A flush yet not too taxing ‘Windfall’

“WINDFALL,” premiering tonight on NBC, asks questions we all must have asked ourselves at one time or another, unless we were incredibly rich to begin with or of a preternaturally spiritual disposition: What would I do with (insert fantastically large sum of money here) and how would it change me? (If you are anything like me, and I believe all people are, your answer would have been, I would do good things, and it wouldn’t change me at all. I would remain the splendid person I am now.)

And so it’s no surprise that this no-doubt ancient mental exercise has become the premise of more than one work of popular art, from the movies “If I Had a Million” and “Christmas in July” to such TV shows as “The Millionaire” and “The Beverly Hillbillies,” in which the response to sudden wealth is to leave the place you know and love and move to a land of concrete swimming holes where your neighbors will get all upset over a little thing like your cooking up some lye soap in the backyard.

By virtue of the $386-million lottery ticket here being shared among many winners, the series gets to answer its essential questions in several ways -- one might call it a simultaneous anthology -- as did “If I Had a Million” and “The Millionaire.” But in some ways “Lost” is really its model: A group of people are tied together in a strange and special circumstance that will reveal past secrets and create new alliances. Some of the winners seem pretty well off to begin with, but the ticket does allow one humble nurse’s aide (Jaclyn DeSantis) to say goodbye, in so many words, to a bad boss and lets pizza delivery girl Malinda Williams leave the trailer from which she and her child are being evicted in a helicopter, a method more symbolic than practical.

It’s a decent enough show, a soap opera essentially, playing around with heavy themes and life-changing events but lightweight enough not to make you think too hard or keep you glued to the television when you decide you want something from the refrigerator -- the TV equivalent of a beach book. Its cast likewise will not blind you with the glare of previous accomplishments. Among the winners are Luke Perry, of “Beverly Hills, 90210” fame, who is the series’ closest thing to a star and its totally-nice-guy moral center; best pal Jason Gedrick, who likes Perry’s wife (Lana Parrilla) more than his own (Sarah Wynter); and Wynter’s flower-show employee D.J. Cotrona, a sexy dude with a dark past who dares not speak his name. For the younger set, there are teenagers Jon Foster (younger brother of Ben), who hires himself a Russian bride in order to become an emancipated minor and claim his share of the winnings; and Alice Greczyn, the girl who loves him from not-so-afar, and whose divorcing parents are bickering over their own cut. There are many other, less important winners whose names do not appear in the opening credits but will provide some sort of context as we bump along, for however long we bump.

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‘Windfall’

Where: NBC

When: 10 to 11 tonight

Rating: TV-14 (may be unsuitable for children younger than 14)