'The Cleaner'

"The Cleaner," which follows the adventures of an "extreme interventionist," is a slightly exasperating new series from A&E -- its first original scripted show in six years, the network is proud to point out. There are some good things here, and some that are less good: It's a mix of the professionally done, the professionally overdone, the reasonably convincing, the surprisingly hackneyed and the occasionally absurd.

We are told by an opening title card that William Banks, who is played by Benjamin Bratt, formerly of "Law & Order," "has saved 257 people from addiction to drugs, sex and gambling." (I love the specificity of that figure.) "He's not a cop," the title continues. "He's not a superhero. He's just a man with a Calling." Yet he has made himself hard to find, so he's a man with a calling whom you really have to want to call.

The show is loosely based on the real-life work of Warren Boyd -- same initials, see -- who is the man Mel Gibson brought to Courtney Love’s Beverly Hills hotel room a few years back to convince her to go into treatment. (Love later recommended him to Whitney Houston.) A figure obviously to be reckoned with, he has developed, according to an A&E news release, "a partly secretive, partly incomprehensible, very nontraditional method that he employs on a daily basis to help others get clean." Those others range from "high-profile names to perfect strangers."

As for his fictional double, I am guessing we haven't yet seen the full extent of his work -- at this point, it's mostly kidnapping, effected with the help of his support team, who all give him one flavor of headache or another. There are the rich Asian beauty ( Grace Park), with whom he had an affair; the woolly-headed comic relief (Esteban Powell, who does more with the part than might be expected); the old friend teetering on the edge of relapse (Gil Bellows, barely recognizable from "Ally McBeal," guesting); and, coming next week, a large African American used car salesman (Kevin Michael Richardson). For all I know, this is the exact complexion of Boyd's actual organization, but it smacks more of screenwriting than it does of reality.