FROM THE looks of this fall's new TV season, we're heading into the "out there" genre of shows, with new offerings wrapping themselves in ghosts, aliens, vampires and much, much more.

While I'm a self-confessed sci-fi geek, and tend to find these shows interesting, American TV viewers as a whole are probably not going to take to all of the new offerings.

But even if they don't, I'm so thankful that we're finally coming out of the "Reality TV" zone, thanks to a general ratings slide this summer on a glut of horrible reality shows.

One thing always is true about network television: It's easier to steal an idea than come up with an original one.

The success of "Survivor" and "American Idol" spawned a wide variety of idiotic and ridiculous reality shows thought up by half-baked producers.

Two things aided this long slide: They are cheap to make, and early on, they were earning pretty good ratings.

But, as it usually does, the flood of shows about everything from dating to business to boxing eventually overwhelmed and under-interested viewers.

By this summer, the genre that once was raking in tens of millions of viewers was luring, in the worst instances, just a few hundred thousand.

And that doesn't keep the car and cheese companies buying the commercials that fund these shows.

Never learning a lesson from all this, the studios that produce TV shows have quickly jumped on another bandwagon, one which they will surely overdo as much as they overdid the reality genre.

Seeing the success of ABC's "Lost" and the more successful crime dramas that have come down the pipe, there will be a wave of new shows based in those worlds.

If they're all done with the deft touch of "Lost," that could be a good thing, but don't bet your TV tuner on it.

For those who haven't made the ABC drama their thing, it's a show that mixes action and adventure with an eerie supernatural sensibility, so far doing so in a way that's earned big ratings for the network.