CBS revamps its schedule for fall

For a network doing as well as CBS, there are sure a lot of changes coming this fall.

America's most-watched network — and the only one that improved its ratings this season — will be making changes on five nights of the week and adding four new shows, plus one that used to air on a different network.

And another four returning shows are moving to new time slots.

Actually, the changes aren't all that major. And CBS isn't taking any big risks.

The three new hour-long shows are a crime drama — a new "NCIS" at that — a legal drama and a medical drama. And all feature familiar faces.

As does the one new half-hour show, a comedy headlined by Jenna Elfman.

Three of the four returning shows moving to new time slots are just moving to different times on the same nights.

And CBS was expected to pick up "Medium" — a show produced by CBS's studio — after NBC dropped it. Slating it after "Ghost Whisperer" on Friday nights is almost a no-brainer.

(The last time CBS picked up a show NBC had canceled, it was a little something called "JAG." That went on to run very successfully on CBS for nine years. And it led to the spinoff "NCIS" — a big hit returning for its seventh season — and that show's spinoff, "NCIS: Los Angeles.")

The network's boldest move was taking the surprise hit "The Mentalist" and moving it from Tuesdays to Thursdays at 9 p.m. — a change that, at first glance, seems a great bet to form a formidable back-to-back block with "CSI."

CBS's new fall shows are:

Three Rivers (Sundays, 8 p.m.) is a medical drama about "the emotionally complex lives of organ donors, the recipients and the surgeons at the pre-eminent transplant hospital in the country." Which, as you can guess from the title, is in Pittsburgh.

Alex O'Loughlin ("Moonlight") heads the ensemble cast; Julia Ormond also stars.

Accidentally on Purpose (Mondays, 7:30 p.m.) is a comedy that stars Jenna Elfman ("Dharma & Greg") as a single journalist who finds herself pregnant after a one-night stand with a much-younger guy (John Foster) "and decides to keep the baby … and the guy."