CBS bulks up on comedy, and NCIS's Michael Weatherly returns

CBS, joining ABC, is bulking up on comedy, with an eight-sitcom lineup once Thursday Night Football ends its early-fall run.

Sitcoms starring Kevin James, Matt LeBlanc and Joel McHale, a new take on MacGyver and a drama starring NCIS' Michael Weatherly are highlights of the schedule, which will see fall once again start off with The Big Bang Theory on Mondays as a launching pad for new comedies, before shifting to its usual Thursday home.

James stars as retired cop in Kevin Can Wait, while LeBlanc plays a contractor dad in Man With a Plan, another family comedy. And Weatherly, who exited NCIS Tuesday, will play a young version of Dr. Phil McGraw as a trial consultant in Bull, which gets top-rated NCIS as a lead-in on Tuesdays. McHale won the post-Big Bang slot on Thursday with comedy The Great Indoors, as an adventure journalist who becomes boss to a group of "eager Millennials." And Pure Genius is a new medical drama starring Dermot Mulroney.

Other schedule moves include the shift of Scorpion later on Mondays, a move of NCIS: Los Angeles to Sundays, and holding back The Amazing Race from the fall schedule in favor of MacGyver, the 1985-92 series about an inventive problem solver. CBS also plans a spinoff of The Good Wife starring Christine Baranski, but it will appear online only on the network's streaming app, next year. On tap for midseason: Doubt, a legal drama starring Katherine Heigl and Laverne Cox; the return of spinoff Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders; and Training Day, another sequel to a feature film.

CBS, which aired this year's Super Bowl, remains the top-rated network, and this year also reclaimed the young-adult crown from NBC.  Among cancellations are CSI: Cyber, The Good Wife, and first-year series Limitless, Rush Hour and Angel From Hell. CBS Studios is trying to sell Limitless to a streaming service.

CBS' fall schedule (all times ET/PT; new shows in bold; new time slots in italics):

Monday: 8 p.m.: The Big Bang Theory/Kevin Can Wait; 8:30 p.m.: Kevin Can Wait/Man With a Plan; 9 p.m.: 2 Broke Girls; 9:30 p.m.: The Odd Couple; 10 p.m.: Scorpion

Tuesday: 8 p.m.: NCIS; 9 p.m.: Bull; 10 p.m.: NCIS: New Orleans

Wednesday 8 p.m.: Survivor; 9 p.m.: Criminal Minds; 10 p.m.: Code Black

Thursday: 8 p.m.: Thursday Night Football/Oct. 27: 8 p.m.: The Big Bang Theory; 8:30 p.m.: The Great Indoors; 9 p.m.: Mom; 9:30 p.m.: Life in Pieces; 10 p.m.: Pure Genius)

Friday: 8 p.m.: MacGyver: 9 p.m.: Hawaii Five-0; 10 p.m.: Blue Bloods.

Saturday: 8 p.m.: Drama repeats; 10 p.m.: 48 Hours

Sunday: 7 p.m.: 60 Minutes; 8 p.m.: NCIS: Los Angeles; 9 p.m.: Madam Secretary; 10 p.m.: Elementary