In the world of television, the arrival of the new millennium brought an end to the dominance of the three major networks. FOX started chipping away at their hold years ago, and now WB is slowly becoming a major contender through its smart courting of the youth market, while UPN continues to struggle to do the same. Where HBO once held secret treasures such as The Larry Sanders Show, The Sopranos now enters its fourth season as both a highly viewed hit and a cultural phenomenon. Add to this the success of HBO’s new drama Six Feet Under as well as the reinvigorated Sex & the City, and the networks no longer see the popularity of pay cable’s offerings as flukes.

Unfortunately, the networks’ response to these challengers has been to rely increasingly on the gimmicky reality format, and they’ve survived the summer season with bottom feeders such as Big Brother 2, Spy TV, and Fear Factor. If the networks continue to concentrate on reality shows, chances are they’ll pay less attention to developing creative television programs. That’s good for the bottom line in the short term, but if the producers, writers, and actors don’t step up their game this year, chances are they’ll eventually be rendered irrelevant.

Here’s a day-by-day look at what’s upcoming on television this fall. In parentheses next to a program’s name is the date of its premiere. And in the next few months, you can check out the “Pop Life” column for more reviews of new shows.

Sunday HBO’s World War I miniseries Band of Brothers is already under way. Produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, this adaptation of the historical novel by Stephen Ambrose follows East Company through boot camp up through their arrival on Utah Beach on D-Day. I’ll confess personal exhaustion with new projects about the “Greatest Generation.” It’s another sign of the baby boomers’ relentless self-obsession. This time, it just happens to be baby boomers obsessed with the history of their parents, who are now dying. Nonetheless, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the best and most involving miniseries since Roots.

One of HBO’s other two offerings will be The Mind of the Married Man (Sept. 16), which on the surface looks like a male Sex & the City or, even worse, a Dream On retread. Here’s hoping for higher aspirations on the part of creator and lead actor Mike Binder.

The other is Seinfeld co-creator Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm (Sept. 16). I relished every episode of this show’s first run last year, but I will concede that it may be an acquired taste. Basically, it’s Seinfeld set in L.A. with the contentious David as the main character, thus dispensing with Jerry’s good nature. The result is comedy that thrives on uncomfortable situations. In the show’s final episode last year, David ended up in a rape-and-incest support group, and while I know that may sound distasteful, it was damned funny.

Being that this is HBO’s big night, you’d think that the networks would pull out the big guns to compete. But you’d be wrong. The only notable returning show on Sunday is FOX’s Malcolm in the Middle (Nov. 4), which continues to impress with its cleverness. For new stuff on NBC, you’ve got Law & Order: Criminal Intent (Sept. 30 ), which looks to wear the franchise thin, and U.C.: Undercover, a show about “an elite Justice Department crime-fighting unit” that carries the unfortunate tag “from the co-writer of Shaft and Armageddon.”

On CBS, you’ll get the Richard Dreyfuss vehicle The Education of Max Bickford (Sept. 23), a misleading title, since it’s really Mr. Holland’s Opus Goes to College. The only intriguing new network show on Sunday is ABC’s Alias (Sept. 30). The setup of grad-school student by day, top-secret CIA agent by night certainly sounds goofy, but advance word says it’s good, comic-book-style fun.

Monday Nobody wants to tussle with Mondays because of Monday Night Football, but CBS has come in a close second with the well regarded Everybody Loves Raymond (Sept. 17). This insistence on sticking to formula shows with little spark is what has earned it the “octogenarian network” tag. FOX counter-football programs include the female-oriented Ally McBeal (Oct. 22) and the melodramatic Boston Public (Oct. 22). David E. Kelley pens both, and his corny dialogue and ludicrous plot twists make my skin crawl. NBC will match Third Watch (Sept. 17), its poor man’s ER (which isn’t saying much, considering how bad ER is these days), with Crossing Jordan (Sept. 17). Jordan jumps on the surprise success of CBS’ C.S.I. by casting Jill Hennessy as a sexy coroner. Hot chicks and cadavers—what more could you want on a Monday night?

Tuesday The new “Must See TV” night and a VCR nightmare. The only thing more inexplicable than WB’s decision to cut Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Oct. 2) loose to UPN after an incredible fifth season is its decision to put Gilmore Girls (Oct. 9) up against Buffy in that show’s old time slot. Gilmore was never going to win in the war against Survivor and Friends, but going against Buffy will just split both shows’ potential audience: They’re both smartly written programs on smaller networks, with unusually strong female characters.

Personally, I kind of hope Gilmore kicks Buffy’s ass so that UPN will be forced to move its only asset to a more reasonable night. But with Buffy’s audience returning to learn how the cliffhanger ending of last season plays out, I wouldn’t count on it. Unfortunately, if you don’t tape one while you watch the other, you’re guaranteed to miss one of the two best and most consistent shows on TV right now.

Steven Bochco tries to break his losing streak since NYPD Blue debuted in ’93 with the lawyer show Philly (Sept. 18), and former Blue regular Kim Delaney should be more than ready to lead her own star vehicle. The buzz on this one is strong. There’s also been high praise for Smallville (Oct. 16), a high school version of Superman that, like Buffy, uses super-powers as a metaphor for teen angst. And the doctor sitcom Scrubs (Sept. 25) reportedly has a scream of a pilot.

