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The CBS Evening News With Katie Couric

 (News -- CBS, Tue. Sept. 5, 6:30 p.m. ET)

By BRIAN LOWRY

Katie Couric's debut looked a lot like a traditional newscast.

Broadcast from New York by CBS News. Executive producer, Rome Hartman; senior broadcast producer, Bill Owens; broadcast producer, Chris Dinan; directors, Steve Besner, Eric Shapiro; news editor, Jerry Cipriano.
 

This review was updated at 7:11 p.m.

Not to be a killjoy, but the most notable aspect of the "CBS Evening News" in Katie Couric's much-ballyhooed debut Tuesday was that the new news looks quite a lot like the old news.

Indeed, beyond the minor cosmetic changes, the revamped "Evening News" -- at least in this long-awaited first view of its work-in-progress format -- in most ways mirrored the traditional template, down even to film composer James Horner's theme, which sounded much like the previous fanfare.

Sure, there was some pandering to the Internet-conversant -- including three cues directing people to CBS' Web site, one of them to submit possible signoffs for the anchor -- and a catchy little opinion segment titled "freeSpeech," with filmmaker Morgan Spurlock delivering the feel-good homily that Americans get along better than cable news would suggest.

Of course, no one watching CBS leading up to the big event could have viewed the shift as anything but momentous.

"Katie's on our team now," gushed "The Early Show's" Harry Smith on Tuesday morning, teasing his interview with CBS' anchor-elect by saying, "She's clearly up to it."

Smith's review was not only a tad premature, it was also unnecessary. That Couric knows her way around a newscast wasn't the issue. The more intriguing question was whether CBS would make good on early pledges to try to reinvent the wheel, to which the answer is an unqualified "No." Instead, they have simply put a new and undeniably expensive face behind it.

Clearly wanting to front-load the telecast with a hard-news piece establishing that Couric wouldn't be in Halloween costume and makeovers mode, the broadcast opened with a solid field report by correspondent Lara Logan from Afghanistan, chronicling the resurgence of the Taliban. Here was the in-depth coverage that Couric has touted in advance interviews, though how well CBS continues to support such high-energy, high-cost endeavors will bear scrutiny.

From there, Couric rifled through the usual parade of headlines with a degree of stiffness, including a thin interview with New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman that brought some variety to the program but not much insight.

What was conspicuously lacking were any flourishes that could be seen as brazen attempts to render the news' appeal younger, hipper and, dare we say it, more feminine. (And just to dispense with the other potentially sexist bit of business that will no doubt be analyzed ad nauseam, Couric looked just fine in a white jacket. My guess is that Brian Williams and Charles Gibson both went with a jacket and tie.)

Clearly, Couric brings a touch of morning-news sensibilities to the process -- probingly asking Friedman, "Are we safer now?" in terms of terrorism, noting that "People are still talking about the terrible death" of "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin, and showcasing Vanity Fair photos of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes' elusive tot Suri. "Feeling the news at you," to quote Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert, is all the rage now, and with or without the benefit of Horner's theme one suspects Couric's heart will go on.

In the main, though, the hoopla was mostly for naught, other than sorting out the inevitable business-side ramifications of whether Couric's presence will yield a lasting ratings gain, and, perhaps more significantly, if her absence will have any impact on the more lucrative morning news competition.

Beyond that, a woman anchored the nightly news solo on Tuesday, and the republic is still standing. That's worth something, certainly, but as breakthroughs go, it's hardly Hillary in '08.