'KEEN EDDIE' MUCH BETTER THAN MOST FOX OFFERINGS.

Byline: David Kronke Television Critic

GO FIGURE - the Fox network has enjoyed gangbuster triumphs with its reality programming, but only nominal success with its dramas (even critical favorite ``24'' needed ``American Idol's'' coattails to bring it strong ratings). Part of its woes derives from its shows - ``Fastlane'' and ``John Doe,'' for example, could've been described as ``style over substance,'' only if they had managed any substance in the first place.

But when the network has a genuinely entertaining program like ``Keen Eddie,'' what does it do with it? It burns it off in the summer, where viewership levels are guaranteed to be low. Here's a theory: Fox had no idea what to do with a show in which a crime is solved by studying the plot of an opera (which ``Keen Eddie'' does in episode three). Make it the plot of a graphic novel or a snuff film, and Fox brass is simpatico, but an opera??? Sheesh.

Which is not to say that ``Keen Eddie'' is high-brow fare. Far from it - it's just a cop show with a bit of a twist that manages itself competently, a fish-out-of-water comedy-drama that dispenses with the fish-out-of-water concept almost immediately. Mark Valley stars as Eddie Arlette, a New York detective who blows a major drug bust and is sent to London to pick up the investigation's string there.

There, Eddie's teamed up with Monty Pippin (Julian Rhind-Tutt), a cop who lies his way into wife-swapping parties to get lucky and must contend with the eternally impending exasperation of the prim yet fiercely sharp and ambitious Scotland Yard superintendent, Nathanial Johnson (Colin Salmon).

He's also saddled with an unwelcoming roommate, Fiona (Sienna Miller), a perky blonde in a seemingly endless search for the perfect toaster and the perfect foil for a fairly predictable love-hate relationship (my 13-year-old stepdaughter observed, ``They flirt like there's no tomorrow - they're like kids in my grade'').

Also in the mix - and the subject of an equally impassioned love-hate relationship - is Eddie's bull terrier, Pete (played by Dozer, who makes for a fine deadpan comic actor). When Pippin helps Eddie rescue the dog from a six-month quarantine period by concocting a story about it being a police dog, the customs official asks Eddie, ``Does the dog sniff drugs?'' Eddie replies, ``Yeah, but he's not addicted.'' Fiona later grabs Pete behind Eddie's back for use in an advertising photo shoot.

After tonight's episode, which opens with Eddie being held hostage (``This blindfold smells funny,'' he grouses; his kidnapper sheepishly explains, ``It's one of my socks'') and fumbling his way through British traditions, Arlette becomes a take-charge kind of guy in the land of stiff upper lips. Future episodes involve a soccer star accused of murder; an opera diva, being menaced by a stalker, with the hots for Eddie; and his- and-her jewelry robbers.

The cast is uniformly good (the casting agents were meticulous in casting according to visual cues, with Valley's thick American forehead and the other actors' wan, stereotypically British features), the writing is reasonably sharp, and episodes move at a brisk clip. Its droll, good-natured approach to crime-solving is similar to that of the USA cable network's hit, ``Monk.''

Since the producers don't think there's much in London that American viewers would recognize, there's a preponderance of interstitial shots of Big Ben and the London Eye Ferris wheel. But this bit of cultural condescension can be forgiven - what's unforgivable, however, is Fox's treatment of good material while foisting ``Mr. Personality'' upon us during sweeps month.

David Kronke, [phone]

david.kronke(at)dailynews.com

KEEN EDDIE - Three stars

What: Comedy-drama about an American detective in London.

Where: Fox (Channel 11).

When: 9 tonight.

In a nutshell: Solid entertainment deserving better treatment than a summertime burial.

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Mark Valley is a New York detective who must contend with the British way of doing things when he's sent to London after a failed drug bust in Fox's ``Keen Eddie.''