When her daughter was born, Sara Gilbert felt overwhelmed.

"Was I giving the baby enough attention?" she wondered. "Was I giving my son (who was 3 at the time) enough attention?"

Gilbert, an actress best known for playing Darlene Connor on "Roseanne," joined a mothers group and found reassurance. She also found the idea for "The Talk," a motherhood-centric chat show that arrived on CBS this week.

"It was sort of like a light bulb," Gilbert says. "I thought, 'What if there were a show where a bunch of women sat together and talked about the world through that perspective?'"

Gilbert took her idea to CBS, which was looking for a new daytime hour to replace "As the World Turns." CBS Entertainment president Nina Tassler, who was a teenage Gilbert's agent 25 years ago, loved the pitch.

"I don't think there is a place you can go in this country right now where you don't see an article about a new mother and a child, a parent and a child, a parenting relationship," Tassler says. "We certainly think it's in the zeitgeist."

Before it even had a name, "The Talk" was dismissed as a knockoff of ABC's "The View."

On top of that, Gilbert courted controversy by landing Julie Chen, the "Early Show" anchor who married CBS boss Les Moonves in 2004, as one of the hosts.

"Yes, there are several women sitting around a table, but in the same way that David Letterman sits at a desk," Gilbert told TV critics when CBS introduced "The Talk" this summer. "There are formats that people use in talk shows, and we're using one of those."

As for Chen, Gilbert suggested her and couldn't believe she said yes. "I was so thrilled," Gilbert says.

Chen says she will give up hosting "The Early Show" for "The Talk" ("that would be too much even for the Chenbot," she jokes) but will keep her "Big Brother" job.

Actress Marissa Jaret Winokur will be the "field reporter" and in the studio for some topics.

The three big talkers are actress Leah Remini, actress Holly Robinson Peete and former talk show host (and "Osbournes" star) Sharon Osbourne.

Peete has been on television for 30 years, she says, "but in my role as a mom of four, all I do all day is talk about mom stuff. So this was a natural fit."

Osbourne comes to the show from the perspective of having grown children and a husband she describes as perfect.

Gilbert is the wild card in the group. Before "The Talk," she had been quiet about her life, and many people don't know she's a lesbian who shares two children with Allison Adler, her partner of eight years. (Adler gave birth to the first and Gilbert the second.)

Gilbert wasn't sure, in the weeks before "The Talk" arrived, how much attention the show would focus on her life, but expects to find out soon.

"This is a whole new world for me," she says.