CBS Orders 8 New Series for the Fall : Television: ABC and NBC will be vying for second place, the programming chief of the No. 3 network vows.

Brashly predicting it will win next season’s ratings race, last-place CBS on Friday announced a fall schedule of eight new series, including comedies with Twiggy and Redd Foxx and a weekly hour revue with Carol Burnett, who was swiped from NBC.

CBS, with such hits as “Murphy Brown” and “Designing Women,” was the only network to increase its overall prime-time rating in this past season’s closely bunched network race.

And CBS Entertainment President Jeff Sagansky said, upon releasing his new schedule, that “this should be the breakthrough year,” with the lineup bolstered by such blockbuster sports events as the Super Bowl, the Winter Olympics and the World Series.

“The other networks will be in a neck-and-neck race for second place,” Sagansky said during a satellite news conference. “We have the schedule and the pieces to be No. 1 next year, and I’ll be disappointed if we aren’t. I think we’re in a position to take it all.”

CBS was the last of the networks to unveil its fall, 1991, schedule this week.

Boasting that the network is also bringing back TV’s top new drama series, “Northern Exposure” and “The Trials of Rosie O’Neill,” Sagansky took a swipe at Angst -ridden shows, a thinly veiled reference to “thirtysomething,” which ABC canceled this week with the odd statement that it felt bad about killing a great show.

While noting that “Rosie O’Neill” would be strengthened next season with Ed Asner joining Sharon Gless in the cast, Sagansky avoided mentioning that the series’ new time slot, at 9 p.m. Thursdays, puts it directly against TV’s top-rated show, “Cheers.”

CBS series from last season that have been dropped include “Uncle Buck,” “Dallas,” “The Flash,” ’WIOU,” “Lenny,” “Over My Dead Body,” “The Hogan Family,” “E.A.R.T.H. Force,” “Broken Badges,” “You Take the Kids,” “Sons & Daughters,” “The Antagonists,” “Bagdad Cafe,” “Doctor, Doctor” and the Farrah Fawcett-Ryan O’Neal sitcom “Good Sports.”

However, “The Family Man,” a sitcom with Gregory Harrison that also fared weakly, will likely be back at mid-season, CBS said. Another possible mid-season entry is Steven Spielberg’s animated series, “Family Dog.”

Sagansky predicted that the new, half-hour comedy-drama “Brooklyn Bridge,” formerly titled “My Grandmother’s House,” will be “the best new show of the fall.” Bought without a pilot from “Family Ties” creator Gary David Goldberg, the series is about a three-generation family in Brooklyn in 1956.

“It is,” said CBS, “the story of a family and an era when neighborhood streets were safe, doctors made house calls and the door was always open to friends and neighbors.”

Sagansky said “we couldn’t believe” that NBC had let Carol Burnett get away, “and we put on a full-court press. We were very fortunate to pick up Carol Burnett.”

The actress/variety star had wanted to expand her successful, half-hour NBC comedy anthology, “Carol & Company,” into a one-hour sketch-revue series, but NBC said no.

Burnett previously starred for 12 years in a CBS variety series, and Sagansky’s announcement Friday said that one of the network’s four goals this season was to “bring Carol Burnett back to the network where she belongs.” Said Burnett: “I’m looking forward to going back there.”

CBS’ eight new series include four comedies, two dramas, “The Carol Burnett Show” and a third night of movies--on Saturdays--which the network denied was the result of unsuccessful development of new weekly shows.

Besides “Brooklyn Bridge,” Burnett and the new movie night, CBS’ new entries include:

* “Princesses,” a sitcom with Twiggy, Julie Hagerty and Fran Drescher as three women who share a New York apartment.

* “The Royal Family,” a sitcom from Eddie Murphy Productions starring Foxx and Della Reese as a couple whose plans for a quiet retirement are “turned upside down when their daughter and her three children . . . move in with them.” Sagansky said the show is “the best-testing comedy in years.”

* “Teech,” a sitcom about a young, black music teacher (Phill Lewis) “who finds a new position at an exclusive--and all-white--private boarding school for boys.”

* “Palace Guard,” an hour drama about “a master hotel thief” (D.W. Moffett) who becomes security chief for an international chain of luxury resorts.

* “P.S. I Luv U,” a weekly hour about “a beautiful con artist-turned-informant (Connie Sellecca) and a New York cop (Greg Evigan) who are forced to pose as husband and wife in the witness protection program--in Palm Springs.”

CBS, which did not win a single week in the ratings in the 1989-90 season, gained impetus during the past season when it won seven weeks and placed second eight times. In addition, CBS’ new late-night action series, under the overall title of “Crime Time After Prime Time,” have increased viewership.

The gains are critical for CBS, which is suffering severe financial problems and has slashed the staff and budget of its news department.

Here is the CBS night-by-night lineup for fall:

Sunday: “60 Minutes,” “Murder, She Wrote,” “Sunday Movie.”

Monday: “Evening Shade,” “Major Dad,” “Murphy Brown,” “Designing Women,” “Northern Exposure.”

Tuesday: “Rescue 911,” “Tuesday Movie.”

Wednesday: “The Royal Family,” “Teech,” “Jake and the Fatman,” “48 Hours.”

Thursday: “Top Cops,” “The Trials of Rosie O’Neill,” “Knots Landing.”

Friday: “Princesses,” “Brooklyn Bridge,” “The Carol Burnett Show,” “Palace Guard.”

Saturday: “Saturday Movie,” “P.S. I Luv U.”