Taking yet another bite out of crime

“Shark” Starring: James Woods, Jeri Ryan, Sarah Carter and Danielle Panabaker Thursday, 10… “Shark” Starring: James Woods, Jeri Ryan, Sarah Carter and Danielle Panabaker Thursday, 10 p.m. CBS

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The “creative” team behind CBS’s new legal drama “Shark” must have an episode of “Law ‘ Order” on repeat in their office when they write – the only things that change in this cookie-cutter show are the names and details of the crimes. Everything else follows a strict pattern with no room for deviation, or for that matter, creativity.

“Shark” opens with Sebastian Stark (James Woods) winning a case for a man who almost beat his wife to death. Everything is going fine until six days later when the man kills his wife. This of course sends Stark into a tailspin in which he quits his job and stops showering.

The district attorney’s office, which has lost every case it ever fought against Stark, sees an opportunity to get him on its side: The office offers him a job as a mentor/prosecutor. Without questioning the pay, hours or job description, Stark accepts the gig and goes about taking over.

“Shark” tries to take the fish-out-of-water approach by having a lawyer switch from working against the DA’s office to working for it. This is a nice twist on the usual legal drama structure, but the characters working in the DA’s office are never fleshed out enough to make things interesting.

Stark is used to doing things his way and making questionable decisions to win the case at any cost, but now he has to follow the books more closely. The potential drama that this could add to the show never surfaces, since Stark just does as he pleases, gives a quick 1-minute explanation that everyone accepts.

Stark is given a group of young assistant district attorneys to mentor, but the group of characters surrounding him can be described in five words or less. He sums up their personalities for us upon meeting each one, and the actors do very little to add depth after the initial breakdown.

There’s the girl with a conscience (who Stark hates), the girl who sucks up (who Stark loves), the all-American jock (who Stark is mildly annoyed by) and the quiet guy (who Stark, the writers and the rest of the characters ignore).

The actual job of these three – well, four if you count the quiet one – is to gather evidence for the cases and prep witnesses, but their function on the show is to question Stark until he’s forced to bark some sort of funny/rude response. While this is amusing the first few times, it soon grows tiresome.

Even though most legal dramas don’t delve too deeply into the lives of the attorneys, “Shark” takes things to a new level by having the characters go through the exact same story arc each episode.

In the first two episodes, the lawyers receive a seemingly insurmountable case and go to work gathering information. Next, the young lawyers think they have a break in the case, but Stark tells them the new information actually makes things harder for them. Finally, a character’s supposed weakness (e.g. having a heart or being too tough) ends up working to their advantage and surprising Stark.

In order for this show to work, the other characters need to be given more than the abridged descriptions Stark delivers, and the writers will have to find new ways to try cases. The formula used in the first two episodes was good, but it wasn’t good enough to be used every week for an entire season.

Stark also has a daughter, Julie (Danielle Panabaker), who takes up far too much airtime for little or no reason. The interaction between Stark and his daughter are the strongest scenes in each episode, but much like workplace drama, the family drama has a very predictable arc.

The first two episodes feature Julie trying to connect with her father: He gets distracted by his cell phone, she gets mad and delivers a speech, he feels bad and everything is tied up neatly until the beginning of the next episode.

When the television landscape is littered with so many procedurals, something has to be done to set a new show apart. Fox’s “Justice” is successful because it’s about spinning the media and not apologizing for heartlessness.

“Shark” doesn’t work because it’s trying to be more than a legal drama by including the main character’s family, but none of the characters are more than yelling targets.

“Shark” needs to blend the home- and work-life aspects of the show, or drop Stark’s home life in order to flesh out the supporting characters. Right now, “Shark” is little more than TV comfort food, and you can only indulge so many times before you get sick.

If you want to watch a fast-paced, compelling show about lawyers, turn to “Justice” on Fox. But if you can stomach something more along the lines of legal-drama munchies, then watch “Shark” Thursday nights at 10 on CBS.