Every January, ABC faces the same challenge: what to schedule on Mondays after its cornerstone, “Monday Night Football,” concludes its season, especially when most of the series on opposing networks have had four or more months to establish themselves.

This year, the network smartly abandoned its original idea of launching three new dramas on Monday, moving ratings-draw “The Practice” to 9 p.m. and bracketing it with two new shows: “Veritas: The Quest” at 8 and “Miracles” at 10.

With “Veritas: The Quest,” ABC now has the lightweight action-adventure series it had hoped for with the quickly extinct “Dinotopia.” “Veritas” seeks to capture that Indiana Jones-Lara Croft vibe, and largely succeeds. That shouldn’t be a major surprise, since its creators, Patrick Massett and John Zinman, also penned “Tomb Raider” and its upcoming sequel.

“Veritas” focuses on teen Nikko Zond (Ryan Merriman), who’s had a rough few years. His archaeologist mother disappeared inside an ancient tomb, and his distant father has sent him off to a series of boarding schools.

After he’s been kicked out of his latest school, rebellious Nikko discovers that his father is more than he seems. Solomon Zond (Alex Carter) heads up the Veritas Foundation, which seeks the truth behind the mysteries of history and civilization. He’s also continuing the work that his wife was doing when she disappeared.

Solomon is aided in his often-dangerous work by a team of experts. Yet intelligent, curious Nikko keeps getting involved too, against his father’s wishes.

“Veritas: The Quest” is a fun ride, frenetic enough for the casual viewer, yet with enough subplots to keep people coming back. There’s plenty for adults to watch in its timeslot (led by Fox’s “Boston Public”), yet this gives younger viewers an entertaining outlet. With a fast start, “Veritas” might discover the secret for ratings success.

“Miracles” would need, well, a miracle to survive for any length of time, as it’s up against this season’s top-rated new drama, “CSI: Miami,” and that show’s earlier victim, the struggling but dramatically solid “Crossing Jordan” on NBC.

The title of the series makes it sound like it belonged on PAX (maybe that will be its final resting place). It comes off like a cross between PAX’s “Mysterious Ways” and “The X-Files.” Think of it as “Touched by a Demon.”

Anyway, in the premiere episode tonight, Paul Callan (Skeet Ulrich of “Scream”) is an investigator of modern miracles for the Catholic church. He becomes disillusioned when he keeps finding mundane solutions for all of his supposed “miracles.”

Then he meets a dying boy who heals people of life-threatening conditions, including, ultimately, Callan himself. This restores his faith, but when church officials show indifference to his findings, he storms off, soon hooking up with Father Alva Keel (Angus MacFayden), a paranormal investigator.

Unfortunately, that’s about all that’s unveiled in the first episode, and in the “Short-Attention-Span Theater” world of network TV, deliberateness can prove to be the kiss of death. The producers of the murky “Miracles” don’t reveal enough to yank viewers away from their favorite pathologic procedural.