TV places its new bets

The television summer used to be built on the assumption that you would have something better to do in the summer than watch television. That the friendlier weather and longer light would keep you, and millions like you, outside and away from the screen. And so between May and September, the medium was given over to reruns and frothy summer replacement series like “The Golddiggers” and “The Ken Berry ‘Wow’ Show” -- placeholders for returning successes that were mostly not made to last. Television relaxed along with the rest of us.

No longer. In the too-many-channel world we now inhabit, the level of competition is such that a near-constant state of total TV war is inevitable. Fox is staging a first-strike “television revolution” (in one exec’s words) by treating summer as the new fall, premiering six new series this June. It is potentially the dawn of year-round full-bore programming.

I am not sure whom exactly this is good for. Because you really should be doing something besides watching TV this summer, and I say this as someone who spent many, many summers watching too much of it. You should be playing catch or gardening or floating in an inner tube, or just sitting on some terrace drinking iced coffee or something with an umbrella in it, watching the unmediated world go by. TV should leave you alone.

On the other hand:

The summer’s two biggest television events -- or three, depending on how you count them -- are the Summer Olympics, which will be carried Aug. 13-29 on NBC (and its cable corollaries Bravo, CNBC, MSNBC and Telemundo), and the political conventions, which will be covered to varying degrees by a host of networks. Each is a “real event,” whose reality will be warped by warm, fuzzy narratives, engineered in the first instance by the broadcasters, and in the second by the subjects. Given that their outcome is already decided, the conventions will be empty media events; the Olympics, which get back to Athens, where they once belonged, should be less predictable.

If none of the actual candidates seems worth your time, try Showtime’s “American Candidate” (coming Aug. 1), a kind of political “American Idol” that seeks to field a perfect presidential candidate from regular folks just like you. The winner will receive $200,000 and “a national media appearance” at which to present his or her “platform” -- for entertainment purposes only.

John McEnroe may have something to say about all this. The former tennis pro and well-known loudmouth is host of his own nightly CNBC talk show as of July 7.

It’s no surprise that “reality shows” -- that cute term that signifies nothing of the kind -- make up a large part of the summer schedule, where “Survivor” and “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” first got traction. They’re cheap to make, finite in duration and disgustingly popular. CBS brings back “The Amazing Race” (starting July 6) and “Big Brother” (June 8), while NBC has new editions of “For Love or Money” (June 7), “Who Wants to Marry My Dad?” (June 14) and “Last Comic Standing” (June 8). Most intriguing, to use the word loosely, is NBC’s brand-new “The Next Action Star” (premiering June 15), in which contestants vie for a career in a dead film genre. The winners will star in an actual TV movie, set to air on Aug. 11.

In the bold social experiment known as “The Simple Life 2” (premiering June 16), good sports Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie -- no longer famous merely for being famous -- must drive themselves (and their little dogs too) from Miami Beach to Beverly Hills without benefit of cash or credit. They will probably make it, but not before being disgusted by something the rest of us take for granted.

New institutional documentary series are coming your way: “Blow Out” (Bravo, beginning June 8), from the creator of “The Restaurant,” is set in a Beverly Hills hair salon. Fox has reality king Mark Burnett’s “The Casino” (starting June 14), which goes “24/7” -- or 3.42857 expressed as a decimal -- behind the scenes at the Golden Nugget Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. It is not to be confused with the Discovery Channel’s “American Casino” (premiering June 4), which goes 24/7 behind-the-scenes at the Green Valley Ranch Resort, Casino and Spa, mere blocks away.

Those who prefer such dramas completely, rather than partially, manufactured may be drawn to “North Shore” (premiering June 14), set in a Hawaiian luxury hotel run by good-looking young people. (I predict ... bikinis.) Aaron Spelling, who did not produce that show but might as well have, is instead behind the WB’s “Summerland” (premiering June 1), in which career woman Lori Loughlin takes in her late sister’s orphaned children -- hold on to your heartstrings.

Of the summer’s new dramas, the most interesting on paper is Fox’s “The Jury” (premiering June 8), a kind of post-courtroom drama from those “Homicide: Life on the Street” boys, Barry Levinson and Tom Fontana, that picks up where the judge’s instructions leave off. Also of interest is “5ive Days to Midnight,” a Sci-Fi Channel miniseries starring Timothy Hutton as a man who has five days to solve his own, paranormally predicted, murder; its five parts (one per day) will run June 3-7.

The comedy wing of the Fox summer strike force arrives June 16, with “Method & Red,” a “Beverly Hillbillies” variant in which hip-hopsters Method Man and Redman move into a nice neighborhood; and “Quintuplets,” with Andy Richter as the harried father of the non-identical teens. On NBC’s “Come to Papa,” (premiering June 3) Tom Papa stars in yet another sitcom “loosely based on the life/inspired by the comedy of.” He plays a reporter who wants to write comedy; former Detroit Piston/Los Angeles Laker John Salley is his angry mailman. And Oxygen fields its first scripted series, “Good Girls Don’t” (original title: “My Best Friend Is a Big Fat Slut”), premiering June 4, described by Chief Executive Gerry Laybourne as “ ‘Laverne & Shirley’ set in a new millennium.”

TV Land is bringing back the creepy, kooky, mysterious, spooky and altogether ooky “The Addams Family,” one of the best reasons ever to stay in, starting June 1. (A 48-hour marathon begins at 6 a.m. June 5.) The great “Flip Wilson Show” returns to their lineup in July. And Trio will air reruns of “Cop Rock,” “My Mother the Car” and “Pink Lady and Jeff” June 1-4 as part of its “Flop!” month schedule. Some of us have been waiting a long time to see these series again.

There are new episodes of “Monk” coming (USA, Fridays from June 18), and another season of “Six Feet Under” (HBO, beginning June 13), including a guest shot from Ellen DeGeneres. BBC America offers fresh runs of the London-based cop show “The Vice” (returning June 7) and the original, successful version of “Coupling” (from June 6). And ABC will air the long-delayed final season of “The Drew Carey Show,” (starting June 2).

Awards shows make good summer viewing because they require almost no mental effort. Hugh Jackman hosts the Tonys on CBS on June 6; that same night, MTV offers its cleavage-intense Movie Awards, while its Video Music Awards airs Aug. 29.

Very much in the old spirit of summer series is the WB’s returning “Pepsi Smash” (beginning tonight), an hourlong subliminal soft-drink ad that features live performances by major pop acts, including John Mayer, Aerosmith, Black Eyed Peas, Avril Lavigne, the Hives and Morrissey.

And finally, what I consider the summer’s one must-see -- the only show that sounds like something you won’t have seen before: The Discovery Channel’s “Big!” (premiering June 1) involves the construction of such oversized appliances as a 30-foot-long electric guitar, a huge electric toothbrush, a 700-gallon smoothie machine -- things as potentially beautiful as they are totally impractical, the very essence of summer.