New on the tube

'Boomtown' Airs: 9 p.m. Sunday, NBC (Channel 41) Stars: Donnie Wahlberg, Mykelti Williamson, Neal McDonough, Gary Basaraba, Jason Gedrick, Nina Garbiras, Lana Parrilla Nutshell: Engaging procedural crime drama shows you the dirty deed and investigation from various points of view. This one is not like the others. Yes, there's a dead body or two, a perp on the loose and detectives in various states of rumple. But there's also a passer-by with a sweat shirt that reads "Doofus," a deputy district attorney whose personal life is even more complicated than his cases, an exotic dancer and an enraged husband ... at least I think it's her husband ... What makes "Boomtown" so immediately interesting is that each of these people is treated like a main character, at least for a few moments. Rather than the standard objective, all-seeing-all-knowing camera, this show teases the viewer by using several highly subjective cameras, including some trained on bit players. I've seen this verite approach in documentaries, but this is the closest any fictional drama has come to approximating the effect. Of course, the result is the same as other crime shows - case closed by the final act. But along the way, lots of smaller mysteries are raised and resolved (like, what's the deal with the dancer and her husband, or why we were looking at a guy with "Doofus" on his chest). It's a gimmick, but as "CSI" and "Law & Order" have taught us, one show's gimmick is another show's time-tested format. 'American Dreams' Airs: 7 p.m. Sunday, NBC (Channel 41); repeats 7 p.m. Saturdays on VH1 beginning Oct. 5 Stars: Brittany Snow, Gail O'Grady, Tom Verica, Vanessa Lengies, Will Estes, Ethan Dampf, Sarah Ramos Nutshell: Uncomplicated if nicely done family drama nostalgically re-creates the 1960s in Philadelphia. Meg Pryor (Snow) has a dream. It's not the one articulated by Martin Luther King Jr., earlier that year during the March on Washington, but it's her dream. She wants to be a dancer on "American Bandstand." The challenge is not so much charming her way onto the set - her savvy high-school chum Roxanne (Lengies) sees to that - as it is convincing her Catholic parents to give her their blessing. Mom and Pop (O'Grady and Verica) appear strict and reverent on the surface, but as becomes clear by the end of the second episode, that's a cliche headed for a collision with another cliche - those turbulent '60s! Obvious attention has been paid to the show's production details, right down to the cleverly simulated "Bandstand" appearances by the Beach Boys and others. My concern is that the same care isn't being given to story and character. The jury's still out on that. That said, Snow is perfectly cast as a teen to whom the whole world opens up in all its wonder. If you want some innocent fun from a prime-time network show that doesn't, as the kids used to say, "go all the way," then watch "American Dreams." To reach Aaron Barnhart, phone (816) 234-4790 or visit the TV Barn Web site at www.tvbarn.com. @ART CAPTION:Donnie Wahlberg @ART:Photo (color)