I am – Hercules!!

I liked the “Karen Sisco” pilot so much I went ahead and read the scripts for the next six episodes – and I am here to tell you that ABC is tonight trotting out fall’s best new series – and the network’s best new series since “Alias.” It’s based on an Elmore Leonard novel and, rather improbably, does its source material proud. It also reminds me of everything I loved about "The Rockford Files."

Suspenseful, smart and propulsively plotted, the enterprise most importantly boasts some of the most entertaininly sneaky, snide and/or brutal criminal and cop types you’ll find on any size screen. Attribute the series’ inspired characterization to series executive consultant Scott Frank, who adapted from Elmore Leonard novels the excellent screenplays for “Out of Sight” and “Get Shorty” before he drafted the “Sisco” pilot.

The Miami-based federal marshal, originally played by Jennifer Lopez in Soderbergh’s excellent “Out of Sight,” is now essayed to even better effect by Carla Gugino (best known perhaps as milfy mom to the movies’ Spy Kids). Another key improvement lies with Robert Forster, who inherits Dennis Farina’s role as the title character’s super-wily ex-cop pop.

Karen may remind some of a streetwise Clarice Starling, navigating a macho world of craven criminality and law enforcement, constantly outwitting her much larger, more experienced and too-often dismissive colleagues (most of whom, nonetheless, seem desperate to sleep with her).

Let’s just hope she can outgun her chief competition, the seemingly tireless NBC warhorse “Law & Order.”

TV Guide says:

Easily the season’s coolest new show. Wry, ironic, sexy. Gugino sizzles in the role …

The Hollywood Reporter says:

It's hard enough to believe that petite and finefeatured Carla Gugino is a nononsense, kick-butt law officer. And it's that much harder when criminals take time out from their fleeing to hit on her. … As Karen Sisco, Gugino is tough, sexy and just emotionally vulnerable enough to establish that the job of serving warrants, escorting prisoners and chasing down parole violators has not yet become routine. True to Leonard's style, there is an effort to surround Karen with quirky characters, but only some of it works. … Exec producer Michael Dinner also directs … He tries to imbue the opener with as much dark humor as possible, but there just isn't much in Frank's script.

Variety says:

By any standard of cool, "Karen Sisco" is out of sight. … TV needs another cop drama like it needs another makeover show, but when the genre gets an injection of energy like this, attention must be paid. … As if J.Lo hasn't had a terrible year already with "Gigli" and a called-off wedding, she's just a memory after watching Gugino dance with the big boys.

Entertainment Weekly gives it an "A-" and says:

Lopez was very good, but a bit too steamy to get on Leonard's wavelength, which is one of ice-cold serenity. Gugino, however, has that tone down. ... Robert Forster, who, as he proved in Quentin Tarantino's ''Jackie Brown,'' has moved into late middle age with irresistible wryness and macho charm. ... Writers Bob Brush and Jason Smilovic, who along with Danny DeVito are a couple of Sisco's numerous executive producers, have a good handle on Leonard's off-kilter view of the human condition, his avoidance of the easy wisecrack, and the quiet effectiveness of playing with time. ... The series also has a great ear for background music: Leonard Cohen, Marvin Gaye, and Sly Stone's version of the Doris Day hit ''Que Sera, Sera'' add a lot to the mood of soulful romanticism that typifies Sisco's life when she's not ducking gunfire or jousting with FBI bureaucrats trying to muscle in on her cases.

USA Today gives it three stars (out of four) and says:

… Gugino responds with a performance so easily self-assured and so completely alluring that you wonder why TV took so long to make her a star. But then, roles like Karen Sisco don't come along every day. Created by Elmore Leonard, this supremely competent U.S. marshal is the kind of multifaceted character we don't see often enough on TV. Smart, sexy, dryly funny, tough when she needs to be, but never hard, Karen is the kind of woman you want to know better. And Gugino is smart enough to lay back and let us get to know the character in our own time. She doesn't push her performance or overwork her sex appeal. As you'd expect from Leonard, however, Karen isn't a one-woman show. His Miami is a world unto itself, populated with some of the most agreeably colorful supporting characters you'll ever find. …

The Los Angeles Times says:

… a pretty good new series … The criminal element is at once crucial and incidental: It's what gets these characters out of bed, but even Karen's professional relationships — with her gruff and protective boss (Bill Duke), with the sundry cops or robbers she likes or who like her — are portrayed as personal. All that matters ultimately is what happens to Karen. … Robert Forster — one or two of you may remember his 1972 detective series, "Banyan" — plays her father, a nice bit of casting, given that he was rescued from obscurity by the movie "Jackie Brown," based on Leonard's "Rum Punch." … There is potential here for an ongoing good time; my reservations, which are slight but stubborn, are based on the distance between the excellent pilot episode, which runs two weeks from now, and tonight's somewhat less excellent episode, which is not quite as sharp, sprightly or funny, or as profitably full of real Miami locations. (The disappearance of Jake Busey as a fellow agent is also disappointing.) Based on a Leonard short story called "Karen Makes Out," it plays a little too much like a trial run for "Out of Sight." (It is, essentially, "Out of Sight" upside-down.) Next week's episode will guest star executive producer Danny DeVito and wife Rhea Perlman in a bit of first-strike stunt casting that may make clear the series' comic potential — right now, it's a shade more serious than it needs to be, or perhaps it's just that the jokes aren't working.

Coax’s own “Pimp Daddy” says:

The show is great on *every* level. The acting (Carla Gugino is great, she’s tough when she wants to be and she makes the character ooze with style, smarts and class), the directing, the action (they don’t blow anything up (yay, but I suppose that’s just me) but a gun fight still manages to cool great even though there were only two shooters), the characters (some are there for laughs, others to be asses, sorry bosses), the use of music is great (hopefully something the producers of Fearless will think about carefully before they play any old pop song, oh and while they’re at it they should do something about the writing too) and not forgetting the humour (it’s similar to the movie, not over the top, just effective). The show is character driven, so action comes second, but the pilot seems to be 50/50. It works very well. I’m struggling to find flaws with this show…Out Of Sight was a great movie, Karen Sisco looks like it’s going to be a great series. ABC has a winner on their hands.

10 p.m. Wednesday. ABC.