THE INSIDE ***
Tonight at 9, Fox.
If there's one twist left in the crime procedural drama, the new Fox drama series "The Inside" may have found it.
Take one part "CSI," two parts "Silence of the Lambs," a pinch of "Seven" and mix vigorously. Keep the lights low, the gross factor high, and, like "House," never make a right diagnosis before first suggesting a wrong one.
It sounds formulaic and derivative, and much of it is. Yet "The Inside" (premiering tonight at 9) has a lot going for it, including a few well-delineated characters, a tantalizing sense of moral ambiguity, a central mystery whose secrets are doled out very sparingly, and plots and twists that are well above the norm for the violent-crimes genre.
Besides - and this is no small factor, not when the broadcast networks have unveiled five new reality series in the past nine days - "The Inside" is scripted!
And it's acted!
The creator here, as well as the pilot's director and writer, is Tim Minear, a long-time Joss Whedon executive producer whose show credits include "Angel" and "Firefly."
The most recognizable star is Peter Coyote, playing the bullying, manipulative head of a special FBI Violent Crimes Unit based in Los Angeles.
In tonight's opener, we're introduced to his team, which includes "Firefly" cast member Adam Baldwin as an agent who loves to go undercover, Jay Harrington as an agent who serves as the unit's Jiminy Cricket-type conscience, Nelsan Ellis as the requisite computer expert and Katie Finneran as an agent who, in the three episodes sent for preview, doesn't do much.
The protagonist, though, is fresh-faced new hire Rebecca Locke, played by former model Rachel Nichols. Rebecca is hired to be an FBI profiler precisely because of her secret, tragic past, which isn't secret from the boss: At age 10, Rebecca was abducted by a serial killer known as "The Apostle" and held captive for 18 months before she escaped on her own initiative.
What horrible things happened to her? "The Inside," to its credit, doesn't spell it out. We see subliminal images just before she faints; we see her terror when she finds herself, in one of these first few shows, newly captured and handcuffed. The only real fact in evidence, though, is that Rebecca, when she's analyzing a crime scene or other evidence, clearly has unusual insight into both victim and aggressor.
The summertime launch of "The Inside" suggests a slight hesitancy from the network, perhaps because the grisliness of certain scenes (a half-peeled face in tonight's show, for starters), perhaps because at least one member of the VCU takes a life without apparent remorse or repercussions.
The show, though, held my interest, had me guessing and even impressed me with the tenuous relationship between independent Rebecca and Harrington's protective Paul Ryan.
Like NBC's "Medium," "The Inside" could be a sleeper success - a new crime-fighting series with a strong, troubled woman at dead center, surrounded by death itself.
Originally published on June 8, 2005
