“Ugly Betty” (Thursdays, ABC): Among new series this fall, this one is the most popular, its first two episodes drawing enough viewers to put it in the top 20. I’m afraid I don’t share America’s sentiments on this one. It’s a cute, campy dramedy about a frumpy, unattractive Latina girl who gets a job at a fashion magazine. (Yes, it’s just like “The Devil Wears Prada,” although “Ugly Betty” is based on a Colombian series that pre-dates “Prada.”) I found the pilot just too precious and whimsical, with a cartoonish musical score and big, broad acting. TiVo verdict: I will continue to enforce my “no ugly chicks” policy.

“Friday Night Lights” (Tuesdays, NBC): I greatly admired the film that inspired this series, about a small Texas town where high school football is king, and the pilot episode — written and directed by Peter Berg, who wrote and directed the film, too — was among the best two or three pilots of any show this season. The drama, passion and intensity of the sport were powerfully conveyed, along with the humanity of the players and the coach. Don’t care about sports? ME EITHER! But I still found it gripping. TiVo verdict: Season Pass.

“The Nine” (Wednesdays, ABC): I’m intrigued, but I’m wary. The premise is that nine people were held hostage during a bank robbery for 52 hours before the ordeal ended. They bonded during that time, and of course now their lives are forever changed. What we don’t know, yet, is exactly what happened in those 52 hours. The first episode hinted tantalizingly at a few things — an off-duty cop wound up handcuffed to a pillar; the bad guys cut off locks of two women’s hair — but mostly the focus is on the aftermath, not on the crisis itself. Will it become an emotional melodrama, or a creepy mystery? TiVo verdict: I’m going to give it another couple episodes.

If you had ABC’s “Brothers & Sisters” in the office betting pool for which new series would be canceled first — and most people did — surprise! You’re wrong!

Turns out it’s CBS’s “Smith” that has the dubious honor of being the first axing of the fall season, having been yanked after just three airings. Ray Liotta’s a great actor, and it would be swell to see him on TV every week, but I guess we’ll have to wait. In the meantime, he’ll presumably go back to beating in people’s heads with baseball bats on the silver screen.

Of course, over at Fox there’s a chance some shows have been canceled without the next of kin being informed yet. See, everything on Fox is on hiatus right now because of post-season baseball coverage, and there’s some speculation that, much like the father who went out for a pack of cigarettes and never came back, “Justice” and “Happy Hour” won’t return when the hiatus is over.

It’s a pretty nice arrangement for Fox, really. By covering baseball in October, they have a way of quietly murdering some of their underperforming series. Who’s gonna notice if one or two shows don’t actually come back after the World Series?

NBC, meanwhile, has moved its underperforming “Kidnapped” to Saturday night (starting Oct. 21). SATURDAY?! If you weren’t aware, Saturday is the graveyard. The networks have openly and without any attempt to spin it otherwise GIVEN UP on Saturday night programming. They air repeats, sports and news programs in that block. The most-viewed show on a Saturday usually gets no more than about 5 million viewers, and it’s mostly people age 50 and over.

Which means putting “Kidnapped” there is actually very magnanimous on NBC’s part. It’s an ongoing mystery show, so the few million viewers who are watching are highly invested in it. NBC has told the producers to wrap everything up in 13 episodes, and apparently the plan is to air them on Saturdays. Viewers still get to see how things turn out, and NBC frees up space on the other nights to air less-feeble shows.