CBS locked in its fall 2026 premiere dates this week, becoming the third broadcast network, after NBC and FOX, to finalize a schedule for the coming season.
CBS Entertainment President Amy Reisenbach set the tone for that schedule back in April, when the network first revealed its shape: “We have a triple threat and are not going to mess with perfection,” she said of keeping MARSHALS and TRACKER anchored on Sunday nights behind 60 MINUTES.
Reality television gets the head start this year. SURVIVOR kicks off its 51st season on Wednesday, Sept. 23, with THE AMAZING RACE following on Sept. 30 and again the next night, tied to the BIG BROTHER finale.
The bulk of CBS’s scripted lineup arrives during what the network calls Premiere Week, Oct. 4 through 9. MARSHALS and TRACKER, last season’s two most-watched shows on network television outside of live sports, open the week Sunday behind 60 MINUTES. FBI and CIA follow Monday, each bumped up an hour to fill the slot once held by CBS’s canceled Monday comedies, with HARLAN COBEN’S FINAL TWIST behind them.
Tuesday belongs entirely to the NCIS franchise. NCIS returns for a 24th season, this time with Michael Weatherly back in the fold, followed by the new spinoff NCIS: NEW YORK, starring LL Cool J and Scott Caan, and then NCIS: ORIGINS, which brings back Mark Harmon and tells Gibbs’ origin story.
Thursday introduces two of CBS’s three new fall series.
ETERNALLY YOURS, a comedy about a 500-year-old vampire marriage from the team behind GHOSTS, airs after GEORGIE & MANDY’S FIRST MARRIAGE, while CUPERTINO, a David-versus-Goliath legal drama from EVIL and THE GOOD WIFE creators Robert and Michelle King, closes the night behind ELSBETH. Mike Colter stars as a lawyer who takes on a Silicon Valley giant after being cheated out of his stock options, joined by Rachel Keller as a fellow ousted attorney. Friday brings back the SHERIFF COUNTRY, FIRE COUNTRY and BOSTON BLUE block, a trio Reisenbach has credited with keeping CBS the top network in viewers on Friday nights for 16 straight years.
Not everything is rushing back this fall. MATLOCK and GHOSTS, both bona fide hits for the network, are held for midseason, along with NCIS: SYDNEY and the new Matthew Gray Gubler comedy-drama EINSTEIN. GHOSTS fans won’t go entirely without their fix, though: one-hour Halloween and Christmas specials air Oct. 29 and Dec. 10, both counting toward the show’s 22-episode order before Season 6 proper begins in early 2027.
It’s a schedule built almost entirely around family and community, even in a season with fewer half-hour comedies than CBS has aired in years.
NCIS, FBI, MARSHALS and TRACKER are, at bottom, stories about people who run toward danger for the sake of others, while FIRE COUNTRY, SHERIFF COUNTRY and BOSTON BLUE dramatize small towns and precincts looking out for their own.
CUPERTINO’s little-guy-versus-corporate-giant premise taps into a sense of justice that scripture takes seriously too, the idea that the powerful don’t get to walk over the vulnerable unchallenged. Parents weighing what to record this fall will still want to preview ETERNALLY YOURS for themselves, since a comedy built around vampire marriage carries different concerns than a procedural, even a lighthearted one. But for families who’ve stuck with CBS’s crime dramas year after year, this fall mostly asks for patience, not a farewell, since MATLOCK and GHOSTS are coming back. They’re just coming back a little later.
