In ‘Keen Eddie,’ NYPD Meets Scotland Yard

Television detectives in Britain are not accustomed to chasing evil doers in the high-testosterone style of American cop shows. No guns equals no shootouts, for one thing. Smaller production budgets another. In Britain, the detective usually solves the crime with his intuition, an arched eyebrow marking the eureka moment when all becomes clear and the plot can be nicely tidied up.

Many of the country’s best-loved fictional detectives even began their careers as cerebral book characters, which is a long leap to the visual gymnastics that defines “Keen Eddie,” Fox’s new series premiering Tuesday.

“Keen Eddie” is a blast of jump cuts and flash-forward, stutter cuts and time-suspending scenes where the cop can chase his quarry to the top of a building in a micro-second.

In Britain, television detectives still take the stairs, one step at a time.

So the arrival of disgraced New York detective Eddie Arlette (Mark Valley) in London, where his attempt to resurrect his career by joining Scotland Yard is the premise for the 13-part comedy-drama, is more than just a traditional fish-out-of-water story. It’s a head-on collision of TV cop cultures: Jim Rockford meets Inspector Morse, or Det. Lennie Briscoe joins Inspector Reg Wexford to poke around the dark corners of British council estates (in American English: the projects).

In that sense, “Keen Eddie” is an experiment. It is a transatlantic mix of American TV money, technology and plots, delivered by a supporting cast that speaks with a charming British accent.

But hey, it worked for Bush and Blair.

The show is a throwback to the era before cop shows became ensemble acts. It recalls the days when the title was the detective. Men like Rockford, Columbo and Magnum.

Eddie Arlette is their 21st century son. Played with a crooked grin and an endearing twinkle in his eye by Valley (perhaps best known as Abby Lockhart’s scoundrel ex-husband on “ER”), Arlette has messed up a New York City drug bust as well as his relationship with his girlfriend. He heads to London to make professional amends and finds himself partnered with apparently retentive detective Monty Pippin (Julian Rhind-Tutt). Circles are closed in the case, but Arlette chooses to stay on in London and take a job under Scotland Yard’s ambitious Supt. Johnson (Colin Salmon).

His self-imposed exile has nothing to do, of course, with the serendipity of having to share a flat with the terribly sexy Fiona (Sienna Miller). She hates him. Like Cybill Shepherd hated Bruce Willis in “Moonlighting.”

“Being a fish out of water helps Eddie,” says Joel Wyman, the series’ writer and creator. “In New York, he already knew what was under every stone, so he stopped looking, and that makes you not only a bad detective but a bad human being.

“But in London he starts to discover things again. He starts to find the exceptional in the mundane.”

There is nothing mundane about “Keen Eddie’s” look. The show is a visual onslaught of wild camera angles and an editing technique that executive producer Simon West (“Con Air,” “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider”) consciously calls “anarchic.” The music is hip and the camera ramps right into the meat of a scene, giving some moments the feel of Guy Ritchie’s “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.”

“When I first read the script, I saw Eddie as much more energetic than he became when we shot it,” says Valley. “I thought Eddie would be fast-talking, like James Cagney.

“But there is so much stuff going on around Eddie that I realized it would be too much for the character to be hyperactive. It’s better that he just seems amused by all the stuff flying by and going on around him.”

The tone is light. Wyman calls Keen Eddie a “dramedy,” which means it is not going to descend into sordid depravity. “People want to see life-affirming things,” Wyman says. “They’ve seen everything else a million times before.”

There are plenty of sex puns and visual gags. And some of the minor characters are as stereotypically British as a London fog.

But then, “Keen Eddie” is not meant to be an exploration of modern Britain. It is American.

“I’m just hoping American audiences don’t get thrown off, thinking, ‘Ah, this is an English show,’ ” Valley says.

Not bloody likely.

“Keen Eddie” will air at 9 p.m. Tuesdays on Fox. The network has rated the show TV-PG (may be unsuitable for young children).

Cover photograph by Sam Jones.