CBS' COP DRAMA 'BIG APPLE' LACKING APPEAL.

Byline: David Kronke TV Critic

Anyone who's seen a cop show or movie has a pretty good grasp on the conceit that local police and the FBI just don't get along, that both sides get testy and defensive when a territorial dispute obfuscates separate investigations that happen to intersect. David Mamet's excellent 1991 movie ``Homicide'' probably should've driven that genre into the ground, with its spiffy Joe Mantegna/William H. Macy banter: ``The FBI would (screw) up a baked potato''/``The FBI couldn't find Joe Louis in a bowl of rice.''

Ah, well, ``Big Apple,'' the new drama about New York cops from David Milch, who pretty much gave us the definitive New York cops show with Steven Bochco, ``NYPD Blue,'' offers a retread on the old cops-vs.-feds feud. It opens with the requisite grisly murder of a stripper (tight, lingering close-up on her lifeless bloody hand), which draws Mike Mooney (Ed O'Neill of ``Married ... With Children'') and Vincent Trout (Jeffrey Pierce) of New York's finest to investigate.

Said victim's seedy employer, on the other hand (only on CBS would strip-club thongs appear to be the size of running shorts), is under scrutiny from the FBI. Seems William Preecher (David Straithairn, the excellent character actor) and Jimmy Flynn (Titus Welliver) are investigating some Russian mobsters running guns or drugs or hookers or something out of the skin joint - their inside informant is the tough guy's tough guy Terry Maddock (Michael Madsen, whose voice has now reached driveway-grade gravelly).

Geo-political discourse between the bad guys and Maddock runs no further than exotic, international hot-spot name-dropping: ``Went to Sarajevo, huh? The freakin' Balkans, eh? Let's just do the job and go home.'' Flynn's methods are apparently dubious, so Sarah Day (Kim Dickens) from the Denver office has been brought in to sniff out Big Apple corruption.

Mooney, still in the apartment with the dead stripper who somehow relates to these Eurothugs, is less than thrilled to be dragged in under the auspices of the FBI, even though his puppy-dog-anxious partner sees it all as a good career move. Says Mooney to his new bosses, ``kiss my underpaid Irish a--.'' Which tells you all you need to know about Mooney.

Tonight's episode covers a lot of expository territory (there's even more than what's been heretofore described), so it might be forgiven for being a mite too dry, but the main problem seems to be Mooney. Milch has already created one of the best cop characters in TV history - Andy Sipowicz (played by Dennis Franz) on his old show, ``NYPD Blue'' - and it's clear he's trying to figure out how to reimagine Sipowicz without just cloning the guy.

At this point, however, Mooney's just a standard-issue mouthy palooka; the truly interesting character is Welliver's Flynn, who seems ethically compromised, sharp and yet not quite up to the fight. (In fact, the most interesting premise the show has put forth so far, though it seems unlikely it'll be pursued for very long, is that the good guys simply are in over their heads against a well-oiled, vicious crime machine.)

CBS has brought ``Big Apple'' in to do battle with NBC juggernaut ``ER'' and shore up its suddenly revitalized Thursday lineup. The impressive cast and Milch's imprimatur will guarantee audience sampling, but the show may have begun with too ambitious a first episode. A little less of the ``this guy knows this guy, who knows this guy and that guy'' narrative and a little more cogent character development might've been called for here.

``BIG APPLE''

What: Cops 'n' feds drama from ``NYPD Blue's'' David Milch.

The stars: Ed O'Neill, Jeffrey Pierce, David Straithairn, Titus Welliver, Michael Madsen.

Where: CBS (Channel 2).

When: 10 p.m. Thursdays.

Our rating: Two and one half stars

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Photo:

Ed O'Neill, left, and Jeffrey Pierce are New York cops locking horns with the FBI in the new CBS drama ``Big Apple.''