CBS adds just 4 new shows to fall lineup

CBS plans to launch just four new series in the fall, three dramas and one comedy, on prime-time television.

It is banking on some big-name stars to draw attention to a schedule thatalready has strong ratings from the CSI franchise and hits such as Two and a Half Men, Survivor and Without A Trace.

CBS is the third of the big networks to announce its fall schedule in a bid to woo advertisers. Fox and CW plan announcements later in the week.

Virginia Madsen, an Academy Award nominee for her supporting role in Sideways, and Ray Liotta of Goodfellas will team up in a crime drama called Smith, about a career criminal trying to outwit the FBI.

James Woods, who starred in Ghosts of Mississippi and Salvador, will take the lead as a Los Angeles celebrity lawyer turned prosecutor in Shark. Shark will air on Thursday night, right after CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

Thursday is shaping up as the mostly hotly contested time period, with ABC moving Grey's Anatomy to Thursday at 9 p.m. and NBC launching a new drama, Studio 60 on Sunset Strip.

The other networks are hoping the long-running CSI will have lost some of its lustre for CBS.

The third CBS drama will be Jericho, which follows people in a small Kansas town after a nuclear holocaust. Skeet Ulrich, who was in the cable miniseries Into the West, is the star.

The new comedy is The Class, from one ofthe creators of Friends,about eight third-grade classmates who reunite when they're in their 20s.

The network will dump its Sunday movie, the last regular, made-for-TV movie night on broadcast television, to make way for a lineup that includes Without a Trace.

In all, CBS is returning 18 shows from its 2005-06 prime-time lineup.

Among thesurvivors is actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus' vehicle, The New Adventures of Old Christine. She appears to have finally broken the Seinfeld curse, which saw her cohorts failing in their attempts to go it alone in prime time.

Louis-Dreyfus, who played self-absorbed Elaine Benes for nine years in Seinfeld, plays a divorced mother looking for love.

CBS also is renewing its new gung-ho commando drama, The Unit, and legal drama Close to Home.