There's something of the troubled priest about Andre Braugher. Maybe it's because his most familiar character--Homicide's Detective Frank Pembleton, who won him an Emmy in 1998--was a fallen Catholic who interrogated his soul as fiercely as he grilled suspects. Maybe it's because he has also played a priest (in TNT's 1999 Passing Glory), and went to a Jesuit high school in Chicago.
Whatever the reason, his latest character, Dr. Ben Gideon of ABC's Gideon's Crossing, fits the priestly mold: a researcher in experimental medicine at a prestigious teaching hospital, whose vocation is as spiritual as it is scientific. He does...