CBS upfront, take one

The CBS schedule is out, and you can read the full release here. My initial thoughts coming up after the jump...

So, the major changes:

• "Moonlight" and "Shark" both failed to make the cut among the bubble shows, while "The Unit" did (and is moving to Sundays at 10). When I asked Nina Tassler if the "Jericho" experience had made her gunshy about listening to the, um, vocal fans of fringe shows like that and "Moonlight," she said, "It was a factor, obviously... It was a passionate fanbase, and that's not a bad thing. It's just hard to translate that into numbers."
• Speaking of "The Unit," Nina said they're going to take the female characters off-base more, and that there won't be quite as much focus on the military missions. Both ideas came from Shawn Ryan and David Mamet, and not from the network, apparently.
• "How I Met Your Mother" survives and stays where it is; the sense I get is that renewal was never in doubt after the first Britney episode, and that some CBS execs just don't want to announce all their pick-ups ahead of time.
• "New Adventures of Old Christine" not only survives, but gets to lead off a night, as the network tries, once again, to set up a comedy bloc on Wednesdays. It'll be paired with "Project Gary" (pictured above), with Jay Mohr and the lovely and talented but undeniably show-killing Paula Marshall.
• "The Ex-List," with Elizabeth Reaser (Jane Doe from "Grey's Anatomy") goes Fridays at 9, which, coincidentally, was the same timeslot (Fridays at 9) for the last show created by Diane Ruggiero, "That's Life." (In between, she was Rob Thomas' lieutenant on "Veronica Mars.") And Simon Baker's new show, "The Mentalist," gets the same timeslot (Tuesdays at 9) as his first CBS show, "The Guardian."
• Tuesdays at 10 has been a snakebit timeslot ever since "Judging Amy" went away (among its victims was "Smith," featuring Simon Baker and whatever happened to Ray Liotta's face), and so the network's putting old reliable "Without a Trace" there.
• "Amazing Race" gets two seasons; prepare, once again, for the fall edition to be disrupted a lot by football overruns.
• "Rules of Engagement" will be back at mid-season.

Beyond that, what strikes me is that, last year at this time, CBS was talking about how they were ready to try new and edgy shows -- a musical! a mob serial! a vampire thriller! a period drama about swingers! -- and this year they've gone back to being CBS. Probably better for everyone; I haven't watched "Swingtown" yet (because of the strike, it won't debut until next month), but "Viva Laughlin," "Cane" and "Moonlight" were all pretty awful.

I'll have a more formalized analysis of all this up hopefully later today. "Reaper" review is going to have to wait, maybe until tomorrow, as I didn't get to see it yet and don't think the computer in our New York office is optimal for streaming video.