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Bv FnaNr LovncnS A FEW goodmen might haveput it: "The Na-ked Truth"?ABC couldn'thandle " TheNaked Truth"That, at least,is the under-standably bi-ased opinion ofone of theshow's new ex-ecutive produc-ers, Jay Daniel.With fellow veteran Maya Forbes, hehas taken the reins now that the TeaLeoni sitcom has come aboard NBC -remiering this Thursday in the post-"Seinfeld" slot where "Suddenly Su-san" suddenly isn't."There ls such a thing as a show be-ing on the wrong network," Daniel of-fers. "ABC's audience was not the rightaudience for the show. None of theirother shows formed a natural flow ofviewership with it." Meaning? "Theydidn't have a'Seinfeld'to pair it with."Daniel may well be right about why"The Naked Truth" failed on ABCafter a promising fall-season debut in1995. The series - about once-rich di-vorc6e Nora Wilde, who finds herselfhaving to work as a sleazy tabloid'sphotographer to make ends meet - fol-lowed the hit "Grace Under Fire." See?Two shows about working womenWhat could be more logical The factthat "Grace lJnder Fire" concerned ablue-collar single rnorn in a seriquslyscraping-by existence and "The NakedTruth" concerned a gorgeous youngthing "scraping by" amid celebritiesand wacky problems didn't seem to jos-tle any of the cloistered suits makingthe prcigraming decisions. On the otherhand, it didn't help that by the secondepisode TV critics already were describ-ing "The Naked Truth" with phraseslike "woefully barren. "Yet, not only is NBC applying CPR,but the recovery room is the TV equiv-alent of aPlaza suite. And the reasonswhy "The Naked Truth" and an un-precedented number of other shows areswitching or'have already switched net-works has as much to do with thechanging TV marke#place as with themerits of any particular show."The Jeff Foxworthy Show" also

jumped to NBC this season, after airinglast year on ABC. Last week the mili-tary-law series "JAG," starring DavidJames Elliott, flew to CBS after havingplayed its first season and a half onNBC. Three days later "Politically In-correct With Bill Maher" crossed partyboundaries from Comedy Central, itshome since July, 1993, to ABC. Andcoming up Feb. 1, fellow Comedy Cen-tral refugee "Mystery Science Theater3000" invades the SciFi Channel.Although "MST3K" was pushed,whereas "Politically fncorrect" jurnpedship, "Mystery Science" producer-di-rector Jim Mallon says, "People hadalways come up to us saying, 'Oh, welove your show, we see it on the SciFiChannel all the time ' It was clear formanyyears that our home should be onSciFi. So when Comedy Central de-clined to buy more shows, it was as sim-ple as.my giving [SciFi_Channel pro-graming vice presidentl BarrySchulman a call and getting on theSciFi Channel." Even so, he adds, "itwas an anxious time for everyone,'cause we were going without pay-checks. We were even looking at an op-tion of - if we couldn't get a networkdeal - just dr$tri the showstraight to done athing,ape-of-the-m

episode could have made twork. But going direct to tahave meant losing the visibscale of being on a network."VEN THE fledgling UWB network wannabgotten into the act.House" was keepingNBC when it premApril, 1995, with rapper LL Coing a sidelined NFL star, Mawho volunteered to serve as ndivorc6e's two kids; only theMaia Campbdll, playing teenany Warren, made the cut wshow switched to networkUPN in August. Most of the ainvolves a sports-medicine clinHill, a doctor (Alfonso Ribeiphysical therapist (Kim Waya

ter, Sister," staruing Tia andMowry as identical twins adoprately at birth who reunite l4yer, switched in September fr(where it premiered in April,WB. That's also where the Jothew and Andrew Lawrenc"Brotherly Love" wound uptember after having premieredvious year on NBC.There's never before beenseason with so many series dCertainly, series have switcworks since the dawn of TV

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starring David Jamesas a Navy attorney,ship to CBS last week.

early shows - the variety seriesArthur Murray party" (10b0-60),the quiz shows "Down you Go;;"The Original Amateur(1948-60) and ,,pantomime(1950-63) - each switched backforth across four different net-(4P9,- CBS, NBC and the long-DuMont).Even old favorites we fondlv remem-as hits actually bit the raiings dustgetting a new-network iecond. {In_o.tg thern: ,,Taxi'' (rv7g_g3,/ ry.B_C), "Hazel" ( 1961-66,/ CBS), "The Ghost and Mrs.(1968-70, NBC / ABCI. ,,TheThomas Show" aka',,MakeDaddy" (19b8-6b, ABC / CBS)"Get Smart" (196b-70; NBC / CBS,a Fox quasi-revival in 1995). Evenpowerhouse,,FatherBest" was canceled after a sin-season on CBS (19b4-bb) before be-picked up by NBC (19bb-b8) after aand letter-writingCBS later wooed it bac[and when tired star Robertexited the show at the height ofpopularity, CBS and yet an-otherABC, ran prime-time rerunsnearly three yeais longer. More re-

in the '90s, "Matlock', and ,,Fa-Dowling Mysteries" moved fromto ABC and "In the Heat of thefrom NBC to CBS.although switching networksto be only an occasional phenom-no fewer than eight series haveit this season. Partly that's becauseproliferation of cable and quasi-the more players there are,more_ potential switching amongAnd partly it has to do with eco-and long-term strategim.a show out of t[in air is atough job," says Daniel, who cameor advanced to executive producersuch series qs^ '_'Moonlighting,"and "Cybill." ,,It*'s eaJier'I know how to fix it, becausdis.good about it, and that's goodit, and if they just chang"lhi,tbi.g, it can be-a pretty lerrificIf the head of a n-etwoik recog-elements in a show on anothJrthat you can relate to, that canappeal to the particular audiencetrying to reach on a particularatleast you have some givens towith, In our case the given is a

valuable performer, Tea, who we thinkhas a shot at being a big star."The nonworking elements of "TheNaked Truth," he suggests, were most-ly in the storytelling: "In its [ABC] con-figuration it got a little silly, a little toobizarce, a little bit unrelatable to peo-ple. It got to be, What was the bizarrotabloid story of the week? You didn'tget to know Nora Wilde all that well,"(even though, ironigally, writer and se-ries creator Chris Thompson was dat-'ing Leoni at the time). "Our marchingorders," says Daniel, "have been toground the show in ways that are morerealistic and relatable." The tabloid'snow being run by new editor-in-chiefLes Polonsky (George Wendt), whoswitches Nora from photojournalist toadvice columnist and the magazinefrom fact 'n' fancy tab journalism toreal reporting.M$H**ffihat they rag on science-fiction moviesexclusively. It was more the departure ofwriter-performer-set designer-art direc-tor Trace Beaulieu, who played Dr. Clay-ton Forrester and voiced Crow T. Robot,that necessitated the major changes:Mike Nelson and the 'bots, back fromhavingbecome pure thought at the edgeof the universe, now find themselves in amobile Satellite of Love - only lost intime, and pursued by Forrester's calmlyderanged mom, Pearl, in her rocket-powered minivan. So what else is new?Probably this: "I do believe," saysDaniel, "that series' switching net-works is now an acceptable practice, andthat the networks will have to think alittle harder about what they're goingtocancel, because if something seems likeit'lImake agood fit for anothernetwork,they're gonna try harder to make it fiton their own. My hope is, you're notgonna see shows with good casts orpromising stars canceled so quickly asnow. It's hard to make a hit right out ofthe box. If this has the singular effect ofmaking the networks have a little morepatience, that's a good thing for the cre-ative community." EFrank Louece, author of "The X-FilesDeclassified," is a frequent contributorto FanFare