A shiny new 'Apple': 'Blue' co-creator brings skills to CBS show

Lots of ground to cover today, including a new show, some industry weaseling and, of course, "Survivor." Let's start with the good stuff.

That would be the new CBS series "Big Apple," premiering Thursday, a show with a great cast and a special writer.

It comes from "NYPD Blue" co-creator David Milch, one of TV's true originals, and this show has all the texture, complexity and oddly built sentences that Milch put into "Blue."

"Big Apple" feels more plot-driven than "NYPD Blue," which, in its eighth season, now relies heavily on its characters. But the New York cops we meet seem like they work for the same police force as Andy Sipowicz.

It's the story of two cops (Ed O'Neill and Jeffrey Pierce) who wind up working with the FBI, and despite a, shall we say, complicated relationship, the agents (including Titus Welliver and a terrific David Strathairn) are not the jerks they always are on "Blue."

What is consistent is Milch's twisted language -- "It speaks well of you, the address coming so quickly to mind," O'Neill tells his young partner -- and the layers of intriguing storytelling that make this look like a series with four-star possibilities.

The downside may be that "Big Apple" is part of CBS' "Survivor"-led assault on NBC's Thursday-night lineup. "Big Apple" airs at 9 p.m. in Sacramento (on Channel 13) but at 10 p.m. in most of the country, head-to-head against "ER."

"ER" has ruled TV dramas since it premiered in 1994, it is still TV's No. 1-watched series, and it's destroyed everything matched against it.

"Big Apple" is an expensive show with a big-name cast and one of TV's elite writers. CBS won't let it get killed by "ER" -- it will move the show if it needs to -- but premiering this excellent, though less-flashy, series in the teeth of that kind of competition is a big risk.

And here's the juicy part: The word is, CBS figured out that "ER" would not have a new episode ready for Thursday, so it waited as long as possible to announce "Big Apple's" March 1 premiere. But when NBC got wind of the plan, it asked "ER's" producers to hurry production of another episode, and a non-rerun is loaded up for Thursday.

Don't you just love TV programmers?