• by October 9, 2000

(AP) A new fall television season is a lot like opening day in baseball. Each team theoretically begins the season evenly, with the same chance of making the World Series.

In reality, one team's pitcher has a sore arm. The cleanup hitter's been striking out an awful lot. And that kid in right field? Overmatched. You know better than to make October plans for this club.

Similarly, some new television series seem to start their runs with two strikes against them.

The original producer leaves the series, miffed at the network's meddling. Half the cast is fired. The show changes its setting, or its title. Writers doctor the script.

Every year one or more of the above seems to envelop a show in dread. Before they've even gone on the air, it feels like Dead Show Walking.

This year, the red flags are flying over four shows in particular: NBC's "The Michael Richards Show" has received a complete makeover. After NBC discovered that the former Kramer on "Seinfeld" had trouble carrying a series on his own, it beefed up the cast with the addition of actors William Devane, Amy Farrington and Tim Meadows. Now, like "Seinfeld," it's more of an ensemble.

The executive producer of Fox's "Freakylinks" left, citing creative differences, after he was ordered to inject more levity into the dark drama.

NBC recruited a former "Friends" producer to take over on "Cursed" after its co-creators left with bad feelings. New writers were brought on, the show changed its name from "The Steven Weber Show" and a handful of episodes already filmed were thrown out.

"Normal, Ohio" features John Goodman as a middle-aged divorced man who comes out of the closet as gay. It was originally set in Los Angeles co-starring Anthony LaPaglia. But LaPaglia was axed, the show changed settings to middle America and now it is more of a family comedy than originally envisioned. Oh, and the title was changed from "Don't Ask."

Can a series work its way through the bad vibes and survive?

It's possible. The pilot for the current critical and commercial favorite "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer" was thrown out and some of the actors recast before the show got on the air, said Gail Berman, Fox's entertainment chief, who was in charge of "Buffy" when she ran Regency Television.

Every one of the shows she's been involved with has been revamped to some extent in the early days, she said.

"These are situations that have gone on always," she said. "It's just that we hear more about it because everybody is looking for a story."

There are few things more frustrating _ and panic-inducing _ to a network executive than the realization that a concept that looked good on paper isn't working on tape.

"The Michael Richards Show" is "300 percent better" because of the extra work put in, said Garth Ancier, NBC entertainment president. "I think it's going to be a decent show," Ancier said. "Decent to good."

"The most important thing is to put the bes