It’s never a perfect (or even particularly fair) time to take measure of a nightly news show, particularly one in the process of reinvention. No doubt episodes of “Nightline” in the weeks to come will crackle with tension and thrills. But for those of us who’ve been watching the first week of ABC News’s post-Koppel version of “Nightline,” it has been a disappointing stretch that less suggests promise for the long-term future than nostalgia for the distant past.

The original “Nightline” began under urgent circumstances, and demanded our attention; using the clever marketing rubric “America Held Hostage,” ABC launched a late night news show to cover the taking of American hostages in Iran as an event worthy of a countdown, numbering the hostages’ days in captivity as though it were a sports event. (No surprise, given that the idea came from former ABC sports guru Roone Arledge.) The scrappy and intelligent young host of that show, Ted Koppel, achieved instant stardom with his refusal to be intimidated by his powerful guests; he could make anyone wither.

The same cannot be said of Cynthia McFadden, Terry Moran, and Martin Bashir, the three capable but uncharismatic reporters put in charge of the new “Nightline.” While each of them last week delivered competently produced segments to the show’s new three-story-a-night format, none demonstrated anything close to the unique brand of star quality that distinguished Mr. Koppel. Ordinarily, one might forgive a lack of charm in someone whose job is to present a perspective on serious world events, but in an era dominated by the sensibilities of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, viewers need a little style with their substance.

Even leaving aside the casting and production weaknesses of the new “Nightline” – its theme music, sets, and graphics all come off as desperate grabbers for an audience hopped up on MTV – it suffers so far from a lack of editorial vision. For a live show, far too many of its taped segments repeated (with no new insight) stories already covered on evening-news shows and the newsmagazines; Mr. Moran’s report on a day in the life of Iraqi leader Ahmad Chalabi covered the same ground as “60 Minutes.” (I will say that Mr. Moran’s live reports from Iraq effectively captured the eeriness of a quiet early morning in Baghdad.) Other stories – like Mr. Bashir’s profile of a deaf football team in California – may have been fresh, but they still felt like a stretched version of a story that belonged on “World News Tonight.”

Even more frustrating – because it goes to the heart of what made the original “Nightline” such a memorable broadcast – were the correspondents’ interviews with newsmakers. Ms. McFadden’s Wednesday conversation with Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, failed to penetrate the soldier’s steely facade, and lacked the sizzle of live television. Indeed, one of the foremost weaknesses of this “Nightline” is its failure to utilize the “Live” gambit. The omnipresent “Live” logo that appears on screen only calls attention to its absence during moments like the Pace interview. Even Friday night’s roundtable discussion among Iraqi citizens – billed as a “Nightline Special Event” – suffered from a lack of spontaneity; it looked hopelessly staged, down to the plate of cookies planted in front of the guests. Part of what Mr. Koppel did so well was to catch his guests off guard at the eleventh hour, with no cookies. Unless this “Nightline” figures out how to get newsmakers to stay up as late as they do, it will fail – and quickly.

I admire the willingness of the Walt Disney Company to stand by “Nightline” despite its money-losing ways, even though I suspect it’s only using the show to hold the space until it can find a comedian to host a new late night comedy show. (I keep hearing the name of Ellen DeGeneres from nervous news executives.) The only way for the news division to hold onto the “Nightline” time slot is to make it necessary, even on nights when nothing is happening. That means executive producer James Goldston needs to make something of his temporary mandate and create a new “Nightline” with an identity worthy of its name. Right now he’s heading a hybrid between “60 Minutes” and “World News Tonight,” without the personalities of one or the urgency of the other. That’s no way to save a legendary broadcast.

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My neighbors across the way have bought themselves a 62-inch television set that I can see clearly through my kitchen window. As befits a home with a screen that size, the set is always on, and thus I am able to regularly monitor the viewing habits of a family of television worshippers. You will be less surprised to learn that they love “Lost” and “Grey’s Anatomy” than to hear that they also watch the evening news – and the first night of “Nightline” this week, too. By Tuesday night, they’d returned to Jay Leno. As I write this on Saturday morning, they’re up watching cartoons on ABC.

What I’ve learned so far – aside from the fact that my neighbors need to invest some money in curtains – is that the bigger your set, the more powerful your addiction to the drug. Television has an insidious way of dominating your home life, and when it’s 62 inches from corner to corner, there’s truly no escape. The secret to surviving in this super-size video world is to keep your expectations small, and your television sets smaller.