Every season it seems Fox stumbles in the fall, then pulls off a miraculous recovery at midseason, allowing it to finish the full season at No. 1 or No. 2 in adult 18-49 viewers.
   This year, thanks largely to baseball, Fox did better up through October, ranking No. 1 among 18-49s, only to stumble that much worse in November and December.
  What that means is that Fox must struggle all that much harder to pull itself out in midseason, and this year it's going to take more than "American Idol," whose new season begins on Jan. 18. So much more will ride on its new and returning shows. 
  If none catches in a really big way, Fox stands a good chance of finishing the season in third place, and quite possibly in fourth. 
   That will be a big comedown. The past two seasons, Fox came in a close second to NBC. In both cases, credit goes to the huge success of "Idol."
  Fox currently rests at a 3.3 average rating among viewers 18-49, 0.4 behind third-place NBC’s 3.7. At this point last year, Fox was tied for second place with CBS, each with a 3.7 average.
   “Fox shouldn’t milk ‘Idol’ too much,” vice president and director of programming at Carat USA Shari Anne Brill says. Last year the network sometimes ran one or two additional hours of the show per week, leading to some fan burnout by the end of the season.
   So, besides “Idol,” what does Fox have to offer this midseason? Among returning shows are “24” and “The Simple Life,” and it also has broadcast rights to this year’s Super Bowl.
   “They always struggle in the fall because of baseball,” Brill says. “‘24’ may also contribute to why it’s down; it has done really well for [Fox] and they didn’t have it on this fall.”
   This year, in a new Monday time slot, "24" may not be as strong. And ratings for "The Simple Life's" second season last summer were off from season one; with Paris Hilton now out of the headlines, it's questionable how much that show can really help Fox.
   Fox is also rolling out three new midseason shows, none reality-based, which is a huge change. 
   The most talked about of the three is “Point Pleasant,” a supernatural drama that premieres Wednesday, Jan. 19 at 9 p.m.
   “I’m kind of wondering about ‘Point Pleasant.’ One of the key writers behind it was one of the main writers for ‘Buffy [the Vampire Slayer],’” Brill says, referring to Marti Noxon. “She was also behind ‘Still Life,’ which looked good, but didn’t make it.” 
  Working against "Pleasant” will be its timeslot, which has quite suddenly become a lot more competitive with the strong debut this week of ABC’s “Alias.” There's also NBC’s “The West Wing,” CBS’ “King of Queens” and UPN’s new “Kevin Hill.”
   Also new for Fox will be next week’s debut of “Jonny Zero.” The one problem with this is that even if the show turns out to be a creative gem, however unlikely that is, it probably wouldn’t even matter because it’s slated to occupy the less-than-desirable Friday 9 p.m. timeslot.
   And following the Super Bowl on Feb. 6, and a new episode of “The Simpsons,” Fox will debut the animated series “American Dad,” which comes from the creators of “The Family Guy.” The animation looks similar to that of “Family Guy,” and if the humor is as well, the show could end up being a mild hit.
   “‘American Dad’ will get decent viewership on Sunday night,” Brill says.
   Fox doesn’t need “Lost” or “Desperate Housewives”-type numbers from these new shows. What it does need, if it hopes to better its ranking in 18-49s, is for these shows to dramatically improve on the performances of the show the previously occupied those timeslots, such as "Nanny 911" on Wednesdays and "The Swan 2" on Mondays, to make up for flops like "The Rebel Billionaire" and "North Shore" that helped put it in this deep hole.