`Undercover' Returns - Without Its Hip-Hop Style

Television review

"New York Undercover" returns at 9 p.m. Thursday and airs every Thursday at 9 p.m. on KCPQ-TV.

Of all the recent cop shows on television, the slickest of the bunch was Fox's "New York Undercover." Detectives Eddie Torres and J.C. Williams wooed young African-American and Hispanic audiences with their icy attitude and urbane sex appeal. Add the regular cameo appearances of hot hip-hop artists such as Erykah Badu, and it seemed series creators Dick Wolf and Kevin Arkadie had found the perfect formula to grab the attention of the hip-hop generation week after week.

But "New York Undercover" shocked fans at the end of its 1996-1997 season: Detective Eddie Torres, played by series regular Michael DeLorenzo, died in a car explosion. His partner, Detective J.C. Williams (Malik Yoba), was set to be the next target. And as soon as avid watchers re-hinged their jaws, they all wondered how the show would continue. They were soon answered when Fox's 1997 fall lineup was rolled out without the show.

Annoyed as "New York Undercover" viewers might have been with last season's abrupt turn of events, they'll likely be more perturbed when the show returns midseason sporting new cast members and a new angle. Instead of a pair of hip detectives, the new show stars a multiracial team of young detectives - and little discernible flavor.

Gone, among other things, is the hip-hop music, a major reason for the action show's appeal. In its place is a cheesy techno soundtrack. With the show's former viewership likely to go and the rest of the television audience watching the final days of "Seinfeld" on "Must See TV," "New York Undercover's" survival beyond its midseason commitment of 13 episodes is highly unlikely.

In a throwback to Fox's "21 Jump Street" days, the new "New York Undercover" is part of Fox's attempt to recapture broader sections of the younger male audience now slipping away to cable and other networks. With "Party of Five," "Melrose Place" and "Ally McBeal," the sole survivor of this season's new series, the network thinks it has female viewership in the bag.

Several things contributed to "New York Undercover's" swift deterioration after three seasons. One was its consistently low Nielsen ratings. Though studies by a marketing agency consistently demonstrated the show's high ratings among African Americans, the Fox drama never attracted a sizeable share of the overall audience.

Another reason might have been trouble behind the scenes at the beginning of the 1996 season. Their hopes buoyed by the successful pay-raise coup by the "Friends" cast, Yoba and DeLorenzo staged a three-day walkout, reportedly demanding more pay, their own trailers and better food.

Wolf, who also has the high-rated series "Law & Order" to his credit, did not bend to their demands and allegedly responded by writing a season premiere with two coffins instead of two detectives. The actors returned and the rest is history.

Yet Wolf refuses to simply let the show got out in a blaze of glory. Williams and Torres' widow, Nina Moreno (Lauren Velez), are now part of a special-investigations team that uses entrapment and deception to get the job done. In the show's new, improved guise, Williams and Moreno's team members include a tough and lovely blonde, Detective Nell Delaney (Marisa Ryan), and a mouthy technology nut, Detective Alec Stone (Josh Hopkins), both white.

Fox hopes these cast changes will broaden its appeal beyond the show's core of minority viewers. Wolf unsuccessfully attempted to do this before with last season's addition of Detective Tommy McNamara, a white detective played by Jonathan LaPaglia (who isn't returning).

The motley crew is headed by the stubborn, unapologetic Lt. Malcolm Barker ("Martin's" Tommy Ford), who encourages highly unorthodox methods to get the job done. This includes slugging his team members, setting up robberies and encouraging the blonde to sleep with a target.

"You know the drill," Barker says after briefing the team at the beginning of an episode. "Lie, cheat, whatever it takes."

Without the chemistry between DeLorenzo and Williams, and the show's hip-hop influences, "New York Undercover" has become just another cop show, not to mention a badly scripted one. The storylines and plot progressions are convoluted, and the action is about as believable as, say, cops posing as teenagers to infiltrate high schools.

Even so, the first episode serves as a resolution to last season's cliffhanger, albeit an incomplete one, making it worth a look. Six months after Eddie's death, Nina and J.C. find out their first assignment with their new co-workers is to track Jordan, the femme-fatale bank robber who killed Eddie.