"The Black Donnellys": "EZ Streets" without the odor of instant cancellation?

It's fitting that NBC has cleared out this time slot -- the one occupied by “Studio 60 for the Sunset Strip,” the show that was supposed to mark “West Wing” creator Aaron Sorkin's glorious return to prime time -- for “The Black Donnellys.”

  For this new show, airing at 9 p.m. CT Monday on NBC, marks what many TV critics of a certain vintage dearly hope is the triumphant return to prime time of Paul Haggis. You may not know who he is, though chances are you saw one of the films he wrote or co-wrote: “Letters from Iwo Jima,” “Million Dollar Baby,” “Crash.”

  But before Haggis went off to seek his fame at the movies, he wrote for television. And packed into his otherwise humdrum resume of credits is a show he created called “EZ Streets.” It starred Ken Olin, Joe Pantoliano and Debrah Farentino as a cop, a crook and a moll and most of the time, it was hard to tell who, if anyone, was on the side of the law. It had a dreamy Loreena McKennitt score. It was noir at a time when television wasn't noir.

Critics of a certain vintage, including me, loved it, couldn't get enough of “EZ Streets” and all its complications. (Remember, this was before “Sopranos,” before FX.) CBS gave “EZ Streets” two tries, one in the fall and one in the spring, before giving up. No one but us, it seemed, would watch.

  So now we have “The Black Donnellys,” rushed onto the schedule because NBC finally came to Jesus and admitted that “Studio 60” is a failure. Well, nothing to boost a new show's fortunes like a six-day promotional campaign, is there?

  Maybe that's why, for many of us, “The Black Donnellys” -- a terrific show, by the way -- isn't our “Studio 60” so much as our “Firefly.” We want it to succeed, but somehow, we fear it won't. Either audiences won't tune in or fourth-place NBC, having given all its get-out-of-jail-free cards to Sorkin, will bail early.

  It's about four brothers named Donnelly, growing up in New York's Hell's Kitchen. The brothers are fabulously tight, and what that means, we soon learn, is that when one of them gets in trouble they all get in trouble, epically and tragically. Bobby Moresco, who co-wrote “Crash” with Haggis, really was raised in Hell's Kitchen, and if his teenage years were half as violent as this show is, it's a wonder he's still alive.

  Despite the multiple inflictings of pain we're subjected to in the opening hours of “The Black Donnellys,” I'm in completely. It feels like Haggis and Moresco are picking up right where “EZ Streets” left off. It's a do-over, with younger actors and a little less murky storytelling (or so we think, until we realize our narrator is not to be fully trusted -- a nice touch).

  Let's hope, 10 years after Haggis' noble failure, the audience has finally caught up to him.

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Paul Haggis, by the way, is Canadian, which may explain why he wrote the only live-action prime time program ever to air in the United States about a Mountie ("Due South").

Well, turns out there's a Canadian connection here, too, however tangential: The show's title, "The Black Donnellys," is a reference to some sort of notorious event that every Canadian apparently knows by heart. Unfortunately, the information at donnellys.com makes the case sound horribly complicated — like the two-line rule in hockey — so I'll leave it at that.