Dour Star Saves a Flawed ‘Cracker’

If anyone should be spending time in a confessional, it’s “Cracker” hero Gerry “Fitz” Fitzgerald, criminal catcher deluxe in a new series exhibiting basically the same strength and flaws of the British “Cracker” that it closely copies.

That strength is Fitz himself, a downbeat but amazingly endearing protagonist despite personality flaws as large as sinkholes. He’s a truly original character for U.S. television and definitely someone with shoulders broad enough to hang a series on.

The flaws are generally mediocre scripts along with the brilliant Fitz’s surrealistic ability to read criminal minds with a speed and ferocity that make Sherlock Holmes seem dull-witted. Moreover, ABC begins its “Cracker” run by re-shooting one of the thinner British stories, one that snaps about midway while being stretched across separate weekly episodes as a two-parter. Bad idea.

Fortunately, there’s always Fitz, who’s played here with artful dourness by Robert Pastorelli (“Murphy Brown”), although softened a bit from the British character portrayed so memorably by Robbie Coltrane. The British Fitz was a philandering, boozing, chain-smoking, heavy gambling slab of flab who was a neglectful dad and resorted to stealing money from his wife to support his betting habit. And he was the good guy.

ABC’s Fitz hasn’t as many vices yet, but he, too, has an addictive, baggy personality and a miserable marriage to a career woman (Carolyn McCormick) that appears to be ending. Meanwhile, he hosts a radio call-in show, lectures at five universities and solves homicides for the cops.

Tonight’s target is a deranged young woman whose twisted affection for Fitz from afar turns her into a serial killer who electrocutes her youthful victims. Beware of the gruesomeness but, even more so, of a plot that is devoid of suspense while conveniently endangering someone close to Fitz and traveling nowhere you really want to follow.

Except to Fitz’s side when he aims this bleak monologue at his dejected teenage son while eating a fat burrito:

” . . . Life is sucking in other life. People suck in plants and animals, then expel the waste. Women’s genitals suck in men’s semen. The fetus sucks nutrients from the womb. The infant sucks milk from the mother. The child sucks love from the parents. The teenager sucks money from them. Plants suck in water and CO-2. Stars suck in space, gas and meteors. Galaxies suck in other galaxies. And black holes suck in everything. Every evolving object is consumed by other objects. The whole universe sucks. No wonder you’re depressed.”

Much of “Cracker” sucks, too. But as always, Fitz is his own irresistible galaxy.

* “Cracker” premieres at 9 p.m. Thursday on ABC (Channel 7). It has been rated TV-14 (may be inappropriate for children under 14).