When the scenery chews the actors

To say that there is nothing especially bad about “Hawaii,” NBC’s new travelogue cop show, is only to say that it’s bad in all the old usual ways. Indeed, with scarcely an original thought from beginning to end, it has been made to be like other things whose badness has proved no bar to popularity.

Though its venerable -- and superior -- geographical precedents are “Hawaii Five-0” and “Magnum, P.I.,” the series’ true model is the terrifying “CSI” franchise, whose genius it is to apply the colonialist reach of “The Real World” and “Survivor” to a police procedural. In style, and partly in substance, “Hawaii” is “CSI: Honolulu.”

Coming to you in saturated colors and a wide-screen format, “Hawaii” has appropriated something of the hyper-real look of “CSI” and also shares, though not quite to the same awful degree, its prurient interest in body parts and blood.

After a few shots establishing the primal beauty of the islands (Hawaii is always ready for its close-up), we meet the smoking skeletal remains of a torso fished from the edge of a volcano. Not long afterward we get a glimpse of a trunkload of severed heads and later a fifth sitting in a sink full of dirty dishes. That they have been removed with shark’s teeth is what passes here for local color/culture.

In addition to all the gore porn, “Hawaii” has the distinction of bringing the term “coke whore” into what was once puckishly called “the Family Hour.” (If Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell isn’t too worn out rubber-stamping media mergers, he might want to give NBC -- that is, NBC Universal -- a call.)

Like the Republican National Convention, in whose midst it is premiering, “Hawaii” is a thing of no surprises and little drama or suspense. The end of every scene may be predicted nearly from its beginning.

There is a sad, an almost mathematical, inevitability to the whole affair. Creator Jeff Eastin is the man who wrote (the yet unmade) “True Lies 2” and the upcoming “Rush Hour 3,” and that too makes a certain mathematical sense.

Like most TV detectives, the men of “Hawaii” -- all but one -- are too young for the job and as well qualified to model underwear as to fight crime.

Their dress is expensively casual, their hair -- cranial and facial -- professionally tended. In TV’s usual way, they have been cast to reflect and flatter the audience: Three of the four stars are white and one is black, with Asians, the state’s largest ethnic population, and Pacific Islanders in supporting roles and providing “atmosphere.”

The actors do what they can, but none actually has a character to play. Michael Biehn (“The Terminator,” “Aliens” and many action pix thereafter) is the above-noted older guy, and I don’t know what else to say about him. We meet him and new partner Sharif Atkins (“ER”) as they drive crazily around Honolulu in a red convertible in hot pursuit of a stolen car, while Biehn gaily relates the breakup of his marriage.

Atkins’ character comes from Chicago, which is supposed to explain why he can’t swim -- unfamiliar as he is, apparently, with Lake Michigan -- and is required to say, “That’s what I’m talking about!” And then say it again. (And: “Don’t even think about it!” And “What’s up with that?”)

Ivan Sergei (“Crossing Jordan,” “Jack & Jill”) plays the brash hothead, upbraided for “profane insulting language and generally unprofessional behavior” by crusty ethnic superior officer Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, who performed the exact same service for Don Johnson back on “Nash Bridges.” The special twist here is that Sergei’s character doesn’t actually seem to be a very good detective, though I’m not sure that is intended or that he is meant to be as thoroughly unlikable as he is. (Sergei certainly can be charming when allowed.)

Partner Eric Balfour (“Six Feet Under,” “The O.C.”) seems to do all the work; Balfour has a goofy charm, and his moments on-screen are tonight’s best.

The opening hour does pack in an impressive amount of action, though it does not entirely distract from the fact that nothing of interest is happening. (The action is not all that interesting, either, to be frank, but it is very well staged, especially for television.) And there is beautiful Hawaii, shaping up as the TV flavor of the year, for the scenery and the tax credits and the fact that it isn’t Canada. Of the five broadcast networks, only CBS (which has used the islands as a backdrop to “The Amazing Race”) has no drama shooting there. Fox’s “North Shore” is up and running, ABC’s “Lost” (“Survivor,” but more fictional) is scheduled for midseason and the WB is filming a pilot for its young-persons’ “Rocky Point.”

However good or bad these shows prove to be, Hawaii will survive them, as it has survived Donny and Marie and the Brady Bunch, “Baywatch” and “Average Joe.” And that, at least, is pleasant to consider.

*

‘Hawaii’

Where: NBC

When: 8-9 p.m. Wednesdays

Michael Biehn...Sean Harrison

Sharif Atkins...John Declan

Ivan Sergei...Danny Edwards

Eric Balfour...Christopher Gains

Aya Sumika...Linh Tamiya

Peter Navy Tuisapo...Kaleo