The premiere opens with vice cop Casey Shraeger (Amber Tamblyn) getting pulled off the street, all dolled up in hooker lipstick and a miniskirt, to help with a homicide case. The scene is meant to establish a madcap vibe, but it seems more like a poor excuse to deliver Tamblyn's cleavage to viewers ASAP. And then Tamblyn, who naturally captured bitter teen yearning on "Joan of Arcadia," is all wrong in a police setting, barking out the script's old-school cop lines - "Police, open up!" - with the ferocity of a puppy. "I don't want to ruin your day," she says to a woman, trying too hard to sound like a seasoned veteran, "but in my book you are definitely the mistress." Oh, snap.
Tamblyn's new partner in homicide is the hunky Jason Walsh (Jeremy Renner), who runs a diner when he's not working. Created by Noah Hawley of "Bones," "The Unusuals" may be trying to establish a "Bones"-like flirtation between Walsh and Shraeger, but so far the chemistry isn't there. Also in the 2d Precinct circus: The paranoid Leo Banks (Harold Perrineau, Michael from "Lost"), who wears his bulletproof vest in the office; a preachy born-again Christian named Henry Cole (Joshua Close); and the overly hard-boiled Sergeant Brown (Terry Kinney).
Are these characters really that out of the ordinary? If you've been watching ensemble dramas for the past 15 years, you probably won't find them particularly idiosyncratic. The show stakes its identity against a notion of normality that doesn't really exist on TV anymore. Every cop series on TV, including the dark, gritty likes of "CSI" and "Criminal Minds," includes a goodly share of freaky comic relief.
Mixed in with all "The Unusuals" nuttiness are a few random attempts to be moving, as each of the detectives harbors a difficult secret. The show aspires to that risky hybrid genre: dramedy. But, if not pitched just right, dramedies can short-shrift both the drama and the comedy, as one undermines the other, and that's what happens on "The Unusuals." The show is neither here nor there, neither amusing nor affecting. It doesn't really call out for further viewing, which is not so unusual at all.
Matthew Gilbert can be reached at gilbert@globe.com. For more on TV, visit www.boston.com/ae/tv/blog.
