Donald Trump instead of Michael Scott. Big Brother instead of Snake Doctor. American Gladiators instead of Chuck.

The networks are ready for winter. Grab your swim trunks.

"It's going to look like an odd combination of your typical January and your typical June," TVWeek senior reporter James Hibberd says of the networks' all-new New Year schedules—schedules stocked with beach-ready reality and game shows.

With the writers' strike now in its fifth week, the Big Four broadcasters are running low on drama and comedy series. And in some cases, they're fresh out.

Heroes may have wrapped its season on Monday. The Office may have aired its last original half-hour ep a couple of weeks ago. And 24 may never begin its seventh season—not this season, anyway.

It's possible audiences won't yet recognize the cupboards as being bare; December is typically an afterthought of reruns and holiday specials.

But it'll be hard to miss the lack of inventory come January.

Viewers accustomed to starting the new year with new episodes of their favorite series are going to be greeted instead by more reruns and, as the networks have put it, an "exciting lineup of reality series premieres," not to mention "game shows, newsmagazines [and] the return of two popular reality series."

In recent weeks, CBS, NBC and Fox have all announced revised winter schedules. (ABC, home of the half-completed new season of Lost, is still mulling.) Here are some highlights:

• The latest edition of NBC's The Apprentice, reworked and retitled as The Celebrity Apprentice, premieres Jan. 3, with Trump and company taking over the 9 p.m., Thursday workspace previously staffed by The Office and Scrubs.
• Big Brother, CBS' reality standby of the summer, gets drafted into the cold weather on Feb. 12. It'll air three nights a week, including Tuesdays at 9 p.m., where the housesitters will sit for The Unit.
• NBC revives American Gladiators, the spandex-clad 1990s competition show that pitted everyday athletes against Jose Canseco look-alikes, Jan. 6. The pumped-up show muscles in on Chuck's Monday time slot starting Jan. 7.

The Biggest Loser (returning Jan. 1, NBC), 1 vs. 100 (Jan. 4, NBC), Power of 10 (Jan. 2, CBS) and 48 Hours Mystery (Jan. 22 and Jan. 29, CBS) are other strike-resistant shows that'll turn up next month.

Beyond the reality and game shows, the networks will be, as Hibberd puts it, "burning off their remaining stockpile of scripted shows."

For every Law & Order (returning Jan. 2, NBC) and Jericho (Feb. 12, CBS) that was due back anyway, there's also a Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles that's arriving sooner than expected. In the case of Fox's The Sarah Conner Chronicles, the sci-fi series, once pegged for a spring debut, takes over 24's hour starting Jan. 13. Last month, Fox said it wouldn't launch 24 until it was sure the action drama, shut down by the writers' strike, could finish what it started.

Other new series set for winter debuts: the CBS apartment sitcom The Captain (Jan. 28), starring American sex symbol Raquel Welch and American Pie's Chris Klein; and Lipstick Jungle (Feb. 7), the new Brooke Shields series, not to be confused for ABC's upcoming Cashmere Mafia, although it probably will be.

And on Jan. 9, in what could be a sign of old things to come, NBC will offer up "this season's network broadcast premiere of Law & Order: Criminal Intent"—a nice way of saying the network will rerun episodes originally produced and aired this fall on cable's USA. CBS chieftain Les Moonves has said his network might do the same if it can sanitize Showtime's Dexter, Weeds and The Tudors for broadcast TV.

Audiences looking for traditional prime-time fare best grab their long-range binoculars: If the strike were settled today, Hibberd, for one, guesses it could be March before network TV starts looking like its old self.

There is, of course, one very big exception. Prolonged strike or fast settlement, Fox's American Idol launches its seventh season Jan. 15.

Says Hibberd of Idol's traditional dominance, "That story won't change."