New on the tube: "Dirty Sexy Money," "Private Practice"

Four new shows, only one of which got my attention out of the gate, debut on the networks tonight.

All times Central.

“Dirty Sexy Money”
9 p.m., ABC (KMBC)

A great first hour gets this comedic drama off to a fine start. An idealistic lawyer (Peter Krause) suddenly becomes the highly paid counsel for the Darlings, a wealthy and ill-behaved family that is all too often in the news, after his father mysteriously perishes. Think what would happen if the Kennedys mated with the Lohans and you get some idea of the Darlings, whose partriarch and matriarch (Donald Sutherland and Jill Clayburgh) alone are worth the price of admission.

I think there's plenty of upside with this show, but at its center is Krause, who's managed to find roles like this that bring out both his likability and stubbornness, as in “Six Feet Under” and “Sports Night.”

“Private Practice”
8 p.m, ABC (KMBC)

“Grey's Anatomy” fans know the setup: Finished with men and medicine in the Pacific Northwest, Dr. Addison (Kate Walsh) takes up a friend's offer to join their wellness center in sunny southern California, where she has only one baby at a time to deliver -- plenty of time to flirt with the hunky men in the office!

I was disappointed by the opening episode, which left me with the distinct impression that Taye Diggs (playing a newly divorced doctor in the practice) and Tim Daly (Walsh's first love interest on the show, but I'm sure not the last) were simply working off their ABC contracts that began on other, now-cancelled shows. The portrayals of alternative medicine were unfortunate, as was the forced zaniness.

But ABC specializes in these kinds of sprawling ensemble shows, and Shonda Rhimes, who created “Grey's Anatomy,” is promising to keep a close eye on the offspring, so stay tuned.

“Bionic Woman”
8 p.m., NBC (KSHB)

Here's the thing about remaking a show from the 1970s -- most of the people who remember it well aren't important to network executives, because they've aged out of the demographic. So they knock 15 years off Jamie Sommers' age, make her a bartender instead of a tennis pro, and at the end of the first hour turn her into some kind of comic superhero who does battle with another bionic woman on (where else?) a darkened rooftop. The secret group that supervised her superhuman surgery is flipped from the benevolent agency that the 1970s Jamie was more than happy to serve into a sinister underground cabal led by a creepy CEO (Miguel Ferrer). And Jamie really isn't Jamie anymore: She has been, in the words of her even creepier fiancé (Chris Bowers), “hardwired for highly specialized warfare.”

Whether “Bionic Woman” proves as successful a makeover as “Battlestar Galactica” (a tall order, indeed) hinges on whether this becomes more than just a one-“Hero” show. The recast and reshot pilot looks better than the one previewed to advertisers this spring. But it had the budget of a movie and won't likely be as spectacular in the weeks ahead. Like young Jamie, it's going to take a while for this show to find its artificial legs.

“Life”
9 p.m., NBC (KSHB)

Radar magazine counted 26 detective shows on the network TV schedule this fall. And while its writers diligently charted the differences between them, most viewers can't be expected to try that hard. They just ask: Is there any reason I should watch another cop show? And in the case of “Life,” the answer is “no.”

It's not that I didn't warm to the person of Charlie Crews (Damian Lewis), a wise-cracking, insolent homicide solver (yes, “House” with a badge) who went to prison for a murder he didn't commit, only to be unexpectedly sprung, given a cash settlement and allowed to rejoin the force. There's no doubt “Life” is blessed with a fine lead actor, an intriguing premise and better writing than most new shows this fall.

It's just that viewers aren't going to find that promising TV drama buried underneath all the crime procedural. The efforts to spice up the show with documentary film elements (people recalling the Crews case) and personal backstories (Crews' hot female partner, played by Sarah Shahi, has a drinking problem) only compound the problem. Maybe you can't do “Life” on NBC without the bloody corpses lying around. That says more about the limits of network TV than this seemingly doomed show.