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About a month from now - typically, the third week in May - the major American broadcasters will again try convincing advertisers that they are way more than Dancing with the Stars and NCIS when they each reserve a day to talk about their new ideas. In television, that can only mean one thing: Upfronts!

Upfronts, of course, is the forum for ABC and the like to announce their fall schedules, and as it goes, it’s an opportunity to persuade time buyers why spankin’ new show X won’t be the next Outlaw or Running Wilde.

To prep for the occasion, I combed through the fall’s upcoming new offerings and compiled a list of the prospective pilots most likely to get picked up and why. To keep things simple - this week, anyway - I’m focusing on one network and on dramas only. First up: ABC, for no better reason than it’s, well, alphabetically first.

If this thing gets received warmly - heck, I’d even settle for lukewarm - I’ll fire back two weeks from now with one (or more) upfront profiles.

ABC is currently working with a baker’s dozen drama pilots, and of those, I feel comfortable with six of ‘em getting picked up to series. I’ll first run through the ones I liked - and, more importantly, those that would best fit in with what, I think, ABC is trying to do as a major network - followed by brief synopses of the shows I don’t think will earn spots on the fall 2011 schedule.

Charlie’s Angels

Like NBC’s Wonder Woman, Charlie’s Angels feels like a lock to me. It’ll be a Miami-based reboot of the classic ‘70s-era series, and I don’t know how much more you’ll need to run with it than that. Friday Night Lights’ Minka Kelly will be one of the Angels, and Robert Wagner will voice Charlie.

Some would have said NBC’s planned Rockford Files reboot was also a lock, but that series didn’t have the benefit of two, bloated Hollywood revivals getting released in theaters about a decade ago. Those films, no matter the quality, at least made aware a new generation to Charlie’s Angels’ mythology and sexiness. Rockford Files, on the other hand, is a show that for 20-somethings and younger merely “sounds familiar.”

Hallelujah

Next to Charlie’s Angels, I feel that Hallelujah, from Desperate Housewives’ Marc Cherry, will be spotted on ABC’s fall schedule. The series, starring Law & Order alum Jesse L. Martin, Lost’s Terry O’Quinn, the forever wonderful Frances O’Connor and Della Reese, has an air of mystery to it that I find intriguing. And, were I to blindly match up loglines with the broadcast network that would most likely give them good homes, Hallelujah would be a show I’d slid in ABC’s corner anyway.

The name of the show comes from the name of the fictional Tennessee town in which the series is set. Good and evil are illustrated through the lives of a hardworking family man and his longtime enemy, played by Quinn, who perhaps will channel the season six version of Locke for actor’s inspiration. Evil seems to be winning out until a new guy rides into town.

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