Backstrom

Unfortunately, in the first episode, the show overdoes Backstrom's unlikability to the point where it's an open question whether viewers will return to see subsequent episodes, where he becomes less hard to take, and we learn more about why he is the way he is.... The more encouraging news is that judging from two additional episodes made available for preview, Backstrom--which is based on a series of novels written by Swedish criminologist Leif G.W. Persson--calms down and gets better as it goes along.

Unlike "The Office," Backstrom hasn't yet fleshed out the supporting characters to water down Wilson's well-oiled obnoxiousness generator. Once it stops explaining everyone's backstory--why is he so bitter? why is she so naive? why are the firefighters evil?--Backstrom might turn into a decent chase for the bad guy of the week.

As beloved as Mr. Wilson is from “The Office,” as it is written the character of the curmudgeon Backstrom doesn’t seem trenchant enough to be memorably offensive or socially tart. Yet if enough viewers pray long enough for his evolution, they may be rewarded by taking other pleasures from the show.

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.

After a rough start, Backstrom settles into an obvious, and comfortable, procedural rhythm.

Mr. Wilson does his best to make the character unapologetically snarly, and Backstrom does benefit from a lighter tone thanks to the unpredictable nature of the lead character. But in form and style, Backstrom is exactly what viewers have come to expect from "House" wannabes.

There are times when Backstrom comes very close to feeling like a functional light-hearted mystery series. But then Backstrom wanders into frame, puffing on his cigar and tossing around some creaky insult, and the fun goes away in a hurry.

Unfortunately, rather than draw us in to the character, Wilson pushes us farther away. The performance isn't just charmless; it's overly defined and emphatic. There are too many moments when you feel that you're watching an actor make choices rather than watching a character simply be.

Rainn Wilson can carry a series, just not this one, as written. That doesn’t mean it’s a complete mess, but there are significant credibility problems on several levels that need to be addressed to build effectively on Wilson’s likability.

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.

It's hard to find much in Backstrom that feels fresh or original.

The wildly uneven series that bears his name also is a mess, a murky mixed bag of dreary and delightful moments.

The exteriors overplay Portland’s constant gloomy rain (it’s the wettest crime show since “The Killing”), but a couple more episodes might offer a ray of hope as the writers start to find ways to turn Backstrom into a person you’d want to spend an hour with each week.

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

Backstrom is dicey indeed. Every time he makes a move, it's got to be part of an intricate puzzle that will be solved. More often, it's just an obnoxious guy staggering off in a direction that turns out to be conveniently right.

The world needs neither more by-the-book cop procedurals nor more cynicism, but Backstrom seems to think its fresh because it combines the two. Instead, Backstrom is a generic crime drama with its humanity stripped out.

There's a deeper, more original series hiding inside the predictable melange that is Backstrom, and John Almond might be the way into it.

It’s Backstrom, with Rainn Wilson as a cranky, insult-spewing cop imitating the House formula with diminishing results.

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.