But the real breakout is 24 (Oct. 30), a show with almost universal advance raves. The plot follows one consecutive hour after another in the single day of a stressed CIA operative (Kiefer Sutherland); it may sound like a cheap gimmick, but the word is that it’s an edge-of-your-seat thriller.

Frasier and That ’70s Show (Sept. 18) return, and both seem ready to die. Surefire dogs are Bob Patterson (Sept. 25) and Emeril (Sept. 18): Patterson has been beset by numerous pre-premiere problems, and Emeril Lagasse is a chef, not an actor or a comedian. How many poaching jokes do you think an audience will be able to take?

Wednesday NBC’s only lock: The West Wing (Sept. 19) and last year’s sleeper hit Ed (Oct. 19) are populist successes that more often than not do a good job of leaving the viewer with a warm fuzzy feeling. West Wing will be especially interesting to watch in the wake of creator Aaron Sorkin’s drug bust.

The notoriously gritty NYPD Blue will be returning in November with only two of its original cast members and a supporting cast that looks like it just walked out of a Gap ad, including Zack from Saved by the Bell. After nine years, its days are numbered.

If you didn’t catch The Job (Sept. 26) last year, you should. Denis Leary’s cop comedy received a lot of comparisons to Barney Miller, but for me it resembled a modern Andy Griffith Show. It contains character-driven laughs and has a surprisingly genial manner given its blue subject matter and language.

Felicity (Oct. 3) returns as the 90210 for Generation Y. Good, silly TV like this should always be prized. On the newbie front, there’s According to Jim (Sept. 19), a bland family sitcom for Jim Belushi that has him married, implausibly, to former Melrose Place hottie Courtney Thorne-Smith. The Bernie Mac Show (Nov. 7) is promising, since its star was one of the funniest things in last year’s standup movie The Original Kings of Comedy. Lou Diamond Phillips comes to the small screen with the horror drama Wolf Lake (Sept. 12); the original pilot for this show was scrapped, and the creator was fired. Now apparently it has something to do with wolf people and humans at battle. Sounds like a guaranteed howler.

Thursday The take on last year’s Friends (Sept. 20) finale is that the show has finally “jumped the shark.” (That’s the term used on the Internet when a TV show has run out of ideas and rapidly goes downhill; it’s a reference to a pivotal Happy Days episode in which the Fonz jumped sharks on waterskis.) Actually, Friends jumped the shark a couple of years ago when Joey found his “hand twin.” It just happens to have had a very slow decline since. This will most likely be the show’s final year, so hopefully the writers will figure out how to come up with a fitting and funny end for one of the most popular sitcoms of the past eight years.

Will & Grace (Sept. 20) has become increasingly shallow and annoying, Just Shoot Me (Sept. 20) was never funny to begin with, and ER (Sept. 20) will see the last of its original actors leave this year, save for Noah Wyle. Actually, Sherry Stringfield is coming back after a four-year absence, but her return is much too little too late. In the vacant time slot between Friends and Will & Grace, NBC provides a lamebrained “hip” sitcom, Inside Schwartz (Sept. 20), whose premise is a little too close to FOX’s long-ago Herman’s Head.

The good news is that this night may yield the year’s most inventive sitcom in The Tick (Nov. 1). Based on the Ben Englund cartoon, this live-action tale of neurotic superheroes was supposed to be a mid-season replacement last spring but was bumped to this fall. Patrick Warburton, who played Elaine’s dimwitted boyfriend during the final season of Seinfeld, could not be more perfectly cast in the lead role. If it’s anywhere near as hysterical as the cartoon, it could easily be one of the year’s best new shows.

The only other major production hitting Thursdays is The Agency (Sept. 20), which looks like an unremarkable CIA drama. After Alias and 24 earlier in the week, it had better figure out a way to distinguish itself fast.

Friday Friday is typically a no man’s land of generic family shows or kids’ programming. Reba McEntire’s Reba (Sept. 14) and Bob Saget’s Raising Dad (Sept. 14) should continue the trend. Two notable entries are The Ellen Show (Sept. 17) and Pasadena (Sept. 21).

Ellen DeGeneres returns to the sitcom world with a show that sounds distressingly familiar to last year’s failed John Goodman vehicle, Normal, Ohio. You know, gay girl returns to small hometown. I think DeGeneres is a sharp, funny comedic actress, but her last show was a little too soft. Maybe this one will free her up to be as quick as she likes, with maybe a couple of pointed Anne Heche digs.

The nighttime soap Pasadena tries to fill the Melrose void that Titans failed to do last year. Word is that after execs saw the pilot, Chuck & Buck scribe Mike White was told to go darker with this tale of a rich California family. If you’ve seen Chuck & Buck, you know that means a possible dose of gleeful derangement.

Saturday A wasteland as usual, except for a revitalized Saturday Night Live. Try leaving the house for some dinner, letting your eyes adjust to normal light, and then start all over again on Sunday.