What's new is old — at least older — for the fall TV season starting today.

        TV's obsession with sexy, young twentysomething stars has given way to actors twice that age or more: Richard Dreyfuss, Dana Delany, James Cromwell, Bernie Mac, Scott Bakula, to name a few.

        Fall airwaves won't be filled with the teen-age angst and youngprofessionals' love woes that have permeated past TV lineups. Taking center stage this fall are older, experienced performers playing college professors, wealthy socialites and a U.S. senator.

        You could say they're in the prime time of their lives.

Richard Dreyfuss, 53

        The Education of Max Bickford (Premieres 8 p.m. today, Channels 12, 7).

        At age 12, Richard Dreyfuss told people he would grow up to be an actor, then a movie star, then a history professor.

        On CBS tonight, the Oscar-winning actor (Goodbye Girl, 1977) gets his wish. Mr. Dreyfuss stars as Max Bickford, a single-father college history professor having a mid-life crisis after being passed over for a promotion.

        “Before I won the Oscar, I thought that when I was 53 I would be retiring and teaching history,” he says.

        Mr. Dreyfuss, who made his film debut in The Graduate (1967), agreed to star in his first TV series so he could be close to his three children — instead of jaunting off to a remote location for three months to shoot a movie. His oldest, Emily, 17, is a high school senior. He also has sons Benjamin, 15, and Harry, 10.

        “I'll get to stay with my daughter while she goes through her last year of high school, and I'll be in one place. We'll be a family that doesn't (just) talk on the telephone. That's really important to me,” he says.

        Through the years, he has rejected “bazillions of (TV) projects.” His hesitance about doing TV changed watching The West Wing.

        After signing with CBS, he turned down pitches from Tom Fontana (Homicide: Life on the Street) and Don Bellisario (JAG, Magnum P.I.) and other producers to do Max Bickford with writers Dawn Prestwich and Nicole Yorkin (Judging Amy).

        Why a TV show about a midlife crisis?

        “I have been going through one, and I've found it to be unutterably fascinating,” he says. “I found out that rarely have men — at least with me — been willing to discuss these things in a real, serious, analytical way ... so I just became more and more obsessed with it.”

        In the premiere, Bickford gets depressed when his protege (Oscar winner Marcia Gay Harden) gets a plum assignment, and his best friend, Steve, returns from a sex-change operation as “Erica” (Helen Shaver). Bickford is a recovering alcoholic (the actor had a well-publicized drug problem in the 1980s) with two children, a freshman daughter at the college and an 11-year-old son.

        He concedes that Max Bickford isn't that different from music teacher Glenn Holland of Mr. Holland's Opus (1995). “There's a similarity. He's a committed teacher. He has a home life,” he says.

        In his dream, Mr. Dreyfuss would be lecturing on the Civil War or American Revolution.

        “I'm not exactly where I thought I would be (20 years ago),” he says, “but I'm in the general neighborhood.”

Scott Bakula, 46

        Enterprise (Premieres 8 p.m. Wednesday, Channel 25)

        After movie success in the Oscar-winning American Beauty, why would Scott Bakula return to the one-hour TV grind?

        Because only one person can fly UPN's Enterprise, the new Star Trek series.

        “It's like a gift that this kind of job exists in this town (Hollywood),” the actor says.

        On Wednesday, his Capt. Jonathan Archer takes the helm of the Enterprise NX-01 in TV's fifth Star Trek. It's set in the early 22nd century — about 125 years before Capt. James T. Kirk and the rich Star Trek mythology.

        The St. Louis native has been a science-fiction fan since watching the original Star Trek (1966-69). His first big break was starring in Quantum Leap, NBC's time-travel series (1989-93).

        “I just love this stuff. I think (sci-fi) requires a certain type of belief in the possibility,” he says. “The little kid in me is still hoping that some of this stuff will happen while I can see it.”

        This Star Trek turns back the clock so far — to the year 2164 — that Archer doesn't even know how to fill in the captain's log. In the premiere, his six-person crew are the first humans to meet a Klingon and are kidnapped by aliens called the Suliban.

        “There is no Federation at this point in time, no place you can go and have something resolved. It's really the Wild West out there,” he says.

        “The most exciting thing is you don't have to be a die-hard fan of Star Trek, because we're at the beginning,” he says. “It's not goofy in any way, but we're wide-eyed and innocent.”

        Like Kirk, Archer will be an aggressive, adventurous action hero. The role is as physically demanding as Quantum Leap a decade ago.

