• by Wayne Friedman , May 14, 2008

Due to the writers' strike interruption, ABC will debut four new shows this season--with only two launching this fall.

"Life on Mars" is the network's new big drama coming from a BBC series about a current-day detective who--after a car crash--finds himself back in 1973 and still working as a detective. The show will air in the prized 10 p.m. time period on Thursdays after "Grey's Anatomy."

New reality-game show "Opportunity Knocks" features a new spin on a game show--it comes to families in their own homes. A big mobile team, featuring a semi-truck full of flat-screen TVs, new furniture and prizes, rolls into neighborhoods where families are tested on their knowledge about each other.

The show, which comes from Ashton Kutcher and his Katalyst Films, and 3 Ball Productions, will run on Tuesdays at 8 p.m.

Mid-season shows include a new animated comedy "The Goode Family" from Mike Judge, who created 'King of the Hill." It addresses an environmentally conscious family whose efforts have unintended comic results.

Also for mid-season is a new reality-show spin on beauty pageants from Ashton Kutcher and Tyra Banks.

ABC has confirmed that the 7-year-old NBC show "Scrubs" will move to the Alphabet network in mid-season. In explaining the move, Stephen McPherson, president of ABC Entertainment, said the show had more life in it.

"Given the fact that it had 17 different time periods on the network, and they rarely promoted it at all, and the fact that it has been doing a three and a half [rating among 18-49 viewers] on Thursday, performing better than everything but "The Office," we think it's a great addition for us," he says. "It's also very portable."

Not making ABC's lineup this time: "Men in Trees" and "October Road." "Trees" couldn't get traction on ABC's big Thursday night, says McPherson. "Road" had a dedicated, but small, audience.

Fewer shows this season doesn't mean ABC will be cutting back on promotion. "We are going to spend the same amount of money," said McPherson. The difference, he says, will be putting marketing resources against returning shows. Since viewers have been slow to return after the writers' strike, that's an important consideration for fall.

"The fall is a big challenge for all the networks," he said, "We have to come back and launch in a big way. There is no question the interruption of the strike was disruptive." For example, ABC did fewer pilots for this season than it has in the past.

Even with the strike, he added, "we ended the year having grown our young adult audience."

What about the possibility of an actors' strike this summer? Says McPherson: "It would be a catastrophe."