'Two and a Half Men' May Soon Be Outnumbered

(Yes; not dignified with a response; and no, in case you're interested.)

Taking advantage of the competition's general lack-of-comedy-ness, CBS will again try to launch a comedy block on Wednesday nights, moving "The New Adventures of Old Christine" to 8, followed by new "Project Gary" at 8:30. The last time CBS tried a comedy night was in fall '05 with "Still Standing" and "Yes, Dear." "Project Gary" stars Jay Mohr as a recently single painting contractor. This show, too, has a lot of female characters: his "controlling ex-wife" (Paula Marshall), his politically correct and environmentally conscious 11-year-old daughter (Laura Marano), and his "gorgeous new girlfriend" (Jaime King).

Yup, there are a lot of chicks on this show.

Another new comedy, "Worst Week," gets the coveted post-"Two and a Half Men" slot. It's about an entertainment magazine editor -- a guy -- who will do anything to please his fiancee's conservative parents, but somehow always turns into a one-man wrecking crew whenever he's around them. Think guy in diapers. The single-camera comedy is based on the British series of the same name.

This is a good time for CBS to take another whack at adding a comedy block. Not only is the competition kind of comedy-free -- no pesky sitcom competition on Wednesday night -- but also advertisers love them, they tend to skew younger, and they tend to do things like come back from strikes stronger than dramas, probably because with virtually no continuing story line, no plot momentum is lost during three-month shutdowns.

"We really wanted to focus on comedy and we had the goods to do it this year," Tassler said, adding that the two new sitcoms are "two of the highest-testing new comedies we've had in years."

Unlike last season, when CBS drank some crazy juice and decided to swing for the fences, this year the network will confine its experimentation to tinkering with its trademark procedural crime dramas, adding more personal story arcs for the characters.

"We do very well with our procedurals but we've added more character to them," Tassler said Wednesday.

And, speaking of procedurals, no CBS new season is complete without a Jerry Bruckheimer-produced one. Next season's offering: "Eleventh Hour," based on the British miniseries by sci-fi writer Stephen Gallagher. Rufus Sewell stars as a brilliant biophysicist and special science adviser to the government who works passionately "to protect the substance of science from those with nefarious motives," CBS says. It's getting CBS's cushiest, post-"CSI" time slot.

And here's a new take on the CBS procedural: midseason drama "Harper's Island" will kill off at least one character every week until they run out of characters, at which point the show presumably will end. It's about a group of people who get on a boat bound for an island off Seattle for a "destination wedding." As explained by CBS, just because you're on the guest list doesn't mean you're going to make it to the wedding. Tassler described it as " 'Ten Little Indians' meets 'Scream.' "