CBS looks for balance, safety in fall lineup

NEW YORK -- Last year at this time, CBS executives said they were looking to stir things up by taking a chance with unorthodox shows like "Viva Laughlin," a musical casino drama.

The series lasted just two episodes before it got yanked.

At Wednesday's CBS upfront press breakfast, there was no talk of edgy programming. Instead, network officials said they were seeking to balance their veteran procedural-heavy schedule with comedies and more character-driven series.

"We want to get back to great shows," said Nina Tassler, president of CBS Entertainment. "We want to get shows that we know have the legs and have the potential to run."

CBS, which is likely to finish this season as the second-most-watched network, behind Fox, and is in a race with ABC for second place among adults ages 18 to 49, picked up two comedies and three dramas for the fall.

"Overall, the real goal of the schedule this year was balance -- balance of comedy, balance of drama," said Kelly Kahl, the network's scheduling chief. "Stability is important to us . . . But you also need to refresh your schedule and get some new product on the air."

One of CBS' biggest moves is on Wednesday nights, when it's trying to carve out a new comedy block by pairing "The New Adventures of Old Christine" with "Project Gary," a sitcom that stars Jay Mohr as a recently divorced dad trying to move back into the dating world.

The network is also hoping to solidify its Monday comedy lineup with the addition of "Worst Week," which centers on a bumbling magazine editor ("Jericho's" Kyle Bornheimer) whose efforts to impress his girlfriend's parents repeatedly lead to disaster.

CBS also added two new procedurals, but executives stressed that the shows, series in which the main story is resolved by the end, are more character-driven than its forensic series usually have been.

"If we're going to evolve the form, we had to try some new tones and some new styles," Tassler said.

"The Mentalist" stars Simon Baker ("Smith," "The Devil Wears Prada") as a onetime fake psychic now working as a detective with the California Bureau of Investigation, cracking cases through sheer intuition and infuriating his colleagues along the way.

In "Eleventh Hour," based on a British series, Rufus Sewell ("The Illusionist," "John Adams") plays a biophysicist who is called on by the government to investigate scientific calamities.