WITH 'EARL,' 'OFFICE,' COMEDY RULES NBC'S THURSDAY LINEUP.

Byline: David Kronke TV Critic

STARTING TONIGHT, NBC restores comedy to the dominant position on its ``Must-See Thursday'' lineup by moving reality programming off the evening. It's also a huge gamble, as it pits its freshman hit ``My Name Is Earl'' and ``The Office,'' which has slowly but surely improved in the ratings, against TV's biggest blockbuster, ``CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,'' on rival network CBS.

``Earl'' and ``The Office'' easily make up network TV's brightest hour of comedy. ``Earl,'' starring Jason Lee as a lowlife who divined the secrets of the universe via watching Carson Daly, concerns his ongoing quest to improve his life by providing compensation to all those he sinned against in the past. With his incredibly dim brother Randy (Ethan Suplee) covering his back and his ex-wife Joy (Jaime Pressly) down his throat, this quest can go less than smoothly.

Tonight, Earl tries to make amends for burning down a barn at a ranch for troubled kids in his youth, and he makes Randy work harder than usual. But the priceless stuff here is inspired visual gags - winning a rat from a claw-arcade game, a duckling chasing a fearful boy, bratty kids trashing the house during a game of indoor baseball.

Next week, Earl temporarily takes a job at a burger shack and is roundly bullied by his boss, which confuses his Carson Daly worldview: ``Karma should be kicking the crap out of that guy,'' he opines. Eventually it does, and quite amusingly.

Meanwhile, the pleasures offered by ``The Office'' tend to be more subtle and more wince-inducing, with Michael Scott (Steve Carell) continuing his reign (despite what his coffee mug may say) as World's Most Clueless Boss. Tonight, he takes the office on one of those routinely disastrous morale-boosters, a ``booze cruise'' on a frigid lake. Let's just say that Carell's spastic dance sequence is almost as excruciatingly funny as Ricky Gervais' was on the original British ``Office.''

The unrequited romance between Pam (Jenna Fisher) and Jim (John Krasinski) takes a dramatic turn, one which gets even messier next week. As Jim opines, ``I confided in the world's worst confidante.''

Hey, you know they're going to solve whatever the crime is on ``CSI,'' but both ``Earl'' and ``Office'' are so unpredictable, you're never quite sure how these poor boobs will humiliate themselves in any given week. So that would seem to make Earl and Michael Scott your better entertainment value, something you don't need Gil Grissom's infrared gizmo to figure out.

David Kronke, [phone]

david.kronke(at)dailynews.com

MY NAME IS EARL - Three and one half stars

What: Jason Lee seeks redemption by righting his past wrongs, usually wrongheadedly.

Where: NBC (Channel 4).

When: 9 tonight.

In a nutshell: Priceless sight gags; goofy premises and even a few sweet moments.

THE OFFICE - Three stars

What: Steve Carell mismanages a paper company's branch office exquisitely.

Where: NBC (Channel 4).

When: 9:30 tonight.

In a nutshell: Wince. Laugh. Repeat.