Backstrom

What you’ll see is the best broadcast TV cop drama of the season, with a dirty-to-the-touch sleuth played to the hilt by an actor who’s very much up for this.

Viewers may be attracted to Backstrom because of its charming supporting players as much as its abrasive hero. The whole thing grew on me in the course of three episodes provided for preview.

The climax is predictable, but the epilogue is not anything you’d find on a CBS procedural and suggests how good this show and Wilson could be.

Shepherded along by “Bones’” Hart Hanson, this is the sort of meat-and-potatoes drama that doesn’t feel distinctive enough to do much more than tread water on Fox, even with “American Idol’s” kick-start.

Backstrom isn't edgy; he's a formulaic anti-hero with too much emphasis on the anti- and very little evidence of the hero.

Wilson plays the disenchanted slob well. But it’s not long before the politically incorrect insults and Backstrom’s general misanthropy start to lose their impact, and the cop stuff feels formulaic enough that there seems little reason to hop aboard his train.

This is one of those shows where one starts to feel bad for the ensemble, as they trudge through bad scripts, doing all they can to elevate it but sinking into the generic quicksand as Wilson over-acts his way into cancellation.