LOS ANGELES (KRT) -The first shall be last, and the last shall be first. And the TV critics are amazed.

“It’s beyond bizarre that this year ABC and UPN are the buzz networks,” said Bill Goodykoontz of the Arizona Republic, one of more than 100 writers meeting here for the Television Critics Association summer press tour.

The critics, a cantankerous and contentious bunch, are as close to consensus as they have been in years. In interview after interview, most agree that these are the new shows to watch this fall:

“Desperate Housewives” (ABC, Sundays at 9 p.m. ET), a partly satirical soap opera with Teri Hatcher and Felicity Huffman, has a title that superbly describes the women whose secret lives are revealed.

“Kevin Hill” (UPN, Wednesdays at 9), a surprisingly poignant drama about a swinging bachelor lawyer who becomes an instant daddy.

“Lost” (ABC, Wednesdays at 8), in which survivors must cope after their plane crashes on a jungle isle.

“Veronica Mars” (UPN, Tuesdays at 9), combining Nancy Drew perkiness with ominous overtones of Elmore Leonard.

The verdict on what’s worst is even more solid. It’s CBS’s star-studded sitcom “Center of the Universe” (Wednesdays, 9:30), summarized by USA Today’s Robert Bianco: “You have John Goodman, Jean Smart, Ed Asner and Olympia Dukakis, and the best you can come up with is horny-old-man jokes using Viagra?”

Critics accused top-rated CBS of coasting, and NBC, with the biggest young-adult audience, of regressing to the bad old days with “pathetic, escapist, airhead dramas,” to quote the Detroit Free Press’ Mike Duffy.

The critics gather every six months for a marathon of screenings, news conferences and parties where the networks trot out hundreds of stars and executives, supposedly to answer every question – and, they hope, to generate a flood of ink about their new shows.

Long-distance friendships, and rivalries, are renewed among a group of writers, who – unlike most journalists – are paid for their judgments as passionate fans of the subject they cover. At the press tour, you get opinions for free. Bickering, almost always good-natured (all have backed a weirdo or two in their time), prevails.

Though agreement about the good shows seems at an all-time high, it is of course not unanimous. And on other topics, critics are miles apart.

“Overall, I thought last fall was much better than the coming season,” said Hal Boedeker of the Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel.

“This fall is better than last year,” said Melanie McFarland of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. “That’s not really that hard. Last fall was terrible.”

Among individual series, division seems widest on an ABC sitcom, “Complete Savages” (Fridays, 8:30). Mel Gibson is a producer.

Heldenfels, “pleasantly surprised,” called it his favorite new show.

Dana Gee, from the Vancouver Province, one of about a dozen Canadians in the group, demurred: “Mel Gibson has gone from “The Passion of the Christ’ to the crucifixion of comedy.” Bons mots are more prized here than the gooey brownies some networks serve at afternoon coffee breaks.

The Dallas Morning News’ Manuel Mendoza found “Savages” – about a single father (Keith Carradine) raising five slob teen sons – at least palatable, old-fashioned comedy. The South Florida Sun-Sentinel’s Tom Jicha didn’t.

After the show’s actors met the press, Mendoza started to argue, “It seems like a real throwback …”

” … to the reason why comedies are dead,” Jicha interjected, employing what may be the tour’s most prevalent conversational gambit.

“I don’t like any sitcoms,” mourned Gail Pennington of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “I hate them all, almost beyond describing how much I hate them all.”

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Despair and hyperbole are big here, too.

Critics fret like protective mothers over beloved new series that seem destined to struggle for commercial success.

Effusive over “Housewives,” “Lost,” and, more mutedly, the “reality” show “Wife Swap,” TV Guide’s Matt Roush noted, “ABC’s whole history is littered with great shows, some of which could last three or four years, some of which could last three or four weeks. We just have to hope – all we can do is hope – that these new shows somehow find a connection with the viewers.”

Citing the series’ “interesting pilots,” Boedeker mused, “Will they develop into series or just be one-show flashes? Will ABC schedule them in such a way to get people looking at their network again? I mean, it’s a really, really interesting question.”

These folks like television. They really, really do.

They are pointedly less effusive in the face of series that seem conceived solely for commercial success. The most notable candidate in the coming season: NBC’s “Friends” spin-off, “Joey.”

“I was surprised it wasn’t totally horrible”: Duffy.

“I don’t think it’s terrible”: Boedeker.

“It’s better than the worst thing that you’ve ever seen”: McFarland.

The critics may have prejudices, but they call “em as they see “em. Many feel discombobulated that tiny UPN, which has basically never developed a critical success, has strangely given birth to two bright, shining stars.

“I’m stunned that my two favorite dramas are on UPN,” Pennington said.

“If you can’t make fun of UPN, who can you make fun of?” mused Mark McGuire of the Albany (N.Y.) Times-Union.

“I think you have to hold UPN to standards that are lower than for a regular network,” said McFarland, slightly less impressed with “Kevin Hill,” starring Taye Diggs (“How Stella Got Her Groove Back”), and “Veronica Mars,” with Kristen Bell (“Everwood”). “It’s pretty much better than what they had last year. … They’re moving up. They’re not leaping. They’re kind of slithering.”

Always the more buzz-worthy of the two littlest networks until this year, the WB got little mention in the interviews. Some critics like the netlet’s “Jack and Bobby,” about a boy who will grow up to be president. More hate “Commando Nanny,” a sitcom based on reality-TV mega-producer Mark Burnett’s early employment experience as a Brit in America.

And, sometimes tinged with genuine sadness, the most discouraging words were reserved for Fox, under fire for fixating on phony reality shows and supposedly stealing concepts from others.

Referring to media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who owns the company that owns the network, the Kansas City Star’s Aaron Barnhart gave a backhanded compliment to Fox Entertainment president Gail Berman: “She has that Murdochian, Australian, devil-may-care attitude toward schlock.”

Others were less forgiving.

“Fox is completely baffling, annoying and baffling,” TV Guide’s Roush said. “I can’t even get my mind around the way they’re presenting and scheduling their shows.”

“They’ve always had shows that were at least interesting,” said Charlie McCollum of the San Jose Mercury News. “This year, it’s just like a mess.”

As professional viewers, the critics talk about demographics, audience share, and high-definition aspect ratios. They deconstruct camera sequences, and they reference series that nobody saw when they aired 40 years ago.

But in the frequent moments when the competitive guard drops and they abandon the game of impressing their colleagues, they can also be just like the average couch potato.

“I thought “dr. vegas’ was kind of cute,” said Pennington, the only person who mentioned the CBS silliness with a veteran star that marries medicine and Sin City.

“It’s really bad, but you know, Rob Lowe’s attractive. His hair looks good in it.”

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Jonathan Storm: jstormphillynews.com

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(c) 2004, The Philadelphia Inquirer.

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AP-NY-07-16-04 1055EDT

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