Jonathan Storm: Cops with characters, chuckles

The Unusuals

premieres tonight at 10 on 6ABC. It's a good title. They're unusual cops, working unusual cases.

And, most unusual of all, the first episode is entertaining and promising enough that viewers may get excited about seeing the second one.

Nice cast, including: Amber Tamblyn, from Joan of Arcadia, Adam Goldberg from Saving Private Ryan and A Beautiful Mind, Harold Perrineau from Lost, and Jeremy Renner, who played the gruesome man-eating title role in Dahmer.

Tamblyn's character, Casey Shraeger, is a society chick who turned her back on her people and joined the NYPD, working out of vice until she's transferred to homicide in the first 10 minutes tonight. Goldberg's Eric Delahoy apparently has terminal cancer and continually seeks to get himself killed on the job, while his partner (Perrineau) will do anything to stay alive, trying to break a curse that killed his dad and granddad at 42. He wears a bulletproof vest 24-7.

Any series that turns up on Wednesdays at 10 on ABC could use a bulletproof vest. The Unusuals replaces the sublime and just-canceled Life on Mars, which replaced the skeevy, but well-liked by many, Dirty Sexy Money, which replaced the magnificent but little-watched The Nine, which replaced the cult-hit sci-fi scare-a-thon Invasion, which replaced Wife Swap (which naturally still lingers elsewhere), which replaced the appealing Karen Sisco.

You have to go all the way back to the '80s and China Beach to find a show, other than newsmagazines, that has made it at least two seasons on ABC on Wednesdays at 10.

China Beach, The Nine, Life on Mars - this is very good TV company, in the top 40 or 50 of all the big-network dramas made in the last two decades. The Unusuals is a step below, but still different, sometimes exciting, sometimes inspiring smiles.

A criminal dressed as a hot dog in a bun demands access to the phone. "Who you gonna call?" a cop asks. "The Hamburglar?"

One officer reeks of self-righteous religiosity, trying to escape his checkered past: "I wasn't always the pillar of virtue that you see before you," he admits. "As a youth, I was prone to libations and wanton acts of teenagery."

There are cases and chases, just as in other cop shows, and mysteries to solve. Tonight, a not-so-well-respected detective turns up dead, and the police go after a cat burglar.

Who steals cats.

NYPD Blue portrayed tough New York with blue-collar cops. Law & Order hangs out more with the upper crust, pointedly keeping its characters superficial.

With neuroses enough for the whole department, the cops' characters count on The Unusuals, which works the quirks in the corners and finds something seen only sporadically on TV police drama: fun.

The Unusuals

Tonight at 10 on 6ABC