TV REVIEW : Fox’s ‘Undercover’ Takes an Awkward Step Toward Diversity

They’re young, they’re tough, they’re hip. They’re as indistinguishable from their decaying urban setting as graffiti.

Fox’s newest crime series keeps you guessing, all right. Guessing which of its cop heroes will say “Yo!” the most times.

Otherwise, the only distinction of “New York Undercover” is the racial makeup of its hot-wired main characters: Detective J. C. Williams (Malik Yoba) is black, Detective Eddie Torres (Michael DeLorenzo) is Puerto Rican.

Nearly every other prime-time drama is dominated by whites. And Latinos are nearly invisible in entertainment programs of all types; when they are depicted, it’s usually negatively, as noted in a study released this week by the Center for Media and Public Affairs in Washington.

Thus “New York Undercover” executive producers Dick Wolf and Andre Harrell, and Fox--of which the study was particularly critical--deserve credit for expanding prime-time’s palette. Yet even this positive step toward diversity is to some extent undermined by the deployment of their characters in a grimy universe of crime, television’s predominant milieu for minorities.

Tonight’s premiere raises the question of whether black and Latino cops can be as guilty as white cops in being biased in favor of their own ethnic group. Williams and Torres are forced to acknowledge that the answer is yes.

Although this will come as no epiphany to social scientists, it’s worth exploring dramatically. But the premise is awkwardly executed in a plot that has Williams and Torres investigating a Latina high school student’s claim that she was raped by a black football player while four of his teammates stood by and did nothing. The player claims the sex was consensual. Ultimately, the episode offers a choice of criminals that is ethnically narrow--black or Puerto Rican.

“New York Undercover” has a nice look and resonates with atmospheric rap. Yet despite solving the case with the help of their boss, Lt. Virginia Cooper (Patti D’Arbanville-Quinn), neither of the show’s street-swaggering protagonists is a very convincing cop. Nor are forays into their private lives--Williams is a divorced father with an uptown girlfriend and Torres is estranged from his dying mother and siblings, one of them a priest--artful or compelling.

In a coming hour, a 13-year-old petty thief gets involved in a black-run car theft ring. Before the episode ends, Jose Perez surfaces as Torres’ musician father, a jittery character who is trying to shake his heroin habit. Curious that TV’s Starskys and Hutches rarely have such blemishes.

* “New York Undercover” premieres at 9 tonight on Fox (Channels 11 and 6).