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CBS’s fall: A big job for ‘Young Sheldon’ and 5 new shows

The "Big Bang Theory" spinoff prequel takes over at 8 p.m. to anchor a Thursday with three new shows.

Iain Armitage  plays the young Sheldon Cooper and Zoe Perry plays his mom in “Young Sheldon.”
Iain Armitage plays the young Sheldon Cooper and Zoe Perry plays his mom in “Young Sheldon.”Read moreROBERT VOETS/CBS

There will be a lot riding on the slender shoulders of Young Sheldon next season.

With The Big Bang Theory bowing out Thursday night after 12 seasons, its prequel spinoff — this seasons’s second-highest-rated comedy — takes over the 8 p.m. Thursday time slot to lead off an evening in which CBS hopes to launch three of its five new shows for the fall.

Young Sheldon, an origins story for Jim Parsons’ Big Bang character, Sheldon Cooper, stars 10-year-old Iain Armitage — who’ll also be back as Ziggy Chapman in HBO’s Big Little Lies when it returns June 9 — and is narrated by Parsons. It costars Zoe Perry, the real-life daughter of Laurie Metcalf, who has frequently guest-starred as the grown Sheldon’s mother on Big Bang, as the same character. CBS has given it a two-season order.

The network Wednesday morning announced the 2019-20 schedule it would be presenting to advertisers later in the day in New York. It’s ordered eight new series, three of which are set for midseason, or as CBS is calling it, “post-fall.”

New fall dramas include All Rise, which stars Simone Missick (Luke Cage) as a former deputy district attorney and newly appointed judge in Los Angeles. Also new is Evil, a drama about investigations into the Roman Catholic Church’s “backlog of unexplained mysteries.” It’s produced by Michelle King and Robert King, the creators of The Good Wife; the stars include Mike Colter (Luke Cage, The Good Wife).

The new fall comedies are the typographically challenging Bob Abishola, from producer Chuck Lorre, starring Mike and Molly’s Billy Gardell as a businessman who falls for his cardiac nurse, a Nigerian immigrant (Folake Olowofoyeku); Carol’s Second Act, starring Patricia Heaton (The Middle, Everybody Loves Raymond) as a 50-year-old medical intern; and The Unicorn, starring Walton Goggins (Justified) as a widower and father who’s surprised to find, as his friends urge him to date again, that he’s considered the perfect single guy — “employed, attractive, and with a proven track record of commitment.”

SEAL Team, the military drama led by Malvern Prep’s David Boreanaz, was renewed last week for a third season.

The May upfronts used to be when viewers found out which of their favorite shows would and wouldn’t be back. Announcements of cancellations and renewals are now mostly made in the weeks and days before new shows are announced.

Here’s what else, other than The Big Bang Theory, won’t be back on CBS next season: Elementary (whose final season begins May 23), Fam, Happy Together, Life in Pieces, Murphy Brown, and Salvation.

Other than Young Sheldon and SEAL Team, returning shows, not all of them on the fall schedule, include The Amazing Race, Big Brother, Blue Bloods, Bull, Criminal Minds (15th and final season), FBI, God Friended Me, Hawaii Five-0, Magnum P.I., MacGyver, Madam Secretary (renewed for a sixth and final 10-episode season), Man With a Plan, Mom, NCIS, NCIS: Los Angeles, NCIS: New Orleans, The Neighborhood, Survivor, SWAT, and Undercover Boss.

A few other shows, include The Code, whose season is still airing, reportedly don’t have a verdict yet.