Warren Littlefield

If the clock on your VCR still blinks 12:00, this is the summer you may want to figure out how it works. Otherwise, you have some tough decisions ahead. The major networks, in planning for their fall seasons, have done it again - not all that much to look forward to, but the good stuff's on at the same times: NBC's "Frasier" is scheduled to go head to head with ABC's "Roseanne" Tuesday nights at 9. CBS's "Picket Fences" and NBC's "Homicide: Life on the Street," both critically acclaimed dramas that have struggled to find an audience, will air Friday nights at 10. And in what appears to be a network game of chicken, CBS and NBC have each scheduled promising new medical dramas set in Chicago for Thursday nights at 10. CBS's entry, "Chicago Hope," comes with the imprimatur of executive producer David E. Kelley, who already writes virtually every word of "Picket Fences" and who's credited with some of the best seasons "L.A.

Just how unhappy is Roy Scheider about returning for a second season to "seaQuest DSV"? That question has been on a lot of television critics' minds in recent days, as NBC rolled out plans for its fall season, with the "seaQuest" crew, which has new writers, new cast members and a new location, turning into a last-minute no-show. Scheider, who's been quoted in at least one publication as calling the writers responsible for the series' first several shows "inept," is said to be in Florida working on shows for the second season at Universal Studios there.

In the wake of the U.S. bombing of Iraq, NBC delivered its own pre-emptive strike here yesterday. As NBC Entertainment president Warren Littlefield announced that Late Night host David Letterman would leave the network in June and join CBS, the Tonight Show's Jay Leno roared into the news conference ballroom on a huge red Harley- Davidson motorcycle. Leno had said for weeks that he would quit NBC if the network gave his job to Letterman, who desperately wanted the 11:30 p.m. time slot.

Dave will go. Jay will stay. After weeks of public speculation, intense negotiation and self-deprecating monologues, the NBC soap opera starring David Letterman and Jay Leno has reached its final act, sources here confirmed yesterday. Letterman, acerbic host of NBC's Late Night for 10 years, will move to CBS to host an 11:30 p.m. talk show, said sources at both networks. Leno had said he would leave NBC if Letterman got his Tonight Show job. Now, the two will go head-to-head in the 11:30 slot.

If we don't want "I'll Fly Away" to do just that, it's time to put our tuners where our mouths are, quality-TV fans. Rumored to be at death's door for the last couple of weeks, the low-rated NBC series set in embryonic Southern civil-rights days got an 11th-hour mini- reprieve Friday. In response to a viewer protest campaign launched by the influential Viewers for Quality Television, outraged TV press and ads the network itself actually commissioned begging people to watch, "I'll Fly Away" nosed up from No. 87 to No. 67 in the ratings last week.

Maybe it was an omen. Tom Sarnoff had an idea that he took to NBC, the network founded by his father, the late David Sarnoff. The idea was a revival of one of NBC's greatest hits, Bonanza, centering on a new, young generation of TV's famous western clan and set in the early 1900s. It would be called Bonanza: Legends of the Ponderosa, and Sarnoff and the creator of the original series, David Dortort, would be co-executive producers of the weekly drama. Maybe a great idea.

There's a buzzing out here in the entertainment business, like the drone of traffic that disappears only at predawn hours in the deepest canyons of this automobile-mad city. The noise emanates from all around, but the topic is always the same: The Tonight Show With Jay Leno and a perceived hardball attitude that has left NBC veterans without jobs, curtailed guest appearances, sent one rival talk-show host into a public paroxysm of bitterness, and helped knock another one off the air. The whispers and outcries - many more whispers than pronouncements - talk of dirty tricks and ruthlessness.

Reliving her former abusive relationship on film was no trip to the beach for reigning Miss America Carolyn Suzanne Sapp. "It was very difficult to play the scenes, and this is the first time I've seen it," said Sapp, wiping away tears during a preview of Miss America: Behind the Crown at the TV critics' press tour here Friday. The NBC docudrama airs Sept. 21, two days after the 1992 Miss America pageant, also on NBC. Crown, starring the Hawaiian Sapp as herself, opens with her winning the title.

Johnny Carson is coming back to NBC. Beaming network programming boss Warren Littlefield announced last night to a group of television critics meeting in Los Angeles that Carson had signed "an exclusive, multiyear deal to star in and/or develop original programming" for NBC. "Our appetite for Johnny is huge," Littlefield said when asked to describe the legendary late- night talk show host's future with the network. Littlefield would not rule out the possibility that Carson might star in a sitcom, but he also said that the network was considering "many, many different kinds of projects" and that Carson would "have a large say" in his new role at the network.

Seinfeld will become even more like Seinfeld this season. The hit NBC sitcom, which stars droll standup Jerry Seinfeld as himself, will feature a continuing storyline in which he negotiates with NBC for his own series, the comedian told TV critics here yesterday. The plot will begin with the Aug. 12 third-season opener and continue through at least five episodes. It could run the entire 22 segments, says Seinfeld, also the show's producer. "We don't know where it's going, but as long as it can live, we'll do it. " Jason Alexander, who plays sad-sack George, takes over Seinfeld's negotiations without telling him. During the process, he gets the hots for an NBC executive.