‘Medium’ sees talking dead people

There’s a hint of fall in the airwaves.

TV this month will look a lot like September, as the major networks debut 11 new series and offer the season premieres of six returning shows, including two well-loved action dramas and America’s most popular “reality” series.

Much of the turmoil comes from Fox, implementing the meatiest segment of its year-round programming plan. But five of the six networks have at least one new show in January (the WB takes a pass).

Old friends include ABC’s “Alias” (returning Wednesday) and Fox’s “24” (Jan. 9) and “The Bernie Mac Show” (Jan. 14).

“American Idol” (Jan. 18), on Fox, leads a reality parade that marks the return of ABC’s “The Bachelorette” (Jan. 10), NBC’s “The Apprentice” (Jan. 20) and millionaire debu-trash Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie in “The Simple Life 3” (Jan. 26). This time, the affluent daughters of ditz ride the Greyhound bus through the Northeast, stopping to “work” odd jobs, instilling lust in the locals and fears of bankruptcy in their employers.

And with football finishing up, ABC will fill Monday night entirely with reality, as it watches ratings thud like a quarterback sacked by Jevon Kearse.

The genre ain’t what it used to be. Except for “Top Model,” all the series that eliminate contestants week after week lost viewers this fall. The industry – especially Fox – will watch to see if reality king “American Idol,” so crucial to the ratings success of the entire network, will hold up.

But the right concept could reverse the trend, and NBC may have found it with “The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Model Search” (Wednesday). Hot chicks in next to nothing, trying to outdo one another as sex objects – just the thing for family viewing at 8 p.m.

If you think that’s bad, check out Fox’s one-shot (so far) show this Monday, “Who’s Your Daddy?” in which a grown woman, adopted as an infant, tries to select her birth father from eight contestants. An impostor who fools her gets a cash prize, to make up for his loss of self-respect. If she gets it right, she gets not only a new daddy, but also money to support him.

Three new dramas look promising. Though most shows with weird titles fade fast, CBS’s “Numb3rs” (Jan. 23) assembles a crackerjack cast under the tutelage of first-rate feature-film brother act Tony and Ridley Scott.

NBC’s “Medium” (Monday) – created by Glenn Gordon Caron, the man behind the scintillating ‘80s series “Moonlighting” – stars Patricia Arquette as a woman who can talk to the dead.

And Fox’s “Point Pleasant” (Jan. 20) comes from “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” writer/producer Marti Noxon.

Here’s how the highlights look night by night this month, on broadcast and cable:

Monday: “Medium” (10 p.m., NBC). Arquette would like to help the cops solve grisly cases, but first they must believe she actually can communicate with ghosts. Based on the life of a real Arizona woman.

Tuesday: “Committed” (9:30, NBC). Paranoid boy meets incurable optimist girl. Sparks fly. Laughs, too, the network hopes, but just in case, a clown (Tom Poston) lives in her closet. I am not making this up.

Wednesday: “The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Model Search” (8, NBC). Just what it sounds like.

“The Road to Stardom With Missy Elliott” (8, UPN). The hip-hop biggie takes 13 would-be music stars on tour. One will get a record contract.

“Alias” (9, ABC). Jennifer Garner returns in a two-hour premiere as the spy of a thousand gorgeous faces. The show will run Wednesdays at 9, with no repeats, to the end of the season, making an attractive action package following executive producer J.J. Abrams’ other series, “Lost,” at 8 p.m.

Thursday: “Wickedly Perfect” (8, CBS). Annoying style mavens bicker and luxuriate on a New England estate. The network thinks the winner of this show will become “the country’s new authority on at-home living” (are you listening, Martha Stewart?). If the series gets half of “Survivor’s” ratings, everyone should win a lifetime supply of plug-in air freshener.

Saturday: “The Will” (8, CBS). Grasping friends and family try to persuade rich guy Bill Long, 73, to leave them his big Kansas spread. Among the contestants: his fourth wife, 45 (that’s her age and, it appears, her chest size), and her mother, who’s the same age as Long. The show and its characters seem so outrageous, it might actually work.

