New TV Season Has Surprises, Trends : Programming: This year is proving to be fiercely competitive. Fox shows weakness as dark-horse NBC builds strength--and dramas hold viewers’ interest.

They’ve come out swinging this TV season, with the first few weeks marked by unusually high-powered competition behind the scenes and on screen. And significant viewing patterns are emerging.

Item: Dramas are on the upswing again--thus far. There now are strong drama series every weekday at 10 p.m.: “Northern Exposure” on Mondays, “NYPD Blue” on Tuesdays, “Law & Order” on Wednesdays, “ER” on Thursdays and “Picket Fences” on Fridays.

What’s eye-opening here is that two of these dramas are picking up steam, while the other is a newcomer. The new drama is NBC’s “ER,” which was a Top 10 entry in its first two weeks and turned in another strong performance Thursday.

“Law & Order,” an underappreciated, superb series, has ranked in the Top 20. “Picket Fences,” two-time Emmy winner as best drama series, sharply improved its once-abysmal ratings as the season got under way, ranking a solid 37th last week with a 22% audience share.

Dramas, in fact, now are solid seven days a week in late prime time. On Saturdays, the veteran 10 p.m. entries “Sisters,” “The Commish” and “Walker, Texas Ranger” all get respectable ratings. And Sundays, starting at 9 p.m., there are the weekly movies on CBS, NBC and ABC.

Other successful drama series include “Beverly Hills, 90210,” “Murder, She Wrote,” “The Cosby Mysteries,” “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman,” “The X-Files” and the new “Due South.”

Yet another new drama, the promising “Chicago Hope,” got KO’d by “ER” in their publicized battle of medical series and quickly was switched to a different time slot--opposite, alas, the red-hot “Seinfeld,” which is TV’s top show with advertisers, getting an estimated $390,000 for a 30-second commercial.

Item: ABC this week switched three of its 10 p.m. newsmagazines that compete with the resurgent dramas to new days, effective in January. For many viewers, this signifies a welcome retreat and realignment for the often-tabloid-style, less expensive newsmagazines, which displaced many dramas.

The ABC magazine “Turning Point,” getting creamed by “Law & Order,” will move to Mondays. “PrimeTime Live,” getting walloped by “ER”--and with a weak lead-in from the new “McKenna” already yanked--switches to Wednesdays, where ABC obviously thinks it will do better against “Law & Order.”

A third ABC newsmagazine, “Day One,” previously planned for Mondays in January, instead will try to be the stopper against “ER”--hoping that the medical series will cool off a bit by midseason.

Oh, by the way, that old reliable, “Matlock,” with Andy Griffith, will replace “McKenna” starting Thursday.

Item: Fox’s grand plan to use its $1.58-billion acquisition of National Football League games to establish a powerhouse Sunday prime-time lineup has fallen flat. The series that was to benefit from the football lead-in, “Fortune Hunter,” has already been dropped after disastrous ratings.

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What’s more, “The Simpsons,” formerly a potent Thursday contender, was switched back to Sundays--following “Fortune Hunter”--and plummeted in the ratings as the season began. Another new Fox Sunday show, “Wild Oats,” was also yanked.

Although Fox’s year-to-year ratings are up slightly, Sandy Grushow, president of the Fox Entertainment Group, was fired. The Sunday failure, after the enormous Fox investment in professional football, is regarded by sources as one reason.

But more important is the belief that Grushow wanted to maintain Fox’s well-established image as a youthful program maverick, while Fox owner Rupert Murdoch preferred going more mainstream in his battle for parity with ABC, CBS and NBC.

Grushow’s replacement, John Matoian, a Fox executive who, in his quiet way, was a prime force in CBS’ rise to the top--turning out enormously successful Sunday and Tuesday night movies--definitely is more of a mainstream programmer.

In any case, the rebellious Fox TV image nurtured by the network’s original boss and guru, Barry Diller, now appears to be on the way out. The new--like the old--Fox is often tasteless in programming targeted at its young male audience, but Diller knew how to keep things popping, and sometimes, as with “The Simpsons” and “The Tracey Ullman Show,” the results were redeemingly brilliant.

When Diller saw ABC’s weird but often wonderful “Twin Peaks,” he wondered why it wasn’t on Fox. There apparently won’t be much more of that kind of thinking at his old network.

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One slight triumph for Fox thus far: “60 Minutes,” beneficiary of the NFL lead-in when the games were on CBS--and TV’s No. 2 program last season--is still a Top 10 show but seems less an 800-pound gorilla in the ratings. Its 34% audience share in 1993-94 slipped a bit to 30% and 29% the first two weeks of this season as the series came in eighth and then seventh.

Item: It only takes one or two big hits to turn even the lowliest network around, and NBC hopes that is the case--with “Frasier” last season and “ER” this fall. Suddenly, the third-place network of recent years has gotten off to a surprisingly strong ratings start against heavily favored ABC and actually led the pack as of Thursday.

The key strategy was moving “Frasier” against ABC’s “Home Improvement,” using the NBC hit as the anchor to build a competitive Tuesday.

And although full ratings for this week are still to come, NBC’s lineup actually defeated ABC this past Tuesday, with “Frasier” getting its highest rating thus far against “Home Improvement,” TV’s No. 1 show. “Home Improvement” had 31% of the audience and “Frasier” 24%.

At this point, it’s still hard to imagine NBC winning the season. Will “ER” maintain its momentum? Can you really beat an ABC lineup that has “Home Improvement,” “NYPD Blue,” “Grace Under Fire,” “Roseanne” and “Ellen,” as well as the Super Bowl and the Academy Awards?

Maybe not. But it’s been an unexpectedly fast and furious start of the season. And, in the matter of the dramas, something is blowing in the wind.