Off to a Promising Start, ‘Citizen Baines’ Deserves a Vote of Confidence

“Appreciate your vote.... Hope to get your vote.... Like your vote.”

That is Elliott Baines, a prominent three-term U.S. senator, pumping flesh in Seattle on the day of an election he is expected to win but will lose. That evening, he and his three daughters will throw out frozen smiles and stiff upper lips when he makes his concession speech and thanks cheering supporters. Privately? The family is stunned.

What a fine start. The new CBS drama “Citizen Baines” carries the promise of greatness, from densely written characters to actor-for-all-seasons James Cromwell--who doted on an orphaned pig in “Babe” and coldly murdered Kevin Spacey in “L.A. Confidential”--being masterful as a politician facing the unknown after being deposed by voters. After all those years in D.C., Baines asks, what now?

The series could topple as easily as the senator himself by resorting to burlesque, though. That is raised because the sequence ending Episode 2 is so silly, broadly overplayed and incongruous with Baines’ character that it seems almost to have been grafted on as a dorky joke.

Otherwise, “Citizen Baines” has a higher IQ and more dramatic juice than much of prime time combined, it and “The Education of Max Bickford” giving CBS two of the elite new series of the fall season.

With Americans usually spending more time watching TV and less out on the town in hard economic times, perhaps Saturday night shut-ins of all ages will converge on Cromwell, keeping this solid, versatile character actor on the air in a true breakout role.

He’s easily up to it, never doing too much while giving compassionate but flawed Baines the quiet, controlled edginess of a man also capable of volatility. He’s formidable in all his modes. When hearing TV project his opponent the winner, his face is stone, his silence an expression of devastation.

Yet minutes later, he erupts when his daughter Ellen, a posh attorney who ran his campaign, won’t acknowledge defeat. “King County!” he says of key election figures, biting off his words almost menacingly. “Look at King County!”

Orbiting around him are those three high-strung daughters in constant friction, each a distinctive voice. Ellen (Embeth Davidtz) is the oldest, Dori (Jacinda Barrett) the youngest, a jobless drifter and sleep-around who resents her controlling father. The middle sister is Reeva (Jane Adams), a stay-at-home mother of two who tonight suspects her professor husband of having an affair with a grad student, but lets it pass.

These companion characters mingle tensely while wondering how their lives will change along with their father’s now that he is apparently back in Seattle for good.

Adjusting to what his press secretary calls the post-election “cold shower of political impotence,” his morning after is disturbingly serene. “I suppose I never called the losers either, did I?” he says philosophically about the silent phone.

A lawyer who’s never practiced, he’s a lame duck so far out of water that he comes up against a wall of bureaucracy when trying to resolve a problem for a constituent in Episode 2. So he resorts to asking a favor from an old political foe, who all but gloats. Inwardly seething, their eyes registering electricity, they meet on the street in a wonderful scene that one hopes is a preview of “Citizen Baines” to come.

*

“Citizen Baines” premieres tonight at 9 on CBS. The network has rated it TV-PG-L (may be unsuitable for young children with a special advisory for coarse language).