When you’re CBS, you don’t have to do much.
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Let’s take a look, night by night:
MONDAY: CBS confounded expectations by not expanding its comedy presence on Thursdays. So it was less important that the sitcom moving over there have a long potential lifespan, which allowed the network to instead shift the aging but still mighty 2 1/2 Men to that night and make the younger-skewing 2 BROKE GIRLS its new Monday 9PM tentpole. The new Mutchnick & Kohan comedy PARTNERS gets the benefit of a terrific hammock position between HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER and Girls, which guarantees it at least a wide sampling in the Fall.
TUESDAY: The new VEGAS gets 2 hours of strong NCIS lead-ins, as we foresaw. With the other networks piling on Tuesday comedies and reality results shows, that makes CBS the only place to go for drama for the first 2 hours of the night
WEDNESDAY: Eventually CBS will have to deal with the fact that the Wednesday line-up is getting long in the tooth. For now, it’s working fine.
THURSDAY: The network has supercharged its 8PM comedy hour with 2 1/2 MEN following THE BIG BANG THEORY, giving PERSON OF INTEREST a much stronger lead-in that should only help it. That will boost the modern Sherlock Holmes procedural ELEMENTARY. (Still, one can’t help but wonder if the network was underwhelmed with its comedy development this season.)
FRIDAY: CSI NY won’t give a huge lead-in to the new legal drama MADE IN JERSEY, but Jersey should benefit from being the only non-fantasy drama in the hour against Grimm and Fringe.
SATURDAY: Same repeats + 48 HOURS formula as usual.
SUNDAY: THE MENTALIST won’t like the lead-in it’s going to get from THE GOOD WIFE, and keeping the latter at 9PM is the network’s other big surprise. ABC could have a big opportunity here with its Revenge/666 Park Avenue duo… or CBS’s established shows could carry the (non-football) night.
The network didn’t announce any midseason scheduling, but has the comedy FRIEND ME and the drama GOLDEN BOY on tap.
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