CBS To Spread The Laughter This Fall

(AP)  CBS will bring two comedies to its schedule on Wednesday nights in the fall, spreading jokes to a second night after confining its sitcoms to Mondays the past few years.

Emmy winner Julia Louis-Dreyfus' "The New Adventures of Old Christine" and a new sitcom that stars Jay Mohr as a recently divorced painter and Paula Marshall as his ex-wife will be shown Wednesdays, CBS said in announcing its new schedule Wednesday.

CBS canceled the drama "Shark" and the gothic thriller "Moonlight." The network will move "Without a Trace" to Tuesday and "The Unit" to Sunday.

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Photos: CBS' New Season

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Adding more comedy - six sitcoms each week instead of the current four - runs counter to the trend in television, where the format has been struggling.

"This is big news for us," said Nina Tassler, CBS entertainment president. "We finally opened a second night of comedy. We had the goods to do it this year."

CBS renewed "How I Met Your Mother," a show with a questionable future until guest shots by Britney Spears gave it some juice this spring. The second new comedy, "Worst Week," is a single-camera show about a bungling magazine editor.

CBS, which is likely to drop to second behind Fox after several years as the nation's most popular network, will add three dramas in the fall..

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Photos: Celebrity Circuit

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"Eleventh Hour" is from the production team behind "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" and won the Thursday 10 p.m. ET time slot behind that hit. It's about a brilliant biophysicist who helps the government investigate scientific crises.

"The Ex List" stars Elizabeth Reaser of "Grey's Anatomy" as a woman told by a fortune teller that she must marry within a year or be single forever. The catch: She's already met the man she'll marry, she just doesn't know it yet.

Simon Baker stars in "The Mentalist," about a former celebrity psychic who becomes a detective and uses his expertise at reading people to solve crimes.

By David Bauder