NEW YORK — It’s May in the Big Apple, when the networks reveal their plans for the fall season and affiliate types, U.S. buyers, clients and a few Canucks all gather to see and pass judgment.

Monday began early with NBC with the tagline ‘Everything is colorful.’ And it was. NBC had its peacock colors everywhere: on cabs (smart), on walls, on water bottles, the escalators — you get the idea.

The presentation itself, however, was not so colorful. It was fairly low key and lasted just under two hours. Alec Baldwin started the show in character as Jack Donaghy of 30 Rock, with a few jokes, followed by the network’s introduction of its eight new fall shows and five midseason programs.

Mondays will start with The Event, from the creators of Lost. It is well-produced, with a definite eerie Lost-like feeling to it. However, the following fugitive drama Chase from producer Jerry Bruckheimer left some of us wanting to run too.

New on Wednesdays is Undercovers, which channels Mr. & Mrs. Smith for TV, but without the raw sex appeal of Brad and Angelina. At 9 p.m. it’s Law & Order Los Angeles — no explanation required here.

Thursdays are about comedy for NBC with Outsourced at 9:30 p.m. The sitcom, which will follow The Office, got a lot of laughs from the audience. NBC then ran a full episode of Love Bites, and they obviously feel this is a great show or they wouldn’t do that to us. The basic premise of this hour-long rom-com is that an attractive woman (Jennifer Love Hewitt) meets a normal, chubby guy on a plane and wants to do him, but he says no.

As my companion said, ‘Oh sure, this is real,’ an observation followed impatiently by, ‘When is it over?’

The midseason shows were nothing exciting. Actor and stand-up comedian Paul Reiser has The Paul Reiser Show — clearly someone owed him a favor, and Friends with Benefits is about friends who have sex. Harry’s Law, starring Kathy Bates as a patent lawyer gone good, had the most mixed reviews — people either loved it or hated it — and Perfect Couples is about three couples who are not so perfect.

And that was it for the new shows. Then came the announcers from the NFL and Sunday Night Football, who threw pigskins into the audience. Then it was over.

We were streaming out of the Hilton when we ran into a few fellow Canucks and decided to go to lunch instead of to the NBC party to line up for a drink. Lunch was very Mad Men. We all agreed Outsourced was the clear winner for NBC, and Love Bites was not. Two bottles of wine and 30 blocks in heels later (running behind two senior ad guys), we were at the Beacon Theatre for the Fox launch.

Fox had no color but it did present lots of glamour, music and stars. The kick-off was the parade of stars, all of them, from House to Glee. And Fox had research: TV delivers large audiences, TV delivers ROI, TV is dynamic and TV has an impact on our culture. Rightly, there was also lots of glee over the success of Glee this past year.

Fox started its previews with The Good Guys, a comedy about two regular cops starring Colin Hanks and Bradley Whitford, and the clips got a few loud laughs. Lonestar, a primetime soap/drama that the network described as a modern Dallas, was very good. It stars Jon Voight as a con man with two separate lives and wives, and has scored the House lead-in slot. Raising Hope, a new half-hour comedy about a single guy raising his daughter with the help of his mother (Martha Plimpton) was very funny and also got lots of laughs and applause.

Finally, another comedy called Running Wilde, about a rich guy (co-creator Will Arnett of Arrested Development fame) trying to hook up with the daughter of his former housekeeper, got the most laughs. We felt this one you either loved or hated, as well.

A new animated comedy called Bob’s Burgers was just really bad — my fellow upfront attendee was staring at the ceiling of the theater all through that clip. Luckily for him, it was a beautiful ceiling.

Then came the midseason lineup: Superbowl 45, a new season of American Idol, Mixed Signals and Terra Nova, with a few words from creator Steven Spielberg. Terra Nova is still in production so there were no real clips to see, but it sounded great. It’s about a future on earth so bad that they send people back to prehistoric times to save them. If this is done as well as they claim, it will be very good.

It was over in just under two hours and there were busses ready to take a few thousand people to the after-party. I opted for another 20-block walk back to my hotel, followed by a good conversation about what we had seen that day. We agreed that the tone of this upfront season seemed to be all about the strength of conventional TV; a celebration of mass audience delivery.

Next: ABC’s presentation. What will they have to show us?

Helena Shelton is EVP of director of trading and accountability for PHD Canada.

From Media in Canada