Eye-yai-yai

When going over NBC's fall plans yesterday, I was already resigned to the fact that I'd lost some good shows... they'd been canceled in the weeks before. But CBS waited until announcing its fall schedule to omit two great shows without a thought to giving them a second year. Out goes Jericho and The Class. No closure anywhere.

But I guess that's just my personal annoyance. If you agree, please let me know. Comments are welcome. (You'll feel worse about Jericho getting canned when you see what's getting its time slot.)

Five new series are being touted by the network: Three dramas, a comedy and a reality series. The network's obviously very happy with its schedule already, seeing as how only four of those shows will start in the fall... lots of pickups from this season.

The new comedy, The Big Bang Theory, will grab the 8:30 p.m. Monday spot after How I Met Your Mother. The network is touting it as a story "about brainy best friends Leonard (Johnny Galecki, Roseanne) and Sheldon (Jim Parsons, Judging Amy), who can tell you anything you want to know about quantum physics, but when it comes to dealing with everyday life here on earth they're lost in the cosmos." If the show is as corny as the preceding blurb, we're all in trouble. Dweebs in love. Original.

Viva Laughlin (8 p.m. Sundays), the first new drama is being exec-produced by Hugh Jackman, who's taking the principals of musical theater and trying to apply them to television. It's "a mystery drama with music about eternal optimist and freewheeling businessman Ripley Holden, whose sole ambition is to run a casino in Laughlin, Nev. Occasionally using upbeat contemporary songs to accentuate the drama and humor and advance the story, the series is based on the hit BBC show Viva Blackpool." The cross-genre thing is probably going to pick up thanks to the success of ABC's Ugly Betty (the telenovella).

Jimmy Smits is back on TV, too, thanks to CBS. Once the president on NBC, he's carrying Cane (10 p.m. Tuesdays). The show is an "epic" drama, the network says about "the external rivalries and internal power struggles of a large Cuban-American family running an immensely successful rum and sugar business in South Florida." Straight drama here, it seems.

Then there's Moonlight, which the network must be very confident in considering it's being buried at 9 p.m. Fridays already. You can sort of see their point, I suppose. CBS isn't known for backing fantasy. The show focuses on Mick St. John (Alex O'Loughlin of the upcoming White Out), a vampire with a big, undead heart who's disgusted by the idea of feeding on humans. Oh, he's also a private investigator "who uses his acute vampire senses to help the living... instead of feeding on them." Probably the closest to action that the network's getting with its pickups.

New in reality is Kid Nation. This is what's taking Jericho's 8 p.m. Wednesday time slot. I'll let you decide for yourself on this one. "Forty kids will have 40 days to build a new world -- in a ghost town that died in the 19th Century. These kids, ages 8-15, will spend more than a month without their parents or modern comforts in Bonanza City, N.M., attempting to do what their forefathers could not -- build a town that works."

Drama Swingtown, will join the lineup sometime in the middle of the season. It's the closest to edgy that you'll see on the network's schedule -- or at least it has the potential to be. It's a "peek into the shag-carpeted suburban homes of the 1970s to find couples reveling in the sexual and social revolution that introduced open marriages, women's liberation and challenged many conventional wisdoms."

Back midseason will be The Amazing Race and The New Adventures of Old Christine. Moving to new times are Without a Trace (10 p.m. Thursdays after CSI) and Shark (10 p.m. Sunday).

Here's the full schedule. Probably the least exciting developments of all of the networks.

MONDAY: How I Met Your Mother at 8 p.m., Big Bang Theory at 8:30 p.m., Two and a Half Men at 9 p.m., Rules of Engagement at 9:30 p.m., and CSI: Miami at 10 p.m.
TUESDAY: NCIS at 8 p.m., The Unit at 9 p.m. and Cane at 10 p.m.
WEDNESDAY: Kid Nation at 8 p.m., Criminal Minds at 9 p.m. and CSI: NY at 10 p.m.
THURSDAY: Survivor: China at 8 p.m., CSI at 9 p.m. and Without a Trace at 10 p.m.
FRIDAY: Ghost Whisperer at 8 p.m. Moonlight at 9 p.m. and Numbers at 10 p.m.
SATURDAY: Procedural reruns from 8-10 p.m., 48 Hours: Mystery at 10 p.m.
SUNDAY: 60 Minutes at 7 p.m., Viva Laughlin at 8 p.m., Cold Case at 9 p.m. and Shark at 10 p.m.

Notable pickups: How I Met Your Mother (and, I'd love to kill Shark again here, because it is notable that such drivel's being picked up, but it does have the viewers so it's not that notable).
Omissions: The Class, Jericho, Close to Home

The network also announced an order for Power of 10, sort of a Family Feud knockoff hosted by Drew Carey.

Also, according to Hollywood Reporter:

CBS also is close to picking up to series two comedy pilots: I'm in Hell, starring Jason Biggs, and the ensemble The Captain.

*snip*

Three other drama pilots -- CSI creator Anthony Zuiker's LL Cool J vehicle The Man, the zombie comedy drama Babylon Fields and the Stephen Dorff starrer Skip Tracer -- are said to still be in contention for midseason.

I'll try to get to ABC when I get home tonight. Fox isn't officially talking until tomorrow and CW is short and sweet so I'll plunk that out quickly, too. Please let me know if I'm missing anything or if there's anything you'd like to see covered.