The best new show on television this year is on ABC. That's great news for ABC, right? Well, yes, in the sense that finding a $50 bill on the sidewalk is great news when you are flat broke. The show, "Monk," stars Tony Shalhoub ("Wings," "Men in Black") as a detective who is brilliant despite his manic collection of ticks and obsessions. It's great, fun TV -- and it's a cable show. Like that $50 bill, ABC picked up "Monk" after the USA Network dropped it into its summer schedule and the show started generating lots of buzz. Since ABC has spent millions developing its own slate of fall shows, however, "Monk" will disappear from the schedule and return to the minor leagues. In its place, we're sure you'll love more of "The Bachelor," a cheap, cheap, cheap reality show that's staler than week-old wedding cake (did we mention that it's cheap?), or "MDs," a dramedy about wise-cracking, rule-breaking docs in San Francisco.

It's as close to an original idea as you'll get from network TV, in that it hasn't been done since "Trapper John, M.D." -- a dramedy about wise-cracking, rule-breaking docs in San Francisco -- went off the air in 1986. OK, OK, we know that even a lousy show on a lousy network like ABC still gets more viewers than the hottest thing on basic cable, but that's hardly worth celebrating.With the cable audience growing, with the advent of commercial-zapping machines like TiVo, with the general ennui surrounding the networks, it's hard to get excited about the fact that "According to Jim" draws more viewers than "Junkyard Wars." It ought to. In addition to being free (plug in the set, and there it is) and accessible everywhere from Manhattan to Death Valley, network TV is supported by the largest media companies in the world. It has no business being threatened by kitschy, niche-y stuff like "The Iron Chef" and "Trading Spaces."

And yet . . . year after year, season after season, that stronghold is chipped away. Watching the way ABC, NBC, CBS and, to a lesser degree, Fox are frittering away their dominance, one thinks of Detroit in the 1970s, when the automakers were absolutely paralyzed by the flood of Japanese imports.

The fall lineup - For a look at all the new and returning shows, be sure to check out our special pullout section in Sunday's TV Week.

Listen, we love TV, and we're rooting for the networks in this fight. Grandpa drove a Cadillac, not a Toyota, and we grew up watching "M*A*S*H," "The Rockford Files" and "The Cosby Show" back in pre-cable times. But something's got to change, and soon. Put it this way: Drew Carey isn't going to convince anyone to pull out that cable box.