By Josef Adalian and Michael Schneider

HOLLYWOOD - NBC has pulled the plug on Aaron Spelling's struggling soap "Titans" and is close to doing the same with "The Michael Richards Show."
     Network executives informed Spelling Tuesday that they would not order a full season's worth of episodes for "Titans," effectively killing the show. The four unaired episodes of the original 13-episode order are expected to be burned off over the next few weeks.
     NBC Entertainment president Garth Ancier was a vocal supporter of reviving the soap genre with "Titans," fighting for the show even when some NBC development executives were hesitant.
     Ancier had previously worked with Spelling to revive the family drama genre with "7th Heaven" at the WB, and had hoped to strike gold again with "Titans." There's no word yet on an official replacement, though midseason drama "This Life" (working title) is considered a favorite to take over the 8 p.m. slot next month.
     The move to kill "Titans" came just one day after the show bowed to lackluster ratings in its new 8 p.m. Monday time slot. The show scored a 2.8 rating/7 share in the key adults 18-49 demographic, with a total tune-in of 6.6 million viewers — the same numbers NBC had been averaging earlier this fall with the combo of "Daddio" and the now-canceled "Tucker."
     For most of the fall, "Titans" aired at 8 p.m. Wednesday, where it averaged a 3.3/9 with adults 18-49 and 8 million viewers — down 13% in the demo from NBC's year-ago performance.
     The family storyline behind "Titans" probably owed more to Spelling's "Dynasty" than the producer's more recent "90210." Casper Van Dien starred as Chandler Williams, a 26-year-old fighter pilot who returns to his family's home in Beverly Hills only to find his divorced parents locked in a heated battle.
     Yasmine Bleeth played the family patriarch's young bride, a woman with whom Chandler had previously enjoyed a steamy affair. Victoria Principal and Jack Wagner also starred.
     "Titans" was a risky project from the start for NBC, considering that traditional over-the-top primetime soaps like "Dynasty," "Knot's Landing" and "Dallas" mostly disappeared after the Reagan administration.
     But at their height, nighttime soap operas ruled the TV roost — "Dallas," for example, was the first- or second-rated show of the season for five consecutive years in the early 1980s.
     NBC more or less missed the soap derby that decade, though not for lack of trying ("Flamingo Road"). Younger-skewing series like Spelling's "Beverly Hills, 90210" and "Melrose Place" took up the soap legacy in the 1990s. But with "Melrose" and "90210" gone, NBC sensed a vacuum and hoped to revisit the genre this season.
     As for "Richards," NBC brass won't make any official decisions on the sitcom until seeing how Tuesday night's episode performed in the ratings. However, unless the series makes a miraculous Nielsen comeback, the network will cancel "Richards" by week's end, NBC insiders said.
     A big factor in the network's decision to dump "Richards" now is the show's unusually high cost. Insiders peg its weekly license fee at nearly $1.2 million, virtually unheard of for a new comedy.
     "Richards," the first series to feature a "Seinfeld" alumnus since the latter show ended in 1998, was one of the worst-reviewed new shows of the fall. The series had a rocky road to air: NBC threw out the show's original pilot, brought in several new cast members and then made substantial changes to a revised pilot. Spike Feresten, one of the show's four creators and executive producers, quit the series last month.
     In the series, Richards plays a bumbling private eye surrounded by an even more clueless bunch of co-workers. Other cast members include Tim Meadows and William Devane.
     "SNL" alum Meadows has an overall deal with NBC and could surface in another network project as soon as next fall.
     "Richards" has averaged just a 4.1/11 among adults 18 to 49 after five airings Tuesdays at 8 p.m., down 18 percent from the time period ("Just Shoot Me") last year. The sitcom has been pulling down an average of 9.2 million viewers.