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CBS’ 2009 Primetime Schedule: Why Not? After All, Ladies Love Cool James

By Josh Lasser on May 20, 2009 • ( 6 )

CBS continued the upfront parade today, announcing their new fall lineup which will include three new dramas, one new to the network, and one new comedy. The network also has two new dramas hanging around for midseason and a couple of reality shows for midseason as well.

One of the most interesting aspects of the new schedule is the network’s decision to pick up the just-dropped NBC program Medium, which CBS will be pairing with Ghost Whisperer and Numb3rs on Friday night. CBS has long sought a compatible program to slot between those shows, and the concept behind Medium does make it seem like a perfect fit. Of course, the question is if CBS can attract more viewers to the program than NBC did.

The unveiled CBS 2009 fall lineup looks like this:

	Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat
7:00	60 Minutes
7:30
8:00	The Amazing Race	How I Met Your Mother	NCIS	New Adv. of Old Christine	Survivor	Ghost Whisperer	Drama Repeats
8:30		Accidentally on Purpose		Gary Unmarried
9:00	Three Rivers	Two and a Half Men	NCIS: Los Angeles	Criminal Minds	CSI	Medium
9:30		The Big Bang Theory
10:00	Cold Case	CSI: Miami	The Good Wife	CSI: NY	The Mentalist	Numb3rs	48 Hours Mystery
10:30

CBS’ one new comedy, Accidentally on Purpose, stars Jenna Elfman as Billie, a woman who ends up pregnant after a one-night stand and opts to keep not just the baby, but to live with the guy as well. The show finds itself in the bosom of CBS’ Monday night comedy block, which ought to help its initial sampling.

As for the two new dramas, the first is Three Rivers, which stars Alex O’Loughlin of Moonlight. The show takes place in Pittsburgh (hence the name), and follows organ donors, recipients, and surgeons. The one-time vampire finds himself to be a surgeon in this show. NCIS: Los Angeles is a spinoff of the original NCIS which was in turn a spinoff of JAG. LL Cool J and Chris O’Donnell star, much as they did in the recent NCIS episode which introduced the new characters. Lastly, there’s The Good Wife, which feature Julianna Margulies as a lawyer returning to work as a defense attorney once her husband, a politician, finds himself tossed in jail following a sex/corruption scandal.

CBS, which has been very successful in recent years, finds themselves with a conservative schedule in the fall which aims to solidify a few of the weak spots on the network. Fans will lament the loss of The Unit and Without a Trace, and the network has changed the lineup of just about every night on the schedule, but it’s more in the vein of playing around the edges, not rewriting the book.