It is that time of year in Hollywood when the television networks try out their new series on the discerning viewer.

Many of these ill-conceived ventures rapidly crash and burn as audiences turn their thumbs down, but each year, it is hoped, a future Seinfeld emerges from the mix.

A leading candidate among this year's new offerings is Felicity, the story of student Felicity Porter. In the first episode, the Californian 17-year-old ignores parental pressure to study medicine at Stanford and opts instead for a New York university of uncertain quality.

American TV stations, led conspicuously by Rupert Murdoch's Fox TV, are fighting hardest for the loyalties and advertising dollars of younger viewers.

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It was only a matter of time, therefore, before someone delivered a soap opera set in a university - perfectly timed for the start of the new school year.

The critics have already lavished such praise on Felicity - "among the most gratifying and promising new series" of the year, according to the Los Angeles Times - that it is a fair bet to survive at least a season or two.

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Felicity, played by Keri Russel, 22, struggles with her overpowering crush on a boy from high school in the opening episode. What she is studying is evidently unimportant. Intellectual life just does not rake those viewers in.