Starting Over

Showtime has deliberately shied away from producing original series focusing on cops, lawyers and doctors because shows dealing with those professions dominate the network schedule. But the pay-cable outlet has reversed its policy with the gritty “Street Time,” premiering Sunday.

Rob Morrow, in his first series since “Northern Exposure,” plays a parolee who spent five years in a federal penitentiary for marijuana smuggling and is trying to reconnect with his wife and young son while steering clear of the lifestyle that led to his downfall. Scott Cohen (“NYPD Blue”) and Erika Alexander are parole officers.

Jerry Offsay, president of programming at Showtime, says the series isn’t so much a cop show as one exploring “good and bad and grays. I think that’s what got us to develop this show in the first place. If it were only told from the point of view of the parole officers, we would have passed.”

The series was created and is executive produced by Richard Stratton, who wrote the underground cult novel “Smack Goddess” and was himself convicted of conspiracy to import marijuana and hashish in 1982. “I was in prison for eight years,” says Stratton. “There was an illegality in my sentence I discovered after I had been locked up for six or seven years. By the time I got the sentence vacated and got resentenced to 10 years, I had done about eight years and they had to let me go.”

Morrow’s character, Kevin Hunter, is based largely on his experiences--”though I didn’t have the wife and young child,” Stratton notes. “But I saw all of those other people in prison who did. I was always moved by that business--how do you connect and keep a relationship alive when you are locked up?”

He also struggled with returning to his former life. “I was owed a lot of money and part of me felt like I deserved the money, but it became apparent to me that even trying to collect that money and seeing these people were enough to get me back into prison,” Stratton says. “I needed to leave this life totally behind me. I became really interested in the question of whether or not people can reinvent themselves in the middle of their lives. I was in my 40s when I got out of prison. Fortunately, I had published a novel when I was locked up and I had a whole other career that was beginning.”

Alexander and Cohen’s parole officers are based on Stratton’s parole officers. “My first parole officer was a black woman who was very understanding and a reasonable person,” he says. But his second wasn’t.

“He read me the riot act,” says Stratton, and “then he started to show up at my house at 7 in the morning and 11 at night. Ultimately, I feel like maybe that close supervision he kept me under during that very vulnerable time was one of the contributing factors to my going straight.”

Cohen was intrigued by the complexity of his character. The officer is battling his own demons in the form of a gambling addiction.

“I am very attracted to characters that have lots of flaws because I think we all do,” he says. “I think it’s interesting to watch and play. His life is slowly spinning out of control. It gets really bad.”

Later this week, Showtime will unveil its third-season premieres of its African American drama, “Soul Food,” and its Latino-themed series, “Resurrection Blvd.” Last Friday, the network also launched its new sci-fi series, “Odyssey 5.”

“Some day the networks will wake up and realize that people watch TV 52 weeks a year,” says Offsay. “Until they do, we are going to take advantage of the fact that we have this gaping hole when there is nothing new or fresh on.”

Offsay admits, though, that Showtime waited too late last year when it premiered the short-lived series “Going to California” and “Leap Years” in mid-August.

“We got three weeks to ourselves and then the networks were back,” he says. “The series just fell off the map once we got into the second week in September.”

“Street Time” can be seen Sundays at 10 p.m. on Showtime. The network has rated the premiere TV-MA (may be unsuitable for children under 17). “Soul Food” and “Resurrection Blvd.” can be seen Wednesdays at 10 and 10:45 p.m., respectively, on Showtime. Both series are rated TV-14 (may be unsuitable for children under 14).