Drama and melodrama in Washington, D.C.

For a long time, it seemed that if an actor wasn’t playing a lawyer, doctor or cop on television, he wasn’t working. Then “The West Wing” added politicos to the list of professionals audiences wanted to see at work. NBC’s “The Lyon’s Den,” premiering Sunday, offers up Washington lawyers and politicians (and some cops, lurking in the shadows), but success doesn’t automatically come with the right job descriptions.

“The West Wing” disproved the canard that politics didn’t make for compelling television. After winning the Emmy as best drama series for the fourth year in a row, the show returns to NBC tonight in the middle of a story. At the end of last season, President Bartlet (Martin Sheen) learned that his daughter had been kidnapped. The commander in chief felt his role as concerned father superseded his job, so he stepped aside, letting the Republican speaker of the house (John Goodman) move into the Oval Office.

The action behind the scenes created a different kind of cliffhanger. Series creator and chief writer Aaron Sorkin and director Thomas Schlamme departed, leaving the third member of the triumvirate of executive producers, John Wells, to run this show along with “ER” and “Third Watch.”

Whether “The West Wing” will nosedive without Sorkin became as pressing a concern among the show’s fans as whether Zoey Bartlet would be found dead or alive.

Judging by its first hour, “The West Wing” is still “The West Wing.” It is no more TV for multitaskers than it ever was. C.J., Josh, Leo, Charlie, Donna and Toby are still the sharpest kids in town, and outsiders are doomed to serve as their straight men. The quick, mouthy guardians of democracy remain our fantasy politicians, well-meaning and ambitious for all the right reasons.

Goodman is a terrific but temporary addition, and although there are fewer laughs in the season opener than in many past episodes, his runt of a dog provides a few. Needless to say, everyone’s on edge. Not only is Zoey missing, but it becomes clear that her kidnapping is an act of retaliation for a covert assassination Bartlet had hoped to keep secret. The West Wing regulars, Bartlet’s men and women all, should pay attention to the political ramifications of the crisis. But how can they? They’re the president’s friends.

As in the past, the series excels at distilling the basic emotions within large events. At the end of the hour Bartlet attends a private mass with his wife, other daughters and grandchildren. He isn’t a world leader in the grip of geopolitical forces. He’s just the head of a family in pain.

In “The Lyon’s Den” -- which debuts Sunday on NBC, opposite ABC’s retooled “The Practice” -- “West Wing” refugee Rob Lowe asks, “Are ethics and the law an oxymoron?” “The Practice” has always chewed on moral dilemmas, so that line could have been ripped from the legal drama’s playbook. Interesting questions demand clever answers, but “The Lyon’s Den” has none. Earnest, politically correct and, oh, so self-righteous, this legal and political melodrama might not make everyone yell at the TV set, but it had that effect on this viewer.

Lowe is Jack Turner, the scion of a political dynasty and erstwhile editor in chief of the Yale Law Review. He’s dedicated to pro bono work at a legal clinic in Washington, D.C., but he’s not as far as he’d like to be from the establishment’s grasp. His mentor, the managing partner of Lyon, LaCrosse and Levine, jumps out his office window, and Turner is picked to replace him. When Turner resists, he’s tricked into taking the job, since the powerful firm controls the do-gooding clinic’s budget.

That was one screaming-at-the-tube moment. Oh, sure. That’s how lawyers become heads of important firms: They’re coerced, then they perform their jobs against their will.

Back in D.C., Turner is anointed because he’s above reproach, which makes him the opposite of the partners who long ago checked their principles in the firm’s wood-paneled waiting room. With Turner and his equally idealistic friend George (Matt Craven) as white knights, a coven of scheming baddies, including Frances Fisher, Kyle Chandler and James Pickens Jr., play the devil’s disciples. They’re cartoon evildoers, as rotten as Bullwinkle and Rocky’s nemesis, Boris Badinoff, and as silly.

“The Lyon’s Den” clearly has ambitions that stretch from “All The President’s Men” to last year’s bestselling legal thriller “The Emperor of Ocean Park.” The pilot hints at a grand conspiracy that will unravel throughout the season and will ultimately reveal the truth about the suicidal attorney’s death. There are also upstairs, downstairs possibilities at the firm, where paralegals and powerbrokers fraternize at their peril. If only the proceedings weren’t so bloated with pomposity.

Researchers have established a connection between beauty and perceived goodness. Even children, when shown photographs of attractive people, ascribe positive personal qualities to them. Perhaps that’s why good-looking villains can be so arresting -- we don’t expect them to behave badly. Lowe, who has often borne the career-crippling cross of good looks, is too pretty to play the hero. And he obviously isn’t having any fun fighting for justice. He makes it through the entire pilot without cracking a smile. There would have been sweet revenge if Lowe’s new series successfully invaded the territory of “The West Wing.”

But while “The Lyon’s Den” may share the Emmy winner’s geography, it doesn’t come anywhere near its quality.

*

‘The Lyon’s Den’

Where: NBC

When: Sundays, 10 p.m.; premieres Sunday

Rating: TV-14 (may not be suitable for children under the age of 14).

Rob Lowe...Jack Turner

Matt Craven...George Riley

Kyle Chandler...Grant Rashton

Frances Fisher...Brit Hanley

Elizabeth Mitchell...Ariel Saxon

James Pickens Jr....Terrence Christianson

Creator-writer Remi Aubuchon. Executive producers Aubuchon, Rob Lowe, Kevin Falls, Brad Grey, Bernie Brillstein and Dan Sackheim. Director Sackheim.