant hit BBC drama... that is if the network can reach a deal with Kelley for the series, which may be co-produced by 20th Century Fox Television and ABC Television. Kelley may not even stick around post-pilot either; the net is supposedly in talks with October Road creators Josh Appelbaum, Andre Nemec and Scott Rosenberg to join the project as executive producers, a move which makes me even less likely to want to tune in.

FOX: The main players here are high-profile, with J.J. Abrams-executive produced sci-fi drama Fringe (starring Joshua Jackson) and Joss Whedon's brilliantly evocative Dollhouse set to earn series stripes. There's been debate about when Dollhouse will launch, with rumors flying that it will either kick off in August (where FOX launched The OC a few years back) or possibly in midseason. I'd prefer the former rather than the latter, as I want my Dollhouse fix now. Plus, FOX could get a jump on their competitors by launching early (and not running into the continual problem of baseball playoffs). Fringe, meanwhile, would make a good companion for the already-renewed Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Look for comedy Starting Under--starring Bernie Mac--to turn up on the sked, joined by returnees Back to You and 'Til Death. Also likely series orders: US adaptations of UK comedies Outnumbered and Spaced (hiss!), the second of which I'd rather see die a fiery death (the script was quite possibly one of the worst this year) than tarnish the name of that brilliant creation of Simon Pegg, Jessica Stevenson, and Edgar Wright.

CBS: Look for procedurals, procedurals, and more procedurals on the Eye's schedule, rather than the musical murder mysteries, Latina rum barons, or suburban swingers that populated last season's upfront presentations. CBS has wisely learned that they went a little too far out of the box last year with things like Viva Laughlin, Cane, and Swingtown and this year's development slate was a return to more familiar ground with things like The Mentalist (a tarnished mentalist--read: fake psychic--helps police solve crimes with his powers of observation), which I found to be a real yawner; the untitled Geena Davis drama (formerly known as Exit 19) about a Long Island single mom/cop who deals with her unruly family while solving crimes and leaving Post-Its everywhere) from Jeffrey Bell (Angel); female romantic dramedy Mythological Ex--about a woman who is told by a psychic that she's already met the man of her dreams and sets out to revisit each of her ex-boyfriends in turn--from Veronica Mars scribe Diane Ruggiero; and Jerry Bruckheimer-executive produced Eleventh Hour, yet another US adaptation of a UK skein. The latter is definitely the most interesting of the four, offering a gripping science-based thriller series with procedural mysteries of the week, intriguing characters in diametrically opposed partners Jacob Hood and Rachel, and a good cast in series leads Rufus Sewell and Marley Shelton.

CW: Over at the CW, they only have three drama pilots to choose from this year, so look for at least two to make it onto the network this fall. Virtually considered a lock is the Beverly Hills 90210 spinoff (which has Arrested Development's Jessica Walters as lady luck), a likely timeslot companion for Gossip Girl on Mondays, offering teens the opportunity to watch two sets of spoiled kids on either coast back-to-back. The other two pilots are harder to read, with fellow adapted-from-an-Alloy-novel-series How to Teach Filthy Rich Girls seeming a more likely order over the real-time Grey's Anatomy-lite Austin Golden Hour, about ER doctors and paramedics in the crucial one hour after a trauma. Then again, both could end up on the schedule, with it likely that one might be held until midseason.

What do you think? Which series are you most excited about and which do you hope won't make it to series? If you were running these networks, what changes would you make to the schedules?