TVSquad

How do you kick off your series premiere? The Inside gives us our first glimpse of what "defaced and degloved" means, but only after the jaunty techno theme song fades out. Episode one deviates from the standard here-lies-the-body, here-lies-the-case formula—we find out that the first victim is actually a suicide victim, an FBI agent who had been working the killer's case. The suspense is legitimate as first, lead agent Virgil "Web" Webster cracks the whip after his agents as they convene on the case. One agent isn't there—it's her day off—but true to the nature of Web, he demands they page her, pronto. Web goes over the body, laying face down on a soiled mattress in a crack house; with the victim's face off, they try to identify it based on what appears to be a birthmark cut off the body, until Web notes that it isn't a birthmark, but a tattoo. There's a heightened confusion as Web pulls a pager off the woman, begins muttering into a tape recorder the details of the woman's life "two kids, divorced" and then, suddenly, the victim's pager rings. Introducing Agent Alvarez, victim number 9.

The rest of the episode plays out predictably, with a few deeply disturbing exceptions, such as Web's willingness to put his agents in harm's way for the sake of a case. Rebecca Locke, the new girl, show's up as Alvarez's replacement, and proceeds to blow everyone away with her spooky profiling gift. She goes under cover (they tart her up nice and good), proceeds to capture their target, target turns out to be the wrong guy, and now, oops! she's really in trouble. Agent Ryan (Paul Harrington) to the rescue, but Virgil Webster's already there, gun in hand. Best quote of the episode? "Simon Gunther! BLAM! [Simon drops] Let her go! Damn, did that backwards."

We've had "profiler" shows before, and "put yourself in their shoes" shows, and "mind of the killer" shows, and all kinds of iterations of the serial killer/primetime entertainment series, sometimes complete with psychics, too. So what makes FOX think The Inside will play out any differently—stay on primetime and not head straight for late nights on Court TV? Casting, casting, casting.

There's some spotty acting, a few of them (Rachel Nichols, Jay Harrington) are a little wet behind the ears, but Peter Coyote has a huge resume, and if you knock out the B-list, there's still E.T., Erin Brockovich, and a slew of suspense films that gift him with appropriate proportions of irony and gravitas.

Nichols herself isn't bad either, she's got grit and a willingness to be vulnerable that someone like, say, Jill Hennessy in Crossing Jordon doesn't allow her character. Harrington, as Agent Paul Ryan, is the obvious immediate love interest; Adam Baldwin and Katie Finneran (as agents Danny Love and Melody Sims) are broody anger and comic farce, respectively.

The Inside has definite energy behind it, but I think thus far, it comes from the actors (Adam Baldwin is a graduate of Joss Whedon's Firefly) If they can keep the scripts suspenseful, and play up the humanistic side of these obviously complex characters—I'd hate to see Agent Ryan turn one-dimensional and whiny—I'll keep watching. (As long as it doesn't turn into Profiler.)