The 2006–07 TV season started out as among the most promising, rich and ambitious in recent memory. Probing dramas (The Nine, Smith), iconoclastic comedies (Ugly Betty, 30 Rock) and returning favorites all foretold a year of new highs. Serialized shows in the Lost model were going to be the big thing: Runaway, Kidnapped, Vanished, Heroes, Smith, The Nine and Jericho all debuted with massive hype, but only Heroes maintained any momentum. Jericho is still hobbling along for CBS, but its chances for a second season are effectively nil, and the rest were canceled pretty quickly. The CW couldn’t get people to watch Veronica Mars, easily the new network’s most prestigious show, and when Veronica went on hiatus, Pussycat Dolls jumped in and, despite its wretched attitude toward talent, became a hit. Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip was supposed to be huge, but it tanked, only to be replaced by the even-lower-rated Black Donnellys, which has now been booted in favor of The Real Wedding Crashers, a Candid Camera–style reality show from the mind of Ashton Kutcher, in which a bride and groom punk their guests with a series of mishaps, meltdowns and so on. It’s agony, pure and simple, and if NBC chief Kevin Reilly is serious about rehabbing the network’s image—which he’s claimed to be, often—this isn’t helping. At least Thank God You’re Here is good-natured, if not actually funny. That Crashers is replacing Studio 60, a show whose characters constantly—and annoyingly, predictably—bemoaned the cultural cancer of reality programming, is so ironic as to be difficult to process.

Lowest-common-denominator programming is a giant backlash against the overserialized dramas that plagued the fall. The networks learned the hard way that viewers don’t necessarily want or need to obsess over minutiae, track down a secret website or latch on to obscure clues about underlying mysteries. Sometimes, we all just want to watch TV; sadly, there’s little middle ground when it comes to new programming. You don’t want the Talmud in TV form? Enjoy this excerpt from Weekly Reader.

Reality shows aren’t the only shoddy additions to the schedule. Fox’s The Wedding Bells and ABC’s Notes from the Underbelly and October Road are all lousy beyond redemption; Wedding has already been canceled, and the clock is ticking for Belly and Road.

CBS has avoided this clusterfuck mostly by having an incredibly stable schedule; Smith was its only canned drama, and its Tuesday-night slot remains open. (CBS airs random reruns Tuesdays at 9pm.) After The Class finished its full run, CBS subbed in veteran comedy The King of Queens to finish out its final season. Contrast that with NBC, which lost Studio 60, Twenty Good Years and Kidnapped;or Fox, whose Vanished, Justice and Happy Hour all bit the dust, which lost The OC and has shelved Standoff for months. ABC’s Help Me Help You, The Nine and Six Degrees are all things of the past, and Men in Trees remains mysteriously absent from the schedule.

Other than Ugly Betty and Heroes, the fall season didn’t generate any hits.In the face of that kind of broad inability to entice viewers, it’s no wonder the networks went all Constanza on us and decided to do the exact opposite of what they’d done. But it didn’t last for George, and it’s not going to last for them or us, either. Ratings for heavy hitters American Idol and Lost are both waning, which indicates change is afoot yet again. With hit-making formulas in flux, we’re optimistic about summertime fare.