Fox and UPN had their upfronts yesterday. Couldn't Fox and PAX gone at the same time for irony's sake?

The biggest question going into next season for UPN is how to replace Buffy, perhaps the signature show of the netlets to date. The answer, apparently, is Jake 2.0, a show about a guy who becomes super-powerful after being infect by nanites, which are molecular-sized computers. Think Freakazoid meets Michael Crichton's book Prey. I'm sure that's the concept used when the show got pitched.

The other four new shows on the UPN schedule for next year replace any number of sitcoms that the bulk of humanity couldn't name under pain of torture. If nothing else, there are some entertaining concepts here. Our quartet includes:

* All of Us, a sitcom about domestic life produced by Will and Jada Pinkett Smith. According to the UPN website, the show will look at how divorced parents raise their kids together. The website says the show is also inspired by Will and Jada's "domestic adventures," perhaps making this the first sitcom with plotlines ripped from the tabloids. Can a Bat Boy sitcom be too far off?

* Rock Me Baby stars Dan Cortese as a "shock jock" and new dad who has to balance mocking his home life (and getting in trouble with the wife) and not being too family-oriented on the air (and getting in trouble with his partner and their boss). So, it's a show based on about 10 minutes worth of Private Parts that foists Dan Cortese back on a populace that's shown little love for him previously. Genius!

* The Mullets is my favorite sitcom concept of all the new shows. It basically follows two brothers who sport the haircut that is also their surname as they try to achieve their dreams. Loni Anderson plays their mom, which seems significant for some reason that I can't fathom. Their dad, a game show host, is played by John O'Hurley, who played Peterman on Seinfeld, meaning that the curse is ready to start victimizing that show's secondary characters. Except for Jerry Stiller, who is apparently bulletproof.

* Finally, the one show that may actually be around for the 2004-05 season is The Opposite Sex, which stars rap/hip-hop artist Eve, who showed some acting ability in Barbershop. The UPN description of the show makes it sound like roughly two-thirds of any relationship-based sitcom that's aired since 1990, so I'm basing my prediction of survival on (a) Eve making a connection with UPN's core demographic, (b) a reasonably friendly Monday 8:30 timeslot after The Parkers, and (c) the idea that in a contest between the vague and the crappy, go with the vague.

So then there's Fox. First surprise: the Miss Dog Beauty Pageant is not becoming a regular series. Damn. Second surprise: Joe Millionaire returns. I can't believe they'll go the same prince or pauper routine, so all those jokes from SNL are fair game again. My money is on Joe Heterosexual.

Also back is Oliver Beene, for more of its special brand of ripping off The Wonder Years. Boston Public moves to Friday night, backstopping what passes for a mid-season hit in Wanda at Large, and Luis, a multi-ethnic comedy starring Luis Guzman, best known for appearning in Paul Thomas Anderson films. It appears to be the latest example of the concept that it's OK to make ethnic/racial jokes as long as you do so to everyone. Which may not be the worst concept, except that the comedy rarely justifies the veiled hate.

Fastlane is gone. Boo hoo. John Doe is gone, too. Oddly, the Fox website still lists Futurama and The X-Files among its shows.

As for the new stuff, Fox proves that it can rip off the British too with The Ortegas, apparently based on the Blighty show The Kumars at No. 42. From the description it sounds more like they're ripping off The Mike Essany Show, as the main Ortega has a talk show that operates from the studio his parents built in their backyard.

Get used to the idea that Fox's new shows remind you of something. Or a few somethings.

Continuing with the pandering to America's fastest-growing ethinc group, there's the drama Skin, which combines Romeo and Juliet with the MacLean Stevenson flop Condo. White and Latino kids want to get together, but their parents get in the way. It's just in this case, the parents are more powerful and will use the law and politics to thwart their offspring's carnal desires. Man, it's like a chapter from my life.

The sitcom A Minute With Stan Hooper reminds me of the first question on my torts final exam. In that, we were given a fact pattern and had to pick out all the torts and explain how they'd play out. In this case, though, your task would be to read through the show description on Fox and pick out all the other TV shows being ripped off. I'll wait.

Here's my answer key, though I'm sure some of you will pick up a show or two that I've missed:

* 60 Minutes, of course, given that Stan's segments sound a lot like Andy Rooney, just less crusty.
* The Early Show and 48 Hours, as the content of Stan's segments sound like Steve Hartman's "Everybody Has a Story" bits that have run on both CBS shows.
* Ed, for quitting the big city and moving to an idyllic small town
* Seinfeld as the house that Stan and his wife rent in Wisconsin comes with a butler. Heck, I suppose the importance of the butler in modern life can even be linked back to Joe Millionaire.
* Picket Fences for the concept of quirky Wisconsinites.
* And pretty much any sitcom that has unrelated people living together for allegedly comedic purposes.

This thing stars Norm MacDonald and Penelope Ann Miller, who are apparently fulfilling some sort of public service requirement.

Speaking of rehash, the drama Tru puts a spin on Early Edition by having its heroine awake to relive the previous day, where she gets the chance to prevent a murder. You see, she works at a morgue, and the corpses seeking a second chance talk to her. Somewhere, Dr. Evil is saying "Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight." The lone saving grace is that Tru is played by Eliza Dushku, known to many as the slayer gone wrong Faith on Buffy.

And in the "it could be worse" department, Tru is paired with The O.C., which is apparently some sort of cool slang for Orange County. I think all I need to say about this is that it comes from the paired creative genius of McG and Doug Liman (who I wouldn't have slagged before he made The Bourne Identity). From the description this sounds like Fox's annual nominee for the Most Aggressively Stupid TV Show Emmy That Only Gets Awarded in Mark's Head. Everyone is beautiful and living secret lives in the cradle of luxury. Or, as Fox calls it, "reality programming."

Fox even manages to rip off TNN or Spike TV or The Cable Channel Formerly Home to Hicks or whatever it's called with Banzai, a summer 2003 series that seems an awful lot like the Most Extreme Elimination Challenge. I won't even comment on the midseason replacements Fox has lined up, other than to note that one is tabbed by its creators as "Touched by a Crazy Person" and another is about a family a year after their cop son is killed in the line of duty - and the dead son is narrating the show from beyond the grave.

What does it say that, after recapping Fox's new shows for 2003-04, I find myself praying for a second annual Miss Dog Beauty Pageant?