Upfronts: FOX

While it's a little less confusing than last year, the FOX schedule for 2007-08 is again broken down into fall 2006 and spring 2007 components thanks to baseball and Rupert Murdoch's evilosity. It's not as bad as it sounds.

GONE - To the surprise of absolutely no one, Arrested Development was formally axed. It was also the official end of the road for Bernie Mac, Stacked, Free Ride, and Kitchen Confidential.

MOVED - American Dad and The War at Home swapped time slots. Woo hoo. Nanny 911 goes to Friday, keeping the time slot warm for Bones, which will move there from its Wednesday time slot in January 2007. A couple of the new shows will also move in January, but I'll get to those... now.

And if you see the schedule and can't find your favorite show, don't freak. American Idol, 24, King of the Hill, and The Loop are all back in January.

NEW - Your new offerings:

Vanished - the wife of a US Senator from Georgia goes missing, and in trying to find her a variety of conspiracies and mysteries are encountered, building a web of intrigue that will be familiar to Monday night viewers of Prison Break and/or 24, whose spot Vanished will take for the fall. Monday night, high-concept conspiracy drama and FOX all seem to go together, so I'm not going to bet against this one.

Standoff - A pair of FBI hostage negotiators become involved, and when it becomes common knowledge it changes the way they work and the cases they are assigned. Ron Livingston plays one of the negotiators. It'll be on Tuesdays at 8 in the fall and move to Monday at 8 for 2007. The description is pretty blah, and I don't know how well it will work on Monday unless it turns out one of them is also dating the President as a cover for overthrowing the government.

Speaking of blah descriptions, Justice follows a group of lawyers who handle controversial, high-profile cases. Stars Victor Garber, who will have to do something to keep this from getting lost in the sea of all the other lawyer-based dramas out there. It'll air Wednesdays, moving from 9 to 8 in 2007, though I wonder if Bones will find itself back there before all is said and done.

Thursday throws two new sitcoms at us. 'Til Death is about an idealistic newlywed couple that moves next door to longer-married - and thus cyncial - couple. Brad Garrett and Joely Fisher star (as the older couple, I assume) in this show that, to my eye, is Everybody Loves Raymond with a tweak of relationships.

The other show, Happy Hour, is about two guys - one blinded by love, the other damaged by it. The only thing that makes this stand out is that it's set in Chicago. I've not heard of any of the cast. Adios.

The only announced show to debut in January 2007 is The Wedding Album, which follows wedding photgrapher and his assistant as every week they shoot a new wedding and, I have to assume, encounter a variety of problems, issues, etc. Two surprises in the cast - Connie Stevens and America's Next Top Model cycle 3 winner Eva Pigford. So much for modeling.

This will air after Bones in the projected line-up, which is odd. They don't seem particularly compatible.

New at mid-season will be the sitcom Winner, where Lenny Clarke plays a 40something guy musing on his neurotic past circa-1994. I'll stake a claim here that this will replace Happy Hour. They could then move this and 'Til Death to Friday and lead in for The Wedding Album. Bones would go back to Wednesday, and the Thursday hole can be filled by On the Lot, an unscripted show from Mark Burnett and Steven Spielberg which calls to mind Project Greenlight.

The other new unscripted show is Duets, a singing competition for pairs that will fill spots in the fall as baseball dictates.

Overall, I'm actually a little disappointed in this slate of new shows. Usually FOX has at least one show in the bag that makes you stop and think - either in wonder or incredulity. Vanished might have been that show - in 2003. None of the shows would look out of place on any other network's schedule, which is either a sign of FOX's maturation or a new-found timidity. This doesn't mean that these shows won't turn out well, just that they won't be all that unique.