It's now spring, which means it's time for the networks to start giving serious thought to what will be filling out their schedules once fall arrives. And for at least one network, decision time is near indeed: NBC announced Tuesday that it will be revealing its 2008-09 plans next week.

During and after the writers' strike, NBC brass was vocal in its belief that the pilot process had gotten too expensive, with tens of millions spent to find maybe one or two series that even make it to a second season. In keeping with this belief, the network is now much more aggressive about reality programming, ordering a pilot for a U.S. version of the veteran BBC series Top Gear. NBC also has high hopes for its version of the Australian series Kath & Kim, about a mother and daughter with a love/hate relationship. The casting seems a bit strange, with Molly Shannon as the mother and the seven-years-younger Selma Blair as the daughter. Maybe that's what makes it a comedy? Old NBC hand (from Wings) Steven Weber is the star of Zip, a comedy about a con man trying to raise a family in Beverly Hills.

ABC is working on its own BBC adaptation -- the time-traveling detective show Life on Mars. There's also a new version of the old Jeremy Piven comedy Cupid in development; clearly someone at the network felt the concept had potential despite its failure to catch on ten years ago. Other ABC projects include a medical comedy called This Might Hurt, a new Mike Judge animated series, and the Heroes-esque Section 8, about regular folks whose neurological quirks make them useful to the proverbial "secret government agency."

The CW seems to be using Gossip Girl as a means of branding the network, which sure could use a brand other than "fifth place." In addition to the much-discussed updating of Beverly Hills 90210, the channel has commissioned a pilot called How to Teach Filthy Rich Girls, about a Yale graduate who gets hired to tutor a couple of spoiled brats in Palm Beach.

When it comes to the plans of CBS, the first question is always, "What is Jerry Bruckheimer up to these days?" The answer is a show called Eleventh Hour, with Rufus Sewell as a government science advisor and Marley Shelton as his bodyguard. Producer Glenn Gordon Caron, currently at the helm of Medium, has a project in the works starring Amy Smart as a dead woman who has to help others before she can "pass over." Sounds a lot like Highway to Heaven, but that show ran forever. Geena Davis has a detective show in the works for the Eye Network, and CBS is also developing Ny-Lon, about a transatlantic relationship between a New York woman and a London man.

Fox, which is always on the lookout for scripted programming, happens to have the most hyped show in development right now, the Joss Whedon vehicle Dollhouse. Buffy veteran Eliza Dushku is still the only actor attached to the project, several months after we first heard about it. The show depicts agents who are programmed with personalities that enable them to complete certain missions, but have little independent consciousness of their own. Another cult series veteran, J.J. Abrams, is behind Fringe, about an FBI agent who works with an institutionalized scientist to investigate strange phenomena. Fox is traditionally pretty hit-or-miss with these darker dramas.

The traditional pilot season may have lost a small amount of luster, but there's still plenty to look forward to. No matter how many pilots get produced, it seems that the proportion of good to bad never really changes much.

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