Friday , March 29 2024
HIMYM is coming back! HIMYM is coming back! HIMYM is coming back!

CBS Delivers Its Fall 2008 Lineup

CBS is one of those networks whose moves I always find interesting. They've got a pretty strong lineup these days (even if I watch very little of it), and seem to "tweak" things every season, moving a few shows around, and doing their best to position new shows. Perhaps it's interesting because it seems kind of old school.

Got a new comedy? Put it after your strongest one. Got another comedy that has performed well behind your strongest comedy? Use it to launch a different night of programming and another comedy. Position new dramas between strong performers. It's all very simple and explainable. I like that.

Anyway, here's how the fall schedule looks:

 

Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday
7:00 60
Minutes
7:30
8:00 The
Amazing
Race
The Big
Bang Theory
NCIS The New Adventures
of Old Christine
Survivor Ghost
Whisperer
Drama
Repeats
8:30 How I Met
Your Mother
Project Gary
9:00 Cold
Case
Two and a
Half Men
The
Mentalist
Criminal
Minds
CSI The Ex
List
9:30 Worst
Week
10:00 The
Unit
CSI: Miami Without
a Trace
CSI: NY Eleventh
Hour
Numb3rs 48 Hours:
Mystery
10:30

So, there are going to be five new shows on the fall schedule, two comedies and three dramas. No new reality shows? Wow, who would have thought such a thing would occur in this day and age? Go, CBS. I hope the strategy works.

The first new comedy is Worst Week, which has a poor fellow played by Kyle Bornheimer trying to impress his in-laws. Sadly, whenever he's at their house, there's always some sort of problem. I think we've all been there. I think we all know what that's about. Plus, it airs between Two and a Half Men and CSI: Miami.

The other new comedy is Project Gary and has Jay Mohr as the lead. Gary (Mohr) is a divorced guy with two kids, a new girlfriend, and an ex-wife. His life is complicated. And funny… one hopes. It doesn't sound like a terribly different idea, but sometimes the old ideas are the best.

Drama-wise, CBS is launching The Mentalist with Simon Baker, Eleventh Hour with Rufus Sewell (based on the British miniseries, that one), and The Ex List with Elizabeth Reaser.

The Mentalist is a detective show where Baker has a wonderful sense of observation (sounds kind of like Monk, but probably without the phobias). Now, Eleventh Hour I'd say sounded more new and different and off the beaten path, what with Sewell's character investigating scientific anomalies and debunking fakes, but it's based on a British miniseries and every other drama launched in the past few years has been sci-fi/paranormal/fantasy weirdness.

Keeping with the pseudo-paranormal stuff, The Ex List has its main character, a woman in her 30s, learn from a psychic that a man she has already dated is her soul mate. Naturally she goes through the list of exes (or, the ex list, if you prefer) to find the lucky guy.

So, Cane is gone, Moonlight is gone, and a couple of other shows, too. The most important thing to remember, though, is that How I Met Your Mother is coming back. Go HIMYM!

About Josh Lasser

Josh has deftly segued from a life of being pre-med to film school to television production to writing about the media in general. And by 'deftly' he means with agonizing second thoughts and the formation of an ulcer.

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