TV

NEW YORK — ABC will introduce only two new series in the fall, one of them scripted, in a schedule the network admits was severely affected by the 100-day TV writers strike.

The new David E. Kelley-produced drama, Life on Mars, is about a police detective transported back to 1973. ABC gave it a plum Thursday time slot following Grey's Anatomy.

The second new series, Opportunity Knocks, is a game where producers show up at a home with a truckload of prizes and quiz family members on what they know about each other.

ABC is also picking up the NBC comedy Scrubs for midseason. ABC Entertainment President Stephen McPherson, who has feuded with his NBC counterpart Ben Silverman, noted Tuesday that the comedy had 17 different time slots at NBC and received little promotion.

McPherson has been bold in the past in bringing forward new shows: ABC had eight last fall. But the strike impaired development. ABC has 17 series in development for midseason or beyond, but McPherson said he wasn't comfortable committing to new series unless pilots had been filmed.

"If you needed a ton of development for the fall schedule, the strike would have been a really bad bet," he said. "You'd have to rush it or put stuff on before you knew what it was."

The result is another chance for series that in normal years may not have gotten one, such as Eli Stone, Pushing Daisies or Dirty Sexy Money. Some

longer-running shows considered on the bubble, Boston Legal and According to Jim, were kept in production.

Lost will be back in midseason next year.

It was a good day for Ashton Kutcher, too. His production company is behind Opportunity Knocks and an untitled beauty pageant picked up for midseason. ABC also gave a midseason go-ahead to a Mike Judge animated series, The Goode Family, about people obsessed with doing the right thing.

Notes From the Underbelly, October Road and Women's Murder Club were left off ABC's schedule.

News programming was absent from the schedule, with the exception of the occasional Primetime series that sets up social situations and tests how people react.

Broadcast networks will need to make a special effort this fall to counter lingering effects of the strike, he said. ABC plans to devote more promotional time than it normally does to returning shows instead of new series, he said.

"We certainly saw the effect of the strike," McPherson said. "People found other things to do."

NEW YORK — CBS has given a new lease on life to Julia Louis-Dreyfus' comedy The New Adventures of Old Christine and, perhaps thanks to Britney Spears, the sitcom How I Met Your Mother.

They were among four series considered on the bubble for renewal that CBS informed producers will be back next season, according to a Hollywood executive who is familiar with CBS' planning and spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid pre-empting a public announcement (likely to occur today).

Louis-Dreyfus won an Emmy award for her role as a divorcee who was traded in for a younger wife on Christine. Despite the acclaim, the show's ratings had not been enough to guarantee success.

How I Met Your Mother was boosted by two guest appearances by the troubled pop singer this spring, a role she is reprising.

CBS has also renewed the comedy Rules of Engagement and the drama The Unit.

LOS ANGELES — Kelsey Grammer said Tuesday that Fox is dropping his sitcom Back to You, calling the decision a surprise and a shame.

"They have let it go," Grammer told The Associated Press. "We were told all this time we were in good shape and we were coming back."

On Friday, Grammer taped an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel's talk show promoting the series. When the veteran sitcom star arrived home later that evening he received a call telling him that the show was canceled.

Back to You, co-starring Patricia Heaton and set in a Pittsburgh TV station newsroom, debuted strongly last fall with nearly 9.5 million viewers. But its audience has slipped, with last week's episode drawing just under 7 million viewers.