PASADENA, Calif. — If you want to take the pulse of an upcoming TV season, there are few better ways to do it than to attend one of the Television Critics Association's summer press tours, as I've done for the past week and a half.

Unfortunately, the event isn't open to the public, although it attracts enough stars that a few autograph-seekers always show up and everyday tourists have a chance to say, "Was that ...?" when, oh, say, James Woods walks through the hotel where the tour takes place.

For most of the buzz (or the flatlining), though, you have to rely on the critics, who spend up to three weeks listening to executives say how great their networks are doing or to producers saying why their shows will work or to actors who, when asked what attracted them to a show, will almost invariably say some variation of, "For me, it's all about the writing" (not that a steady paycheck hurts).

Those who cover TV for a living try to take the mass of information that comes out of dozens of news conferences, add what they can from individual conversations with execs/producers/actors, and sort it into something that makes sense. Sometimes, as with "Lost" a couple of years back, we're even right. And dominant themes emerge every year. Here are some of this year's:

• It's a good, but not great, crop of new shows: Speaking of "Lost," when we first saw it and "Desperate Housewives" a couple of summers back, there was a sense that we'd seen something special. But those shows stood so far above the pack that it's hard to remember what else cut loose that summer. Last year, the overall offerings didn't seem that great, but we felt good about "My Name Is Earl" and "Everybody Hates Chris."

This year, there's a positive vibe about several shows: "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" and "Friday Night Lights" on NBC, "Ugly Betty" on ABC, even "Runaway" on the new CW. Some shows, such as the Woods-starring "Shark" on CBS, seem like surefire hits. And although some shows didn't find critical favor, nobody I talked to was calling anything a complete piece of junk, the way they were talking about the short-lived UPN show "The Mullets" a couple of seasons back.

But a positive vibe isn't a thrill, and no show got everyone talking, or even had anyone telling an entire panel that all the critics love their show, as someone did during an "Earl" session last year. And almost everything the critics did like seems fragile, as if it might have a problem finding an audience and might not stick around very long. This leads us to the next item.

• Specks of serial: Questions about serialized dramas came up in many sessions, with Fox ("Vanished"), NBC ("Kidnapped" and "Heroes"), ABC ("Big Day"), the CW ("Runaway") and CBS ("Smith") introducing at least one show that will feature weekly open-ended episodes. A whole network, MyNetworkTV, will consist of English-language versions of telenovelas, nighttime soaps that will air five nights a week for 13 weeks apiece. And ABC's "Ugly Betty" is also an English adaptation of a telenovela.

Critics had a semilegitimate question: If you serialize it, will viewers come? Especially after viewers might already be taxed by "Lost," "24," "ER," "Veronica Mars" and other extant series (including ones on cable) that have multi-episode story lines? It's only semilegitimate because DVD sets, iPods, TiVo and even that relic the VCR make it easier to play catch-up — but there's only so many things one person can keep up with. And viewers burned by the lack of resolutions on last year's "Invasion," "Threshold," "Reunion" and "Surface" (NBC entertainment President Kevin Reilly said the sea-monster series was resolved, but it wasn't) might just stay away from novelesque series, period.

• Where has all the laughter gone? Is the laugh track — OK, the live studio audience that's coached to laugh — heading toward extinction? NBC, which already has the single-camera, canned-laughter-free "The Office," "Scrubs" and "My Name Is Earl," is adding "30 Rock" to the list, ABC is debuting four shows that don't tell you when to laugh and CW is keeping "Everybody Hates Chris."

But networks don't seem to be giving up on audience laughter (recorded or not) yet. NBC's "Twenty Good Years," which seems like it was made 20 good years ago, has the yuks, and CBS' "The Class" (which could benefit from the freedom of a single-camera show) is accompanied by chortles. And Fox, which has been the No. 1 network in avoiding laugh-track shows, has the Brad Garrett vehicle "'Til Death," which has as many laughs on the soundtrack as Garrett's previous sitcom, "Everybody Loves Raymond" did. The difference is that you believed the laughter that accompanied Raymond.

• The news is news — or at least the people reading it are: Incoming CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric looked serious, incoming ABC News anchor Charles Gibson laid-back, and evening-news anchor and relative veteran Brian Williams of NBC looked even more serious than Couric as they put their faces out there for what's sure to be a renewed competition on network evening newscasts — for about a month, anyway.

• The missing question: I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure this is the first time in my eight press tours that nobody asked if reality TV is dead.

• The sentence I wish would go missing: See above, under actors who say, "For me, it's all about the writing."

There were no standout shows at the fall TV press tour, but critics gave nods to:

"FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS"

Premieres Oct. 3

Tuesdays, 8 p.m. ET

NBC

"RUNAWAY"

Premieres Sept. 25

Mondays, 9 p.m. ET

CW

"STUDIO 60 ON THE SUNSET STRIP"

Premieres Sept. 18

Mondays, 10 p.m. ET

NBC

"UGLY BETTY"

Premieres Sept. 22

Fridays, 8 p.m. ET

ABC