It's a big TV Thursday we've got here, with some good new shows, one really bad one and CBS' "CSI" kicking off its season and its long goodbye to Grissom.

Most "CSI" fans know William Petersen is leaving the show after 10 episodes and Laurence Fishburne is joining the cast. That road begins tonight (at 8 on Channel 13) as the gang works on Warrick's shooting, a development so shocking even Sara (Jorja Fox) returns to pitch in. Also, CBS wanted the splash.

In new series action tonight, the good news comes from two dramas, and the shocking development here is that both are based on British shows – yet neither CBS nor ABC screwed theirs up.

CBS' entry is "Eleventh Hour" (at 9), a better-than-it-should-be procedural about a biophysicist (Rufus Sewell) who helps the FBI fight crimes of science. Don't ask for a definition.

The good scientist, Jacob Hood, is smart and forceful and also something of a savant who's at times defenseless in the cold, cruel world. So he's helped/guarded by an FBI agent (Marley Shelton), who'd rather be doing something else. She's tough and, though not entirely skeptical, a bit of Scully to his Mulder.

The BBC series was sleek and spooky, and CBS could easily have botched the translation. It lost most of the British wit but kept the sleekness and bravura pacing that CBS' crime shows in general, and producer Jerry Bruckheimer's crime shows in particular, manage so well.

And Sewell adds an intensity that's finely modulated. Tonight's opener involves cloning and is more than creepy. Next week's is worse, revolving around 11-year-olds getting heart attacks. Yet Sewell gives you reasons to watch, and Shelton fits with him nicely.

ABC follows (at 10 on Channel 10) with "Life on Mars," the other BBC remake, about Sam Tyler (Jason O'Mara), a modern New York detective who's somehow transported by a car crash back to 1973.

One of the things that makes this all work is that Sam is as confused, contrary and unbelieving as viewers will be. He thinks maybe he's dreaming, or in coma, or maybe he really did fall back three and a half decades.

The show deftly handles the subtle comedy of transposing a cell phone-wielding, forensically oriented cop into the bare-knuckles era and mind-set of "Starsky and Hutch." Part of its trick is to roll out semi-clichés, like Harvey Keitel as the old-school, grumpy lieutenant, and let them play on the differences of the times, or on the stereotypes of the times.

Michael Imperioli is just as good as the cop with attitude, because in '70's storytelling, all cops had attitude, not to mention sideburns and a mustache to behold.

That "Life on Mars" came out this good, particularly with loads of off-camera problems early on, is one of the better surprises this season.

One of the bigger disappointment is NBC's "Kath & Kim" (at 8:30.m. on Channel 3). It stars Molly Shannon and Selma Blair in a remake of a popular Australian comedy, but it feels more like a looooong "Saturday Night Live" skit.

It's about 40-something Kath (Shannon) and her 20-something daughter (Blair) living together again as Kath finds a new romance and Kim is dumping her husband. Both are monumentally self-involved, clueless and relentlessly optimistic based on their lack of understanding of pretty much everything.

The Aussie version struck an enjoyably dopey, almost "Absolutely Fabulous," tone around their infatuation with celebrity, youth and fabulousness. This version misses by just enough to be silly and repetitive.

You get a sense of what "Kath & Kim" could be in small moments here and there, but mostly, it just delivers a weak sitcom.

What'd They Do to My Shows?

• In what is not a surprise, HBO renewed "Entourage" for a sixth season, and barring some new Hollywood strike or similar disaster, new episodes should air next summer.

• Fox picked up "Fringe" for a full season. Most network shows start their lives with an order of 13 episodes, and this means the network will make 22 installments of the series.

• CBS ordered more scripts for "The Mentalist" and is "that close" to ordering a full season of the highest-rated new series so far this fall.

• FX announced it will make a second season of the biker drama "Sons of Anarchy."

Most cable series run 13-episode seasons, not the network 22, and FX said another round of 13 hours will be produced for sometime in 2009.

• Finally, in another case of TV giveth and TV taketh, FX has canceled "The Riches" after two seasons. For fans, that means no follow-up to the season-ending cliff- hanger.

Call The Bee's Rick Kushman, (916) 321-1187. Listen to him Thursdays at 8:40 a.m. on NewsTalk 1530 (KFBK) and 8:50 a.m. on Armstrong & Getty, Talk 650 KSTE.