Honoring the old saw not to speak ill of the dead, that title accounts for one of the few good things that can be said of UPN and the WB. The 11-year-old networks will continue to exist in name through the summer but, for all intents and purposes, they passed into lore when the TV season ended May 24.

Buffy is not only their finest legacy, it is one both can claim.

Their greater legacy is the stars-in-waiting discovered, as well as the mother of Tom Cruise’s baby, Katie Holmes. Also making their prime-time starring debuts on networks that would never become as big as they have: Holmes’ Dawson’s Creek cast mate and future Oscar nominee Michelle Williams; Brandi; Jamie Foxx; Keri Russell and Sarah Michelle Gellar.

The WB and UPN could also boast offering more shows serving minority audiences than any of the major networks, despite having fewer total hours available. However, this was more a marketing plan — target the most underserved audience — than social conscience. Early on, Fox also had more black shows in fewer hours than it does now. As soon as Fox made mass audience headway, it abandoned this strategy, just as the WB would eventually do. If UPN had been able to come up with more hits, it would have done the same thing.

It’s revealing that the predominantly black comedies on the new CW network have been segregated on Sunday, a night where the WB was unable to make inroads and UPN didn’t even try.

This praiseworthy effort to serve minorities, whatever its motivation, also was responsible for some of the mini-networks’ most memorable lowlights. The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer will forever be brought up when "what were they thinking?" series are recalled. Perhaps the only bigger joke was Homeboys in Outer Space. UPN must accept blame for both of those.

It could have been worse. Dean Valentine, an early UPN programmer, conceptualized a series called I Spike — female beach volleyball players by day, detectives by night — which thankfully never got made. Valentine stunned critics at first encounter when he admitted his favorite show growing up was The Love Boat. He got to act on that, saddling his network with The Love Boat: The Next Wave.

UPN also deserves lasting ignominy for resuscitating wrestling on a broadcast network. But take away Smackdown and same-week encores of series episodes, and UPN was never more than a seven-hour network. When it also had the world’s worst movies on Fridays, it was a six-hour network. Jerry Bruckheimer alone has that many hours on CBS.

WB had its share of embarrassments, too. Who can ever forget (or rather, remember) Nick Freno: Licensed Teacher? Or The Tom Show? The WB rolled that one out with such fanfare, you would have thought the star was Tom Cruise or Tom Selleck, not Tom Arnold.

WB also presented a short-lived Sunday comedy called The Army Show, which wanted to be the new Sgt. Bilko but played as funny as a military training film.

Jamie Kellner, founding president of the WB, is arguably the most underrated TV executive ever. He put Fox on the air when many scoffed at the notion of a fourth network, then did it again at the WB and actually led it to brief profitability. When he left, the network went back into the red ink tank. One night on the eve of a press tour, Kellner was at the hotel bar when he spotted a trio of TV critics and waved for them to join him.

Perusing the new network schedules they would be sampling the next several days, the writers playfully gigged Kellner about The Army Show. With the understanding he was off the record — the statute of limitations expired with his retirement — he took umbrage that the writers he had known for many years thought that he didn’t recognize what a horrible series The Army Show was. "Look, I know it’s [crap]. Nobody is watching us on Sunday night anyway, but I can’t go dark for a half-hour. So I put it there rather than wasting a show somebody might actually want to watch."

That illuminating moment of candor will be remembered by the writers who were there, long after the WB and UPN are forgotten.