It might seem like this year's crop of Best Picture nominees is too grim an assortment to lend themselves to adaptation in serial TV form. But that just means you don't have the imagination of a TV executive -- broad enough to admit the transformation of existing material into TV-ready product, yet narrow enough not to consider taking a flyer on actually original series ideas. Let's all look into the future with those selectively visionary TV execs, shall we?

Brokeback Mountain, starring Chad Michael Murray and Devon Sawa, Tuesdays at 9 PM on Showtime

Ennis Del Mar (Chad Michael Murray) is a rough-and-tumble man's man who's an old hand with a whip and a pair of leather chaps. Jack Twist (Devon Sawa) is the sweet, sensitive, sad-eyed ranch hand who's overdue for a lesson in how to manage a herd of ornery sheep. Both hired by a wool conglomerate to mind the sheep in the heady summer of 2003, the pair quickly fall in love, break up with their fiancées, and set up housekeeping together in a modest but tastefully decorated warehouse loft space in downtown Casper. It seems like life for the pair is going to be nothing but hearty, Zone-friendly mutton stew and sex al fresco, but when Jack decides to quit sheep-herding to work on his one-man show about coming out to his parents, and Ennis applies to Woolrich for spousal health benefits for his life partner, he is denied. Thus kicks off Ennis's transformation from laconic outdoorsman to devoted activist for same-sex marriage. The rest of the show's premiere season finds Jack and Ennis organizing a local chapter of P-FLAG under the twinkly guidance of Mabel Stickwell (guest star Tyne Daly); agitating for gay porn to be sold in Casper's lone adult bookstore, thus running afoul of hidebound shopkeeper Hank Boodle (Bud Cort); and, in a thrilling sweeps-capade, travelling to San Francisco for advice on how to push through same-sex marriage legislation from mayor Gavin Newsom (as hiimself). But lest you think Showtime's latest foray into the gay soap opera genre is only for the gents: when jilted gals Alma (Emily VanCamp) and Lureen (Ashley Peldon) happen to run into each other at the supermarket and discover how much they have in common...well, one bottle of Shiraz later, they discover that they also have more in common with their exes than they might have thought!

Capote, starring Oliver Platt, Sela Ward, and Lance Henriksen, Saturdays at 9 PM on ABC

No story is too small, no crime too complex, and no mystery too confounding for the traveling reporter and bon vivant best known only as Capote (Oliver Platt). With the help of his constant confidante, Harper Lee (Sela Ward), Capote alights upon small American towns, gradually befriending -- and beguiling -- the locals to crack their most diabolical crimes. In the series premiere, Capote reads about a double homicide in Guide Rock, Nebraska, that's been pinned on a semi-retarded Bible salesman (Thomas Haden Church) and his blind younger sister (Taryn Manning). Capote earns the trust of the misfit pair, then proves that they are, in fact, the killers -- before writing a Pulitzer Prize-winning series of articles that follows them right to the chair. It's Murder, She Wrote meets Matlock meets mayhem as the fey New York journalist unravels the clues and uncovers the stories -- and tries to stay one step ahead of suspicious lawman Alvin Dewey (Lance Henriksen), a down-home cop who's never trusted a man in a Bergdorf scarf.

Crash, starring Tim Meadows, Lauren Velez, and Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Wednesdays at 10 PM on FX

