‘Net,’ ‘Sins’ Provide Break From Usual Reruns

USA Network’s slogan is “The Cure for the Common Show.” There were more appropriate alternatives available. For instance: “Reruns, Wrestling and Raunch.” Or: “More of the Same Old Junk.”

Like it or ignore it, USA is one of the top basic cable networks, available in more than 73 million cable homes.

And one good thing that can be said for USA. It does offer new programming in the summertime, unlike its snoozing broadcast counterparts. Two new USA series premiered Sunday: “The Net,” based on the 1995 movie of the same name, and “Sins of the City,” another slickly gritty private-eye drama.

Both shows now move to Saturday nights as part of what USA calls its “Saturday Night Heat” block. If there’s anything people crave in the summer, it’s heat, right?

“The Net” is not only the better of the two shows, it’s better than the movie, and was produced by the same man, veteran Irwin Winkler. Brooke Langton, inheriting the role played poorly by Sandra Bullock, is more attractive and is able to project what Bullock lacks: warmth and vulnerability.

As was the movie, the series is a warning against possible excesses and abuses of the computer age, of which there are probably an infinite number. Langton plays Angela Marie Bennett, a 26-year-old freelance software consultant in Seattle. She casually tosses around terms like “triple DES encryption” and knows her computers inside out. And vice versa.

Angela is understandably upset to discover one day that she has ceased to exist, that a vast conspiracy using computer technology has erased her true identity and turned her into Elizabeth Marx, fugitive from justice. Cops promptly arrest her and hurl her into the slammer.

Why? It seems that Angela came into some highly inflammatory e-mail about a 1984 project called Copper Canyon that some very sinister creeps don’t want her to know about. The sinister creeps are members of a supersecret corps calling themselves the Praetorian Guard, and what will they stop at to capture Angela and obliterate her? You guessed it: Nothing.

Angela’s one ally is a mysterious presence on her voice-activated laptop who calls himself “Sorcerer.” His voice is supplied by actor Tim Curry. The premiere establishes Angela’s predicament and sends her racing around in search of answers, all the while being chased and, since she has no free time, chaste, too.

It’s “The X-Files” crossed with “The Fugitive,” and while it’s not breathtakingly original, it has moments of pulse-pounding anxiety. Any show that encourages fear of computers is on the right track.

Less impressive by far, but not unwatchable, is “Sins of the City,” a moody crime show set and shot in gorgeous Miami, where even the slums seem splashed with color. Marcus Graham, an Australian actor with a total of 2.3 facial expressions, plays an honest cop named Vince Karol who, in the premiere, is wrongly accused of stealing money obtained during a drug bust.

Like Gary Cooper in “High Noon,” he angrily turns in his badge and quits the force, opting for the private-eye life and hoping to find out who framed him and why.

Even though the series has long since been canceled, “Miami Vice” still exerts its influence; Karol and his friend on the force, Freddie Corillo (Jose Zuniga), dress stylishly all the time.

Freddie has a penchant for purple shirts. Vince’s suits may be gray, but he makes up for that by accessorizing. You get the impression it’s very hard to tear these two fashion plates away from their respective mirrors.

Cliches fly faster than the innumerable bullets. “I don’t know who I am anymore, Freddie,” whines Vince at one point. We don’t know either, but then, we don’t care.

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* “The Net” continues Saturdays at 9 p.m. followed by “Sins of the City” at 10 p.m. on the USA Network.