CBS Sets Fall TV Schedule, Holds Some Comedies, Elementary For Late October

CBS has announced their Fall TV premiere schedule, calling it a "multi-phase rollout." The schedule begins with NFL Thursday Night Football on September 11, while the scripted series don't start rolling out until the week of Sunday, September 21. Among the returning shows lined up for premiere week are The Good Wife, Person of Interest and Hawaii Five-0, while newcomers Madam Secretary and NCIS: New Orleans also join the schedule that week. Meanwhile, most of CBS's half-hour comedies are being saved for late October.

CBS has the bulk of their new and returning programming rolling out over the last two weeks of September, with a few notable exceptions. They've also included season finales of summer dramas Under the Dome and Extant on there. Not listed is the season finale of Big Brother, which will presumably take place at some point during September. Closing out the schedule are 2 Broke Girls, The Millers, Two and a Half Men, Elementary and The McCarthys, all of which are set to premiere in late October, hence the mentioned "multi-phase rollout."

CBS notes in their release that the football programming on Thursday night is impacting their rollout. "The addition of THURSDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL provides the flexibility to strategically roll out our fall season in multiple waves, maximizing promotional platforms and scheduling opportunities to give our new and returning series the best possible launch,” said Nina Tassler, Chairman, CBS Entertainment."

So those looking forward to CBS' Thursday night comedy line-up will have to wait until almost November for that to happen. On the bright side, CBS isn't making the millions (and millions) of Big Bang Theory fans wait that long for their show to return, as the half-hour comedy made it onto the line-up in one of the early phrases of this strategic rollout. TBBT will air on Monday night, paired with fellow returner Mom, starting in September, but then move back to Thursday for its regularly scheduled time period starting in October when The Millers, Two and a Half Men, The McCarthys and Elementary air.

While the summer season is just getting going for television, CBS isn't the first network to lay out their fall plans with specific dates. View the NBC premiere schedule here. More information on the CBS 2014-2015 lineup, including information on new dramas Scorpion, NCIS: New Orleans, Stalker and The McCarthys can be found here.