CBS Fall 2026: NCIS Hits Season 24, a Vampire Sitcom Joins the Lineup, and the Machine Keeps Humming

CBS's fall premiere week begins Sunday, October 4, and if you want to understand what broadcast television is in 2026, you could do worse than reading the schedule like a balance sheet. Marshals returns for Season 2 and Tracker for Season 4 to kick things off; Fire Country starts its fifth season on October 9. Survivor premiered its 51st season on September 23; The Amazing Race premiered its 39th on September 30. These are not shows. These are annuities.

Sunday night sets the tone. 60 Minutes leads at 7 p.m., then Marshals Season 2 at 8:30 and Tracker Season 4 at 9:30 — the two action hours CBS is betting on to anchor the night. Monday, October 5 is the FBI block: FBI Season 9 at 8, CIA Season 2 at 9, and Harlan Coben's Final Twist Season 2 at 10. If your television diet is procedurals, CBS just meal-prepped your entire week.

But Tuesday, October 6 is the headline act: all-NCIS night. NCIS Season 24 at 8 — let that sit for a moment, a procedural drama entering its twenty-fourth season on the same network, in an era when streaming series get nervous after three. At 9 comes the new blood: NCIS: New York, the franchise's newest sibling, premiering into the strongest lead-in on television. NCIS: Origins Season 3 closes the night at 10. One franchise, three shows, one night — with NCIS: Sydney renewed and banked for midseason as the relief pitcher. This is the universe strategy streaming is just now discovering, except CBS has been running it since before some of its viewers were born.

Thursday, October 8 is where the fall gets interesting, because that's new-show night. Georgie & Mandy's First Marriage opens with Season 3 at 8, Elsbeth returns for Season 4 at 9 — and in between and after, two series premieres that tell you exactly where CBS thinks the audience is.

At 8:30: Eternally Yours, the vampire sitcom. Yes, really — and yes, it's as good as the premise sounds. Charles and Liz (Ed Weeks and Allegra Edwards) are vampires living in present-day Seattle who have been married for five hundred years — they made the vow in 1526 — and the novelty has long since worn off. Their daughter Emma (Helen J. Shen) brings home Max (Jaren Lewison), her fully human boyfriend, and the family has to figure out whether love can actually survive forever or whether forever turns intimacy into a life sentence. It comes from Joe Port and Joe Wiseman — the Ghosts showrunners — and it's already building a shared supernatural universe: Widow's Bay star Jeff Hiller guest-stars as Aldrict, a troublemaker with a history with Liz, in the October 22 episode "The Mistake." A vampire family comedy from the Ghosts team, expanding the Ghosts universe, airing right before Elsbeth. That's not a timeslot. That's a strategy.

At 10: Cupertino, the new legal drama with Evil star Mike Colter as a wronged lawyer who partners with a promising young attorney (Rachel Keller) to take on the giants of Silicon Valley — David vs. Goliath with server farms. Friday, October 9 closes premiere week with the first-responder block: Sheriff Country Season 2 at 8, Fire Country Season 5 at 9, Boston Blue Season 2 at 10. And Saturday, October 10, 48 Hours opens Season 39 at 10 p.m. — a newsmagazine old enough to have covered stories your parents watched live.

The midseason holds are the other tell. Ghosts, Matlock, and NCIS: Sydney are all renewed and all being held until midseason — not canceled, not in trouble, just parked. And Ghosts fans aren't exactly suffering: a two-episode Halloween special airs Thursday, October 29 at 9 p.m., and a two-episode "Ghostsmas" special follows Thursday, December 10 at 9. Then there's Einstein, the midseason newcomer with Criminal Minds' Matthew Gray Gubler as the brilliant but directionless great-grandson of Albert Einstein, solving crimes with a local detective (Brooklyn Nine-Nine's Melissa Fumero). This is the part of the broadcast machine the streaming era never replicated: the ability to bank proven shows and deploy them in January like a relief pitcher.

There's also the quiet second screen in all of this: Paramount+. Every one of these shows streams next-day on Paramount+ with any plan, and Premium subscribers get the local CBS station live — which means the broadcast schedule now doubles as a streaming content calendar. CBS isn't fighting the streaming era anymore; it's feeding it, one procedural at a time, and the ratings for the live premieres still move the needle in a way no algorithm can fake.

So the 2026–27 CBS thesis is simple. Anchor every night with something that has worked for years. Launch the new shows in the slipstream. Keep the bench deep enough that January feels like a second premiere week. Survivor at 51 seasons. NCIS at 24. A vampire marriage at 500 years. The numbers are absurd, and they're the point — in a business that eats its young, CBS keeps feeding the old lions, and the old lions keep eating. Browse what's on in our TV section and keep it locked to the newsroom as premiere week unfolds.