NBC Lays Down Law for Fall

The network on Monday unveiled three new dramas and three new comedies, including the expansion of two of its franchises, Law & Order and British game-show import Weakest Link, while officially dumping three rookie comedies and its Sunday Night Movie.

Not too surprisingly, NBC has put The Weber Show, DAG and The Fighting Fitzgeralds out of their misery. In their place comes a sitcom starring Food Network chef Emeril Lagasse (of "Bam!" fame), crime dramas galore on Sundays and Mondays, and Weakest Link's Anne Robinson pulling a Regis by expanding from one to two nights.

NBC is hoping to keep its fingernail grip on first place among adults 18-49, the demographic prized by advertisers. With the XFL now a painful memory, the network will move its movie night to the Saturday slot previously occupied by the failed football league. "I guarantee you we will do better on Saturday nights this season," NBC Entertainment President Jeff Zucker said, only half-joking.

Thursday nights, meanwhile, will remain untouched--save for The Weber Show, which will be replaced by Inside Schwartz, a new sitcom starring Breckin Meyer (Go, Road Trip). The network no doubt hopes Schwartz will do a better job fending off CBS' Survivor when the reality spectacle returns to the schedule in October.

A brief look at NBC's new series:

Emeril: The superstar chef teams up with Designing Women executive producers Linda Bloodworth-Thomason and Harry Thomason for a sitcom taking a backstage look at Lagasse's cooking show and his life.
Law & Order: Criminal Intent: Executive producer Dick Wolf's latest L&O spinoff examines the criminal's perspective, with Vincent D'Onofrio starring as homicide investigator Robert Goren. Kathryn Erbe (of HBO's Oz) plays his partner.
Crossing Jordan: Did we mention there's no escaping Law & Order? Former L&O costar Jill Hennessy returns to series television in this one-hour drama, playing a "sexy and brilliant yet irascible" Boston medical examiner who takes her old job with the Massachusetts State Coroner's Office and reunites with her ex-cop dad (Ken Howard).
UC: Undercover: Jon Seda (of Homicide fame) stars as a member of an elite Justice Department crimefighting unit that goes under cover to fight the bad guys. Boston Public's Courtney B. Vance costars as a legal eagle District Attorney.
Scrubs: Think funny ER, as Spin City executive producer Bill Lawrence presents a comedy revolving around young medical interns, starring Zach Braff, Donald Faison (Felicity, Remember the Titans) and Sarah Chalke (Roseanne).
Inside Schwartz: Taking the coveted (and downright scary) post-Friends position is this new comedy from Stephen Engel (Just Shoot Me), starring Breckin Meyer as an obsessed minor-league baseball announcer whose thoughts are taken up by conversations with sports figures and personal life play-by-play.

NBC also has a batch of midseason shows in the pipeline, including What Are You Thinking?, a sitcom from Mad About You executive producer/writer Seth Kurland and director Barnet Kellman starring Hank Azaria as a comedy writer with marital woes who uses a fantasy world (this time, not involving sports) to deal with his issues. Katey Sagal (Married...With Children), Jayne Brook (The District) and Joshua Molina (Sports Night) costar.

Leap of Faith, another comedy, comes from Sex and the City executive producer Jenny Bicks, and stars Gretchen Egolf (The Talented Mr. Ripley) as a woman who faces a pre-marriage crisis and takes off to continue searching for a man. The show also stars Lisa Edelstein (The West Wing), Regina King (Jerry Maguire) and Brian A. Green (yup, the A. is for Austin, from 90210).

Meanwhile, Julia Louis-Dreyfus' much-anticipated post-Seinfeld return to TV is set for a midseason bow. The untitled Carsey-Werner-Mandabach project stars Dreyfus as a lounge singer who lives above L.A.'s Sunset Strip, with the action taking place in real time over 22 minutes.

The following is a night-by-night look at the network's new-look fall schedule:

MONDAY: Weakest Link, Third Watch, Crossing Jordan
TUESDAY: Emeril, Three Sisters, Frasier, Scrubs, Dateline
WEDNESDAY: Ed, The West Wing, Law & Order
THURSDAY: Friends, Inside Schwartz, Will & Grace, Just Shoot Me, ER
FRIDAY: Providence, Dateline, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
SATURDAY: NBC Saturday Night Movie
SUNDAY: Dateline, Weakest Link, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, UC: Undercover