NO, it has nothing to do with Kevin Bacon

If you read the blog at all, then you know how I feel about characters and how important they are to a show. Well, good news from ABC: Six Degrees will return with original episodes in a new time slot, 9 p.m. Fridays, after what is now a Grey's Anatomy rerun every week. That's, I believe, the same lead-in it had previously... when it didn't do wonderfully. The network said it will return March 23. The show is exec-produced by Lost/Alias genius J.J. Abrams.

The show focuses on how a group of people in New York City interact and affect each others' lives, whether knowingly or unknowingly -- among them the single mom whose husband, a journalist, was killed in Iraq (Hope Davis); the limo driver who's just started his own service but can't shake his past as a gang banger (Dorian Missick); and the brilliant photographer fresh off a bender (Campbell Scott) who's fighting his principles to work for an ad agency and fighting his ex-wife to see his son.

It's a show about personal demons and how these people are doing their damnedest to beat them. There's no explosions and there's only been one shooting -- it's not an action-filled show, but it's a TV drama that's not too mushy or skewed toward women (Men in Trees, Brothers & Sisters).

The network also announced the premiere of October Road, which will take over Men in Trees' time slot at 10 p.m. Thursdays starting March 15. According to the release, "October Road centers on the young, popular author, Nick Garrett, who is at a crossroads in his life. To get over his writer's block, he goes back to his hometown and must now face the family and friends he has avoided for the past ten years. Once back home on October Road, he quickly discovers that the circle of friends whose teenage lives he wrote about have trouble forgiving him for leaving them behind, and that his ex-girlfriend, Hannah Daniels, may have had his child."

If I got screener copies from the nets I'd give you more insight... but alas, I'm stuck with press releases.