In recent years, TNT has made serious efforts to grow beyond Westerns and wrestling through a variety of well-received made-fors, including "George Wallace" and "Pirates of Silicon Valley." The f/x heavy "Animal Farm" and "A Christmas Carol" are set for later this year.

Now, the Warner Bros.-owned cabler is hoping to turn high ratings for longform projects into a successful development slate of dramas going beyond the network's less-than-stellar outings of "Babylon 5" and the quickly canceled "The New Adventures of Robin Hood." The first of the new series is skedded to air in summer 2000.

The cable network plans to introduce two or three network-quality one-hour drama series by mid-2000, according to TNT president Bradley Siegel. No longer will TNT pursue the action hours financed largely with international money, such as the short-lived "Robin Hood" series.

"We're out of that game," Siegel said.

Also gone are the sci-fi series like the off-network series extension of "Babylon 5" and the recently introduced spinoff "Crusade," which is not being renewed beyond the initial 13 episodes.

In the minds of TNT executives, "Joe is a visionary who created a show that was true to his concept, but a lot of people here felt it came across as talky and slow, " said Scot Safon, TNT's senior vice president of marketing. "It required a tremendous amount of patience, time and thought to get involved in the show. Four weeks into the run, we saw respectable ratings, but nothing extraordinary to keep it going.

"There were many creative differences between the network and Joe. But this network is about as conservative as you can be in terms of sexuality and violence. We have advertisers who are concerned about their image. If someone told Joe, 'Deliver a sexier product,' did he really take it literally?"