After getting maimed in the ratings this season, NBC is calling in the big guns to save the day (or, as it were, the prime time) next fall, including a new batch of Heroes, a rejiggered Bionic Woman, supersize Office workers, Brooke Shields and, yes, more Law men and women.

In announcing its new fall schedule Monday in New York, the Peacock's biggest surprise was the unveiling of a hitherto top-secret spinoff of the network's lone rookie hit from this season. Heroes: Origins will focus on previously unseen folks whose lives are transformed when they discover they have incredible abilities.

In an American Idol-esque twist, viewers will get a chance to pick their favorite new superhero during the spinoff's six-episode run, with the character tallying the most votes moving up to the big leagues, becoming a full-time cast member on Heroes during the 2008-09 season.

Adding the new series will allow NBC extend the reach of the Heroes brand to a combined 30 episodes, with the new show running during Heroes ' long hiatus. The series took a ratings hit after returning from a seven-week absence this season.

NBC is sticking with the superhero/sci-fi theme with an updated take on the 1970s cyborg hit Bionic Woman. From a producer of the Sci Fi Channel's much lauded Battlestar Galactica, the new series stars British actress Michelle Ryan in the role originated by Lindsay Wagner in the 1976-78 ABC series (itself a spinoff of The Six Million Dollar Man). The new Bionic Woman will air Wednesdays at 9 p.m. after Deal or No Deal.

The network killed some of the suspense going into Monday's upfront by announcing the fates of bubble shows over the weekend. First, network programmers announced the critically hailed, Nielsen-deprived drama Friday Night Lights would return for a sophomore season in the fall, this time on title-appropriate Friday nights. Then, on Sunday, NBC revealed that all three series in the Law & Order franchise would be returning.

Speculation intensified last week that NBC was looking either to retire Law & Order or its Criminal Intent spawn or relocate one of them to basic cable. Now, the network will bring back the flagship police procedural for an 18th season.

"Creatively, the show is still firing on all cylinders, and I have no doubt that the show's quality can and will continue for years to come," said show mastermind Dick Wolf. "We are scheduled to celebrate our 400th episode next season, which is a milestone that is absolutely staggering."

Law & Order stumbled badly in the ratings after NBC moved it to Friday nights, traditionally the graveyard for television viewing. As part of a compromise to renew the cops and lawyers series, Wolf and the net agreed to a lower license fee with the intention of slashing the show's budget to make up for the financial loss. (Network honchos said there will likely be some cast turnover, including the expected absence of Fred Thompson, who's weighing a presidential bid.)

The deal gives Wolf a shot at his dream of L&O surpassing Gunsmoke as the longest-running network drama in tube history. The latter aired for 20 seasons, from 1955 to 1975.

With the addition of NFL football to its roster, NBC won't return Law & Order (or, for that matter, the fourth season of Medium) to the Sunday night schedule until January.

NBC, which had earlier reupped Law & Order: SVU for the 2007-08 season, also said that Law & Order: Criminal Intent would be back for a seventh season but, in a novel move, will air all 22 original episodes on its sibling cable net USA. The eps will have an encore run on NBC.

While the move marks the first time a broadcaster has moved first-run episodes of an established series to basic cable, it assures that parent company NBC Universal, which owns both NBC and USA, will keep Law & Order franchise in the family, instead of moving it to Time Warner-controlled TNT.

"SVU redefined the network/cable broadcast model when it premiered in 1999, by creating a repurposed window on basic cable for a network show," said Wolf. "Now Criminal Intent adds a new dimension to that model, with a groundbreaking licensing of a repurposed window in reverse, to the network. CI enjoyed a creative resurgence last season, and I expect the new USA/NBC dual broadcast window will bring new life to the show in its seventh year."

No word yet when USA and NBC will air the new Criminal Intent segments, however, NBC has carved out the 9-11 p.m. slot on Saturdays for encore episodes of drama series.

With only three first-year scripted series managing to get renewed (Heroes, Friday Night Lights, 30 Rock) and the network tumbling to fourth in viewership among the major networks, NBC programmers had to come up with a new mix of established shows and would-be Must-See newbies, among them:

• Journey Man (Mondays at 10 p.m.) is a romantic mystery following a San Francisco newspaper reporter who inexplicably travels through time and alters peoples' lives. It stars Kevin McKidd of HBO's Rome.
• Chuck (Tuesdays at 9 p.m.) is a thriller about a computer geek who becomes a government agent when spy secrets are implanted in his brain. 
• Life (Wednesdays at 10 p.m.) chronicles a complex police detective (played by Band of Brothers vet Damian Lewis) who's given a second chance on the force after serving years in prison for a crime he didn't commit.
• Lipstick Jungle (Sundays at 10 p.m., debuting in January) is a new dramedy from Sex and the City author Candace Bushnell, in which Brooke Shields stars as one of three high-powered female friends determined to achieve their dreams on their own.
• The IT Crowd (midseason) is the only new comedy to crack the Peacock's roster. Attempting to follow the successful template set by The Office, the show is based on the acclaimed British series of the same name about the misunderstood techies who work in the IT department of a large, impersonal corporation.

NBC is keeping its Thursday lineup intact, though rebranded as "Comedy Night Done Right." My Name Is Earl will be back with 25 new episodes at 8 p.m., followed by the Tina Fey-Alec Baldwin vehicle 30 Rock at 8:30 p.m. The Office will follow at 9 p.m., with the network committing to 30 new episodes, including five hourlong segments. Scrubs managed to climb off the bubble for another go-round, earning an 18-episode order. The comedy continues at 10 p.m. with ER creaking into its 14th season with the ongoing medical hijinks at County General. (So far, there's no confirmation to reports that Noah Wyle will be back for part of the season.)

The network is also calling on former ratings-magnet Jerry Seinfeld to create and star in 20 live-action comedy shorts, aka "minisodes," inspired by his experiences making the upcoming DreamWorks animated feature Bee Movie, in which the Seinfeld star voices a disillusioned drone. The flick unspools in theaters Nov. 2, and the comedy bits will begin buzzing the Peacock as interstitials starting in the fall.

NBC is also launching a Friday night reality block, called "Game Night," that will air at 8 p.m. and include the returning Bob Saget-hosted 1 vs. 100 and the new variety competition The Singing Bee, in which contestants must try to accurately sing the lyrics of hit songs. Another new reality series in the works for the midseason is World Moves. Produced by American Idol's Randy Jackson, the talent contest will scour the U.S. for dance teams.

The network's new schedule also confirmed the obvious: Aaron Sorkin's Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, billed as the network's next big thing a year ago but which met with the ratings equivalent of a big yawn, has been deep-sixed. However, another struggling show that didn't make the fall schedule, The Apprentice, is not officially kaput: Network execs say Donald Trump's reality contest may be brought back as a midseason series.

Here's a rundown of the network's 2007-08 schedule, with new shows in bold.

Monday: Deal or No Deal; Heroes/Heroes: Origins; Journeyman

Tuesday: The Biggest Loser; Chuck; Law & Order: Special Victims Unit

Wednesday: Deal or No Deal; Bionic Woman; Life

Thursday: My Name Is Earl; 30 Rock; The Office; Scrubs; ER

Friday: 1 vs. 100/The Singing Bee; Las Vegas; Friday Night Lights

SATURDAY: Dateline NBC; Drama Series Encores

SUNDAY (fall 2007): Football Night in America; NBC Sunday Night Football
(January 2008): Dateline NBC; Law & Order; Medium; Lipstick Jungle

For the latest from the network upfronts, check out TV columnist Kristin Veitch's dispatches in Watch with Kristin.