Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Premiering tonight

By CHASE SQUIRES
Published March 28, 2006

Thief, 10 p.m., FX. Grade: A.

HBO has tried to build on its Sopranos with a copycat show, Big Love , but ever-daring basic cable network FX stole the Sopranos vibe with Andre Braugher in Thief .

The dark, six-episode drama about a group of highly organized, big-time thieves set in New Orleans (filmed post-Katrina in Shreveport, La.) is engrossing on every level. Braugher plays a family man, Nick Atwater, caught between his dad duties and his chosen career, stealing expensive stuff in Mission: Impossible -style heists. There's a huge surprise in the first episode that changes everything, and from there, it just gets weirder. Stay with it for the full hour and you'll be hooked.

Thief is from the network that brought viewers the ethically challenged cops of The Shield , the doctors-without-morals tale Nip/Tuck and the dark firefighter story Rescue Me . Nothing is what it seems, there are no easy answers, and everything has a deeper meaning.

"I see this as something of a morality tale, and men who earn their livelihood doing illegal things," executive producer Norman Morrill told reporters in January. "The moral choices that they make in their life, the things that they decide to do the right thing about, I think is pretty compelling. There's something that's a universal truth in that."

Teachers, 9:30 p.m., WFLA-Ch. 8. Grade: C.

If FX's Thief is groundbreaking, NBC's entry is just plain broken. Teachers is a tired, dumb sitcom about teachers in a public high school. Room 222 was more poignant, Head of the Class was hipper, and Welcome Back, Kotter was funnier.

Teachers relies on a cast of stock characters and stock situations. Young teacher Jeff (Justin Bartha) deals with a stodgy principal, an uptight PTA, school politics and pretty-but-idealistic co-workers. The lone bright spot is the introduction of radio funnyman Phil Hendrie as a grouchy gym teacher named Dick. Hendrie's performance isn't perfect, but he shows promise.

[Last modified March 28, 2006, 03:01:29]