Jan. 9: “24” (8, Fox). Kiefer Sutherland is back as Jack Bauer, who’ll be given another day to save the world. Virtually every other regular will be missing at the beginning, but anyone could turn up later. The producers really do make the story up as they go along. After a two-hour Sunday premiere, the show moves Jan. 10 to its regular 9 p.m. Monday slot and, like “Alias,” runs straight through to May.

“Zoey 101” (8, Nickelodeon). ‘Tween queen – and Britney’s little sister – Jamie Lynn Spears stars as 13-year-old Zoey Brooks in a new coming-of-age comedy about adolescent life at a California oceanside boarding school.

“Carnivale” (9, HBO). God, the devil and the Dust Bowl. The ultra-quirky, supernatural drama of life with a traveling carnival during the Great Depression returns for a second moody, apocalypse-tinged season.

“VH1’s The Surreal Life” (9, VH1). Rap star Da Brat, former wrestler Chyna Doll and diminutive “Austin Powers” player Vern Troyer (aka Mini-Me) head the B-list celebrity cast for new season of cheap laughs as part of VH1’s new “Celebreality” Sunday night schedule.

“Strange Love” (10, VH1). Demented duo Flavor Flav and Brigitte Nielsen, who bizarrely hooked up on the last edition of “The Surreal Life,” cavort in their own twisted spinoff.

“Celebrity Fit Club” (11, VH1). Battle of the Hollywood bulge. Such B-List celebrities as Daniel Baldwin, rapper Biz Markie and Wendy the Snapple Lady fight flab and try to shape up while we sit on our couches, eat snacks and gawk.

Jan. 10: “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition: How’d They Do That?” (8, ABC). Either desperate or with a flat learning curve, ABC starts to drive another successful show into the ground with this “behind-the-scenes” series.

“The Bachelorette” (9, ABC). “Bachelor” love-loser Jen Schefft seeks new romance in New York.

Jan. 11: “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” (10, Bravo). Carson Kressley and the rest of the Fab Five fling snarky wisecracks and lifestyle advice as a new season opens with the fun bunch planning the wedding for a GI before he ships out to Iraq.

Jan. 12: “Queer Eye for the Straight Girl” (10, Bravo). A new co-ed crew of makeover mavens, the Gal Pals, turns a tasteful eye toward the ladies.

Jan. 13: “Tilt” (9, ESPN). Michael Madsen (“Kill Bill”) heads the card-sharp cast of ESPN’s new drama series, set at the World Poker Championships in Las Vegas.

Jan. 14: “The Bernie Mac Show” (8, Fox). New episodes at 8, reruns at 8:30.

“Jonny Zero” (9, Fox). Ex-con Jonny tries to avoid (1) returning to a life of crime and (2) going undercover for the FBI. With actors named Franky G and GQ, this one may be too cool for its Friday-night room.

“Battlestar Gallactica” (9, Sci-Fi). Edward James Olmos and Mary McDonnell head the cast in a weekly series sequel to Sci-Fi’s hit miniseries revival of the 1970s Lorne Greene outer space show.

Jan. 17: “Supernanny” (10, ABC). Another concept that the Mouse had first, but Fox copied fast, this show rounds out ABC’s night of phony reality with a child-rearing genius who answers beleaguered parents’ prayers.

Jan. 18: “American Idol” (8, Fox). Same aggravating judges, new irritating contestants.

Jan. 20: “Point Pleasant” (9, Fox). The network uses these adjectives to describe the show and its characters: wicked, beautiful, dangerous, heroic, possessive, hot-to-trot, mysterious, charismatic. And the central character is the daughter of the devil.

Jan. 23: “Numb3rs” (10, CBS). Rob Morrow is the FBI guy, David Krumholtz is his math-geek brother, and they solve cases with numbers the way Gil Grissom does it with DNA on “CSI.” Peter MacNicol (“Ally McBeal”), Judd Hirsch (“Taxi”), and Sabrina Lloyd (“Sports Night”) also star. The show moves to its regular Fridays-at-10 slot on Jan. 28.

Jan. 25: “Celebrity Poker Showdown” (8, Bravo). Allison Janney, Ray Romano, Bonnie Hunt and Robert Wagner are among the Hollywood players in a new season of card shuffling and wagering with host Dave Foley.

Jan. 26: “The Simple Life 3: Interns” (8:30, Fox). Paris and Nicole – need we say more?