Turf War

PAUL DRINKWATER/NBC
Miguel Cadena (Yancy Arias) is the rare criminal protagonist on network TV

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Like Mills' outstanding hbo mini-series The Corner, Kingpin has a feel for the ironies and hypocrisies on both sides of the drug war (Miguel is furious when he catches his wife snorting coke). But Arias' Stanford-educated Miguel is a bloodless cipher, too flat to carry a series; he wants the world to believe he's just a dull yuppie, and the problem is, you believe him. Sheryl Lee, as his American wife, is a scheming Lady Macbeth straight out of Dynasty, whose maker, Aaron Spelling, is an executive producer of Kingpin. For all that, Kingpin can be chilling and even funny, and it gets better as it expands to take in the cops, hangers-on and hoods at the fringes of Miguel's empire. But a series about drugs, guns and money ought to be more compelling, and a series with Kingpin's pretensions ought to be more inventive. Yes, its underworld setting separates it from the rest of network TV superficially. It's bloody, it's gritty, it's naughty. But the storytelling equivalent of hbo? There's an appropriate answer, but you're allowed to use it only on NYPD Blue.