Even at the best of times, Los Angeles is a bubbling volcano of racial tension, and the least provocation can cause a catastrophic eruption. The brave officers of the LAPD are on the front lines of L.A.'s unremitting race war...but wouldn't it be ironic if the department were itself beset by racial divisions? Meet Graham (Tim Meadows) and his partner Ria (Lauren Velez), detectives and lovers. And yet even though both have backgrounds as racial minorities, even they aren't immune to interracial conflict! When you add a beat cop, Officer Ryan (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) with a chip on his shoulder, busy fingers, and a habit of pulling over attractive black women to frisk them inappropriately...well, the LAPD has less and less moral authority to exert over the people it's meant to serve and protect. Crash is a tense yet rigorously realistic workplace drama in the tradition of NYPD Blue, following the cops as they investigate crimes and take things personally. The pilot finds Ria and Graham on a racketeering case involving a gorgeous female yakuza boss (China Chow), but the investigation falls apart when Graham, growing impatient with her stonewalling under interrogation, puts on a neo-Asian accent and asks how she thinks she'll look in "plison stlipes"; her complaint puts him on disciplinary leave, and she flees the jurisdiction. Later in the season, Ria must confront her own self-hatred as a Latina-American when her cousin Pepe (Francis Capra) is brought in for questioning regarding a ring of catering trucks selling tainted burritos. And Officer Ryan lands in hot water when, drunk while on duty, he accosts a random African-American guy (Bumper Robinson) on the street and demands to be taken to see his grandfather so that Officer Ryan can complain to him about the poor quality of the cotton his shirt was made of that it could have a hole worn through it after just three days' wear. (Because the guy is black, so Ryan thinks his ancestors must have picked cotton -- a thought we've all had, of course, at one time or another when a cotton garment fails us.) By the emotionally charged season finale, more than forty officers and detectives of the LAPD are facing disciplinary action in the wake of racially insensitive handling of various suspects, forcing the department to bring in Carter Broadhurst (Michael Ironside), an ex-director of the EEOC, to train staffers in racial sensitivity. But the season ends on a cliffhanger: the city fathers don't know about Broadhurst's membership in the KKK!

Good Night, And Good Luck., starring Steven Weber, John Goodman, and Nicole Sullivan, Thursdays at 9 PM on FOX

Having vanquished Joe McCarthy, newsmen Edward R. Murrow (Steven Weber) and his producer, Fred Friendly (John Goodman) find themselves facing a different kind of crisis -- when CBS finally tires of their corporate-angering antics and cuts them loose for good. Murrow and Friendly find jobs working for a new kind of "news" program -- a fledgling evening talk show titled Marlboro Presents Nighty Night, Sleep Tight, America, created by their ex-employees, the secretly married couple Shirley Wershba (Patricia Wettig) and Joe Wershba (Rob Lowe). Sparks fly and tempers flare as Murrow tries to share airtime with his comely co-host, Nancy Weathers (Nicole Sullivan) and wedge his brand of political muckraking in between segments starring "J. Humphrey Geronimo," the show's resident bowtie-wearing chimp. Yet together, Murrow, Friendly, and J. Humphrey -- with an assist from their band leader, Jock "Double Time" Jeffries (Dean Stockwell) -- forge a powerful team that threatens to unmask corruption at the highest levels of government -- with time left over for some great summer barbecue recipe suggestions. Sponsored by Marlboro.

Munich, starring Joshua Jackson, Patrick Bauchau, and Linus Roache, Sundays at 9 PM on HBO

HBO's original series have dramatized crime from many different angles, but never from the point of view of state-backed vigilantes. Until now! Munich kicks off as Golda Meir (Tovah Feldshuh) assigns Mossad agent Avner (Joshua Jackson) -- under the guidance of shadowy intelligence office Ephraim (Patrick Bauchau) -- to assassinate the perpetrators behind Black September. Though he is hesitant, Avner agrees to the mission and is soon partnered with driver Steve (Jesse Spencer), bomb maker Robert (Olivier Martinez), forger Hans (Kurt Fuller), and crime-scene "cleaner" Carl (Linus Roache). As each episode begins, they find out who their target is...but assassination is never simple. The first (Oded Fehr) has more than forty bodyguards. The second (Tim Roth) went to college with Avner for a year on a cultural exchange. The fifth is a sexy woman (Sofia Milos) Carl can't resist bedding. And the ninth (Vincent Cassel) keeps allowing himself to get cornered and then slips out of custody by dint of preternatural bendiness. Before they know it, their efficiency even in the face of unforeseeable complications has recommended them to law-enforcement departments the world over, as the Israeli government lends them out to work on other infamous crimes of the 1970s, from the Son of Sam to the D.B. Cooper hijacking to tracking down Bigfoot once and for all.