New CBS cop series has bite but... It's still an apple

CBS has taken a big bite out of NBC's once invincible Thursday night lineup with Survivor and CSI: Crime Scene Investigations. Now they're about to toss a Big Apple against ER.

Canadians get a sneak peak at the gritty cop drama tonight at 10 p.m. on CTV. CBS has it Thursdays at 10 p.m.

Big Apple has a big pedigree. The executive producers are former NYPD Blue boss David Milch and ex-Miami Vice whiz Anthony Yerkovich. It stars former Married...with Children slob Ed O'Neill as Det. Mike Mooney, a cynical veteran who is teamed with an ambitious young partner (newcomer Jeffrey Pierce).

The pilot show opens with an aerial view of a brutal Manhattan highrise homicide. At first, it seems a bit jarring to see Al Bundy on the case. However, it takes about five seconds for gruff and rumpled O'Neill to shed his clownish Married ..with Children skin.

The two 11th Precinct cops stumble onto a major clue in an FBI investigation and are co-opted onto the case by the Feds, led by high level agents William Preecher (L.A. Confidential's David Strathairn) and Jimmy Flynn (Titus Welliver, who was the best part of last summer's short-lived mob drama Falcone).

The nasty bad guys are played by Michael Madsen (Reservoir Dogs) and Mark Wahlberg's kid brother Donnie (The Sixth Sense). The pilot was directed by a former TV cop, Hill Street Blue's Charlie Haid, who makes good use of the many New York and borough exteriors.

Mooney's not too happy to be trading in his messy precinct desk for his tony new FBI digs. "You know what this buys us, Mike?" he asks his partner. "Knee pads. Federal knee pads."

Before you can say "sure 'n begorra," the two Irish boys, Mooney and Flynn, butt heads.

At a CBS press conference last month in Los Angeles, Milch described Mooney as "a creature of shortcomings and passions." It sounds a lot like Sipowicz (or a dozen other TV cop characters), which is a problem for Big Apple: How to escape NYPD Blue's long shadow.

Milch insists that the shows are different. While Blue tends to stick to one case, "Big Apple generated multiple storylines, multiple perspectives," he told critics.

He also said that "the theme of the show is really about how information sometimes fails to become understanding." Then he quickly added, "but don't print a word of that because nobody will watch."

Big Apple deserves a look. It's well-written and well-cast. But Milch may find, as his old partner Steven Bochco did a few seasons ago with Brooklyn South, that no matter how well placed, there are already too many cops on the TV beat.