‘Sleepwalkers’ Treads on Supernatural

The last of the fall season’s newcomers is a series you dare not sleep through.

It’s NBC’s “Sleepwalkers,” a promisingly dark, foreboding hour about complex, perilous nightmare probes by a team of scientists at the Morpheus Institute, a cutting-edge research facility named after the god of dreams in Greek mythology.

Nathan Bradford (Bruce Greenwood) is the institute’s founder and head man. Tonight he has his colleagues (played by Naomi Watts, Abraham Benrubi and Michael Watson) invade the dreams of tormented Air Force pilot Ben Costigan (Jeffrey D. Sams) to solve the riddle of his terrifying nightmares before they kill him. In doing so, the invaders jeopardize themselves.

Bradford explains that “dreams can manifest themselves in the waking world as tangible physiological signs and symptoms.” In other words, what happens subconsciously in a dream can be transferable to the conscious world, an intriguing concept that the premiere of “Sleepwalkers” explores suspensefully in a creepy, inky style that crosses “Twin Peaks” with “The X-Files.”

The Morpheus team takes on Costigan’s case with surprisingly little preparation, given the potentially fatal risks it exposes them to. However, there’s lots of swell, icky-poo supernatural stuff here, and also especially nice work from the minimalist Greenwood, whose merging of heroism and vulnerability in Bradford makes him all the more believable. And the series, too.

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* “Sleepwalkers” premieres at 9 tonight on NBC (Channel 4). The network has rated it TV-PG (may be unsuitable for young children).