It will be a serialized drama, which may surprise you. After the swift demise of ABC's "Day Break," on top of half-a-dozen other new serial dramas that are dead or dying, you might have thought the serial genre was kaput.

Not quite. Look for one of the networks to give it one more try. An open-ended drama being developed in utmost secrecy will tap many of the elements that made shows like "Desperate Housewives" and "Heroes" so popular. I see it catching on.

The new show's working title is "The Queue." Its setting: a major metropolitan post office, where the whole first season will span a couple of hours while customers wait in a line that never moves.

The audience will get to know each of the massive cast of characters as, trying to relieve their tedium, they reveal themselves through cell phone calls to a loved one or a business associate, or through strained exchanges with one another.

And in flashbacks we'll see their past lives. Like Piper's. She's a suburban homemaker come to fill out a change-of-address form. (Where is she moving? What is she running from?) Or Scott, a prison escapee displayed on a Wanted poster on the post office wall, who was framed for murder. He can prove his innocence. It's all there in the letter he wants to mail to the governor. But if he's recognized as a convict before he reaches the service window, well, he might have to hold the other customers hostage.

But all isn't lost. One of the customers in line has a special power. Thanks to a tiny variation in his genetic code, he has powers like no one else: He can make a stamp machine accept even the most wrinkled five-dollar bill — and the very first time! So why is he standing in line to buy stamps?

A lot of questions, but by the end of the first season, they will all be resolved. Then, in season two of "The Queue," the action shifts to another locale: Maybe the line for Space Mountain at Disneyland, or to get a driver's license at the DMV.

Premiering in January, "Armed & Famous" follows micro-celebrities like Erik Estrada, La Toya Jackson and Jack Osbourne as they become armed reserve officers on the Muncie, Ind., police force.

Sure, it's a kookie idea. But many more such stars will be recruited for a bigger spinoff set in Baghdad. Responding to leaders who have called for a troop increase, "Armed & Famous: The War in Iraq" will do its part: The first season's cast will number 30,000.

The new program will be inspired by the recent report from the Iraq Study Group. Hosted by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, former Rep. Lee Hamilton and maybe Carmen Electra, the special will be titled "If We Were Winning the War: Here's How It Would Happen."

But in November, the network got a new budget-trimming idea when former "Seinfeld" star Michael Richards' racist rant was recorded on the cell phone of a patron at the L.A. comedy club where Richards was performing. During 2007, NBC will save untold millions in production costs by firing its entire engineering and production staff, then shooting all its shows on its executives' cell phones.

Look for him to pitch his services as the sadder-but-wiser new spokesman for Cingular, with the slogan: "Watch how you behave. These days, everybody else is."