The new TV season: It`s here!

At long last, a new season. New shows, new episodes of old favorites, maybe even new commercials.

After waiting impatiently for the Olympics to get over with, after shuffling and reshuffling their schedules around presidential debates and baseball playoff games, six networks recently began throwing 31 new programs at the screen (not counting a few old series moving to new networks). The total includes 15 comedies and 16 dramas, ranging from sci-fi conspiracies to conspiracy comedies, from medical dramas to family sitcoms, cops, reporters, an inept private eye and a bumbling Secret Service agent.

Let`s face it, though. Most are mediocre, and most won`t stick. A year from now, two-thirds or more will be hazy memories. So let`s focus on some of the best prime time has to offer - the best of the new season, the best of last season, and an old reliable that deserves more attention. The envelopes please:

- Best of the new season: "Ed," from NBC.

- Best show starting its second season: "The West Wing," from NBC.

- Best long-running show: "Everybody Loves Raymond," from CBS.

What do these apparently very different series - a quirky, small-town dramedy; a tense, dense political drama; a family comedy - have in common? Each bears some tangible resemblance to everyday life, and each improves on the real thing. Each lives up to the adage that the best drama or comedy is like real life but with the boring parts left out.

Each might be an example to writers and producers looking to learn something about turning out good TV - not to imitate, which television does all too well, but to emulate.

"Ed," with the shortest title in living prime-time memory, is the most offbeat, offhanded new show on the schedule. Written by Rob Burnett and Jon Beckerman, of "The Late Show With David Letterman," and produced by Burnett, Beckerman and Letterman, "Ed" tells the story of Ed Stevens (Tom Cavanaugh, tentative, vulnerable), a lawyer who gets sacked from a big New York firm and finds his wife in bed with the mail man.

So he heads back to his hometown, Stuckeyville, Ohio, buys the moribund local bowling alley, and gets reacquainted with the girl he never had the nerve to date in high school.

"Ed" is enriched by several small, funny touches, such as the mom who makes a video of herself for the nanny to play during the day - "Hello, Sara! This is your mommy!" - and the nanny herself, who can`t quite figure out the mysteries of how to play with a baby.

Most important, "Ed" has a winsome, why-not quality to it, a beguiling atmosphere just slightly reminiscent of "Northern Exposure." If you`ve seen the films of Bill Forsyth - "Gregory`s Girl," "Local Hero" - "Ed" will strike a familiar chord.

"The West Wing," of course, just finished winning nine Emmy trophies, including the Best Drama prize, coming off its freshman season. Written by Aaron Sorkin, who penned Broadway`s "A Few Good Men," as well as "Sports Night," one of TV`s too-numerous noble failures, "The West Wing" is just like real politics, only better.

For one thing, the people are better looking. For another, the problems are wrapped up sooner. Thanks to Sorkin`s deceptively intricate scripts, the cast of John Spencer, Rob Lowe, Allison Janney, Bradley Whitford, Dule Hill, Janel Moloney and Martin Sheen can juggle an amazing number of subjects simultaneously with apparently easy grace.

An episode caught at random a couple of weeks ago dealt with school vouchers and their effect on a White House aide`s dating life, pandas at the National Zoo and American relations with China, slavery reparations and an appointment to the Justice Department, a Supreme Court appointment, skinhead threats to the president`s teen-age daughter, and the reasons why she was at a party where drugs were present.

Somehow, Sorkin manages to make first-class entertainment out of that Mulligan stew of politics and personal drama. And if "The West Wing" tends to get a little preachy at times, if it takes itself a bit too seriously now and then, it`s still more rewarding and more fun than so many shows that deal with nothing serious at all.

So where does "Everybody Loves Raymond" fit into this mix? It has that same, elusive quality of exaggerated truth, the sense that events portrayed on the show may not be real, but they`re not all that unreal, either.

Judged by the does-it-make-me-laugh-out-loud test (the only test that matters in comedy), "Raymond" gets my personal Emmy. (The show was nominated for a real Emmy but lost out to "Will & Grace." Patricia Heaton, who plays Raymond`s wife, Deborah, won the prize as best lead actress in a comedy series.)

Now starting its fifth season, "Raymond" is based more or less on the stand-up comedy and life of its star, Ray Romano. Despite his protestations to the contrary, Romano has developed into an adept comic actor.

The opening scene in a recent episode had me laughing within a few seconds. Ray was on his way out the door with his golf clubs, when Deborah planted a long one on his lips, smiled sweetly and slowly peeled off her jacket. Ray looked at her, looked at his golf clubs, then back at her: "Don`t make me choose! It`s not fair!"

In another favorite scene, Deborah`s sister had decided to enter a convent so Ray`s mother, the lovingly meddling Marie (Doris Roberts, wonderful every week), baked a cake in the shape of a crucifix.

Peter Boyle is brilliant as Ray`s dad, as is Brad Garrett as the lonely, jealous brother, Robert. Most important, the comedy in "Raymond" flows from the essential nature of the characters. It`s not based on gag lines but on its own, ever-so-slightly skewed view of the everyday life of its own family.

If only there were more programs in prime time like "Raymond," "Ed" and "The West Wing."

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Author: Robert P. Laurence