TV Reviews : ‘Mann & Machine’ Goes Nowhere Slowly

“Mann & Machine” is NBC’s new clanky klunker, a lighthearted crime series pairing a tough male detective and a fetching female cyborg cop in an hour that aims to be at once funny and compelling.

The premiere, at 8 p.m. Sunday on Channels 4, 36 and 39, is neither, with David Andrews (who plays crusty veteran cop Bobby Mann) and Yancy Butler (as Mann’s new robotic and acrobatic partner, Eve Edison) too out of sync with each other to produce the sparks needed to make this latest round in the battle of the sexes work.

Set in the near future, “Mann & Machine” goes nowhere, and does it slowly, opening with Mann being reluctantly saddled with the bug-eyed, monotonal Edison, who spends a lot of time starring blankly at a computer screen and sounding like a Spock/conehead hybrid when she speaks: “Risk is emotion-intensive. I haven’t learned it yet.”

There’s a murder investigation that puts both cops in peril, but no suspense, and the story’s attempts at humor (the gruff Mann tries to teach the brilliant but emotionally retarded Edison about femininity) crash like bricks. Episode 2 (men are being murdered for their organs) is a little better. Yet Butler is stiff even when she shouldn’t be, and the only energy in the opening segments is generated by that capable actress S. Epatha Merkerson, who somehow manages to stand out in her formulaic role as Mann’s and Edison’s no-nonsense captain. On the other hand, she doesn’t have much competition.