Ellen Gray | A pair of off-season offerings from CW, USA

HIDDEN PALMS. 8 tonight, Channel 57.

THE STARTER WIFE. 9 p.m. tomorrow, USA.

DECISIONS, decisions.

Don't know about you, but I'd like to avoid them for a while.

With Memorial Day over, white shoes are in and viewer voting ought to be out.

But thanks to the success of Fox's "American Idol" and "Dancing with the Stars," which got their starts in the silly season, we're inundated with shows that ask us to choose among: fledgling directors (Fox's "On the Lot"); budding entrepreneurs (ABC's "American Inventor"); oddball performers (NBC's "America's Got Talent"); standup comedians (NBC's "Last Comic Standing"); celebrity impersonators (ABC's "The Next Best Thing," which premieres tonight); and dancers (Fox's "So You Think You Can Dance").

Who wants to spend the summer dialing? Not I.

But just as the publishing industry each summer rolls out fat novels full of empty calories for those who like to exercise their eyeballs while resting their brains, TV, too, has its beach-book equivalents.

Tonight, the CW launches "Hidden Palms," a series from "Dawson's Creek" creator Kevin Williamson that the network couldn't find space for until now.

That's understandable - in January or February, I might not have found room in my own schedule for a combination murder mystery and teen soap. I certainly would have wondered more about setting a show about adolescents among the ancients of Palm Springs.

Now I'm just inclined to appreciate the little things.

Like the way "Palms' " recovering alcoholic hero Johnny Miller (Taylor Handley) is as blond as Dawson Leery but less annoying. And the exhilarating creepiness of neighbor boy Cliff (Michael Cassidy). Or even that the series reunites "NYPD Blue" veterans Gail O'Grady and Sharon Lawrence as Johnny's mother and the divorced lush next door, respectively.

The littlest thing of all to appreciate is probably 4-foot-11 character actor Leslie Jordan ("Boston Legal"), who camps it up as local drag queen - and AA sponsor - Jesse Jo.

At this time of year, I do not think you can go wrong with a character named Jesse Jo.

There is no one quite like Jesse Jo in the USA Network's "The Starter Wife," though Jordan did have a recurring role on "Will & Grace," whose star, Debra Messing, occupies the title role in the six-part series, which premieres tomorrow night.

Based on the 2005 best-seller by Gigi Levangie Grazer - a woman who understands both Hollywood and beach reading - "The Starter Wife" isn't likely to get mentioned in the same breath as "The Sopranos" (unless you read this paragraph out loud), but it's not going to make your trigger finger itchy, either.

Messing is delightfully un-"Grace"-like as Molly, the deserted wife of a mogul-on-the-make (Peter Jacobson). When her rich best friend (Judy Davis) offers her the use of her Malibu beach house, she grabs it, as any sensible beach-book reader would expect her to.

It doesn't matter that most of "Starter Wife" was filmed in Australia. Turns out beaches are beaches.

When it comes to summer viewing, tell us a story, but show us sand.

Even HBO gets this.

"Deadwood" auteur David Milch may have given us the puzzler of the summer in his spooky, cerebral surfer drama, "John From Cincinnati," which premieres June 10, right after "The Sopranos' " last gasp.

But at least he had the good sense to set it at the beach. *

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