        “There's been a ton of action ... and my body can tell,” says the actor, who turns 47 on Oct. 9. “But I still love doing it.”
       

Dana Delany, 45

        Pasadena (Premieres 9 p.m. Friday, Channels 19, 45)

        Dana Delany didn't plan on going 10 years between TV series, but it happens when performers repeatedly turn down offers.

        “If you say "No' enough times, they stop asking. I found that out sort of late,” she says.

        In fact, she said “no” three times to Pasadena, before her former agent and Pasadena producer Brad Grey asked her to reconsider.

        So the former China Beach nurse (1988-91) stars as the daughter of a powerful newspaper family in Fox's new soap opera. In the premiere, viewers learn that Catherine's (Ms. Delany) husband is having an affair, and that her old high school classmate has mysteriously committed suicide in their living room.

        “My character's going to be ... like Lady MacBeth,” she says. She took the role because she loved the script by Mike White, who wrote the cult hit Chuck & Buck. (She resisted doing the series because it's shooting in Vancouver, she says.)

        Since the Vietnam War show ended in 1991, Ms. Delany has appeared in feature films (Exit to Eden, Fly Away Home, The Outfitters) and TV movies (For Hope, Wild Palms, True Women). She received an Emmy nomination for her guest role last spring on CBS' Family Law.

        She refuses to talk about the TV series she turned down, simply saying: “I've had a lot of offers, and a lot of them are hit shows that are on the air right now.”

        Does she have any regrets?

        “I regret nothing in my life,” she says.

Bernie Mac, 43

        Bernie Mac Show (Premieres 9:30 p.m. Nov. 7, Channels 19, 45):

        Since starring in Spike Lee's The Original Kings of Comedy, Bernie Mac has wanted to make the transition from stand-up to movies and TV.

        “Films and television is where I want to go. That's where I always wanted to be,” says the comedian, born Bernard Jeffery McCullough in Chicago.

        In a semi-autobiographical Fox sitcom, Bernie Mac plays a married stand-up comedian who takes in his sister's three children (ages 5, 8, 13) when she goes into drug rehab. Five years ago, the comic and his wife took his wife's niece and her daughter into their home.

        Throughout his 13-year stand-up career, Bernie Mac has taken bit parts in movies when he wasn't on the concert circuit. He has appeared in Booty Call, The Players Club, Life, Mo' Money, Above the Rim and George Clooney's upcoming Ocean's Eleven. He also hosted Midnight Mac on HBO in 1995.

        He's anxious to follow his fellow Kings of Comedy — Steve Harvey, D.L. Hughley and Cedric the Entertainer — into weekly TV.

        “I am getting older, and I am kind of tired ... You run out of things to say,” he says.

        On Fox, his fans will see a different Bernie Mac. He promises to produce a family sitcom without the profane language in his stage act.

        “It's not what you say, it's how you say it. We don't have to go there. You see the attitude,” he says.

        If Fox cancels the TV series, he'll head back out on tour.

        “That's what my bread and butter has been,” he says. “There's just something about getting in front of a mass audience ... and watching people bent over, and laughing, and coughing. It's a rush.”
       

James Cromwell, 61

        Citizen Baines (Premieres 9 p.m. Saturday, Channels 12, 7)

        Appearing on ER last season as a dying bishop convinced James Cromwell to give TV another shot.

        The actor — known for Babe, L.A. Confidential, The Green Mile, The General's Daughter and Star Trek: First Contact — started in TV 30 years ago on All In The Family, The Nancy Walker Show and Hot L Baltimore.

        “I always played the doofus. I was never going to get the girl. I was always going to be the comic relief, the butt (of jokes),” he says.

        After ER, he agreed to star as Citizen Baines, produced by ER veterans John Wells, Lydia Woodward and Christopher Chulack. He plays a defeated three-term U.S. senator returning home to Seattle to get closer to three adult daughters (Jane Adams, Embeth Davidtz, Jacinda Barrett).

        “The quality of the work on television has (improved),” he says. “The writing is so much finer, the acting is better, and the opportunities to deal with issues are so much greater.”

        Citizen Baines also offers security. He's not at the mercy of movie producers for steady employment.

        “At a certain point, you have to take a film you'd rather not take because that's what you do,” he says.

        “(ER) was such an extraordinary experience,” he says. “I thought, well, if (TV) is going to be like this, I really would like to do one of these (shows). And it worked out.”

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