The usual summer lineup of suspect series

If you're wondering why CBS remade "Hawaii Five-O" for the fall and NBC is desperate to remake "The Rockford Files," look no further than the big players in cable television, who have turned that landscape into one big party celebrating 1970s-era detective series. Witty, breezy, not too difficult to digest, entertaining. And most of all - successful.

It almost, yet doesn't, makes you feel sorry for the broadcast networks. Because of content restrictions, they can't be HBO or Showtime. Hell, they can't even be FX. And not only has cable stolen the biggest chunk of the viewing audience, it's done it by recycling ideas made popular on network television. At about half the price.

That's almost not fair.

And if this was supposed to be the summer that the broadcast networks fought back by keeping the lights on and poaching viewers from cable, well, better luck next summer. Roughly, um, two scripted summer shows (CBS' "Flashpoint," a returning series, and ABC's "Rookie Blue") are doing well enough on the networks to merit attention. And even then, the numbers for the coveted 18-49 demographic and for total viewers look meager.

Those two series are Canadian imports, which means they're cheaper and likely to stick around (ABC already renewed "Rookie Blue"). Otherwise, it's all reality all the time in the upper echelons of the Nielsen ratings.

Steal back old ideas

This may give networks pause about plugging along next summer with scripted fare. Or maybe they'll just steal back their old ideas from cable.

There are certainly plenty of viewers flocking to what amounts to revamps of ideas popular before series like "The Wire" or "The Shield" opted for dense storytelling and real-life grit. You never saw "Barnaby Jones" or "Cannon" get into too much trouble, though "Mannix" and "Harry O" could take the heat. And nobody really wanted to lean too heavily on "Columbo."

Turns out, people like easy-to-solve cases, and they are not as in love with anti-heroes as critics are. Hence, the rash - and this summer it has become something of a rash that spreads, unappealingly - of lighter crime-and-punishment series on cable.

"Memphis Beat" on TNT stars Jason Lee as a Memphis detective who loves Elvis Presley and cordially solves crimes (it premiered June 22).

"Haven" on Syfy is about an FBI agent who meanders into a New England town and discovers rampant weirdness and oddities (it premiered last Friday). "The Glades" on A&E; revolves around a cocky, quirky homicide detective who leaves Chicago for Florida but still finds a lot of dead bodies (it premiered Sunday).

TNT's "Rizzoli & Isles" stars Angie Harmon as a tough Boston detective and Sasha Alexander as her gal-pal medical examiner, who riff on death, men and clothing, not necessarily in that order (it premiered Monday).

Finally, "Covert Affairs" stars Piper Perabo as a CIA trainee thrust into the spy world under mysterious circumstances (it premiered Tuesday).

Familiar formula

Given the success of TNT's "The Closer" - the highest-rated series on cable - and USA's stable of "Burn Notice," "White Collar," "Psych," "In Plain Sight" and "Royal Pains," you didn't have to be a genius to figure out that the formula would be reproduced until the audience cried uncle, which it hasn't.

And yet, you have to wonder why not? All of these shows are banter-heavy, relying on the audience enjoying the good-natured quirks of the main character enough to look the other way on weak and predictable plotting.

How much winking, sarcasm and "Murder, She Wrote" stories can one nation take? When "The Closer" plays like "The Shield" in comparison, then you've thinned out the formula a tad too much.

It's easy to dismiss all of this mediocrity as the equivalent of beach reading. It is certainly hot out. Nobody expects gravitas in July. But if the networks were intuitive rather than jealous copycats, they would counter-program this nonsense with substance.

OK, maybe that won't work in the summer after all, but if you're going to get killed by a format you invented, then keep importing as much Canadian bacon as possible to limit your overhead, then produce something meaty in the fall and just rerun it in the summer.

A one-trick pony

As for cable, now is not a fine time to be self-satisfied. "Memphis Beat" looks like a one-trick pony. "Haven" is really terrible (Won't anyone remake "Kolchak: The Night Stalker" the right way?).

An argument could be made that "The Glades" gets the combination of sass and action just about right (and the pilot even had a plot), and pretty good ratings bear that out. "Rizzoli & Isles" has already raked in huge numbers, as has "Covert Affairs" (which is kind of like "Alias" without all the dense and ultimately confusing subplots).

None of these series, however, will ever rank in the top tier of quality shows. Maybe that's the point. Maybe that's why they do well in the summer.

There's nothing wrong with nearly mindless entertainment - the networks made a killing off that formula 30-plus years ago. (Oh, sorry for the reminder.) But saturation - that's a party killer.

Which is to say that TNT, USA and A&E; should enjoy the run. You can't be Jim Rockford forever - someone will change the formula. What's puzzling is that no network is really doing that right now. Someone call "Columbo" and ask him what he thinks.

E-mail Tim Goodman at tgoodman@sfchronicle.com. You can read his TV blog, the Bastard Machine, at www.thebastardmachine.com. Follow him at www.twitter.com/bastardmachine.

This article appeared on page F - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle