By Lisa de Moraes
Monday, May 15, 2006

It's Upfront Week -- the annual four-day orgy of rumor- mongering (Hollywood agents/the Reporters Who Cover Television), P.T. Barnum-ing (broadcast network programming executives) and heinie kissing (kissers: network sales departments; heinies: Madison Avenue suits) in the course of which the prime-time lineups for next season are revealed.

Each network takes its turn putting on a big production to pitch its new lineup to advertisers and reporters in New York, at halls like Carnegie, Radio City Music and Avery Fisher.

Monday through Thursday, anyone who's anyone in the TV business gets out of bed brimming with bucked-up-ness about that day's presentations -- some days two networks, other days just one.

At each presentation, boffo opening acts are presented (past years included Lenny Kravitz, the cast of "Hairspray," "Desperate Housewives" creator Marc Cherry in top hat and tails performing the 1930s tune "Beautiful Girl" with his cast for ABC at Lincoln Center, the "Avenue Q" cast performing "It Sucks to Be [Disney chief] Bob Iger" for CBS at Carnegie Hall).

Stars are trotted out to pontificate about that network's deep commitment to their particular new series. Speeches are read off teleprompters promising advertisers only the youngest, most upscale and best-looking viewers. After which thousands of shrimp are sacrificed at parties thrown at hot and not spots such as Tavern on the Green, Buddha Lounge, the Garden at Rockefeller Center, Four Seasons Restaurant and Pink Elephant.

A good time is had by all. Excepting, of course, the shrimp.

And, of course, the cast and producers of those lower-rated or older-skewing series that had been on the prime-time slate until the previous day, when word got out they had been killed off to make room for the next generation of potential hits. Ah, the Circle of Life.

Oh, and those stars and producers who had their bags all packed to get on a plane to New York so they could be trotted onstage to pontificate about that network's deep commitment to their particular new series but who had received a phone call the day before letting them know they need not get on the plane after all because the network had decided to go "in a different direction." They know how the shrimp feel.

NBC is the first network at bat. NBC has gone first since way back when it was the cocky, No. 1-ranked network; and it went first because it didn't care what the other networks had planned for Tuesdays at 8, it was going with two comedies -- and did ABC, CBS or Fox wanna make something of it?

NBC has taken some of the suspense out of this year's schedule unveiling by announcing early that it has picked up a mess of new shows.

They include:

· A comedy called "20 Good Years," starring John Lithgow and Jeffrey Tambor as two fifty-something guys determined to change their lives and make the most of the next two decades. We're thinking "The Odd Couple," which sounds like an odd choice for a network that doesn't even report ratings for any viewer older than 49. On the other hand, "The Golden Girls" used to do a good number among young viewers, and that was just a bunch of old dames sitting around kvetching.

· More like NBC is a sitcom about five disparate types who hang out together after meeting at a wedding, where they've been put at "The Singles Table." Like "Four Kings," if it had been guys and chicks. And funny.

Drama-wise, NBC spread sunshine and light, picking up virtually every pilot it made:

· Imagine eccentric Jeff Goldblum playing an eccentric but brilliant cop who sees dead people who help him solve crimes, and you have NBC's new "Raines."

· "Heroes," about average Joes who discover they have superpowers.

· "Friday Night Lights," based on the Billy Bob Thornton flick of the same name, only this time starring Kyle Chandler as the coach of a small-town high school football team.

· "The Black Donnellys," about Irish brothers involved with the mob in New York's Hell's Kitchen.

· The serialized drama "Kidnapped," starring Jeremy Sisto as a private kidnapping/retrieval expert. Each season -- assuming the show lasts more than one -- "Kidnapped" will follow his efforts to rescue a different kidnapping victim. First up: a teenage son of a rich New York couple, played by Timothy Hutton and Dana Delany.

· And Aaron Sorkin's much-ballyhooed "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip," looking behind the scenes at a long-running sketch comedy series.