COVERT OPERATORS: Nicki Aycox, Dylan McDermott, Logan Marshall-Green and Omari Hardwick

The ruggedly handsome actor, whom we came to know as Bobby Donnel in The Practice, plays a brooding undercover cop in his latest offering.

It's a story you have seen and heard many a time before, especially if you are a CSI fan (they share Jerry Bruckheimer as producer) - a hard-boiled crime fighter carrying around personal tragedies because he continues to put his job before his family.

In this case Lieutenant Carter Shaw heads up a team of Los Angeles officers who are so covert that some of their colleagues don't even know what it is they do.

Their job is to penetrate the underbelly of Los Angeles and root out the drug lords, gang leaders and terrorists, et al. This often leads to scenes that are rather gruesome and violent.

All we can hope for is that there will be fewer glib comments à la Horatio Cane from this paternal leader of the newly married Ty (Omari Hardwick), the hot-headed Dean (Logan Marshall-Green), and mysterious new kid on the block Jaimie (Nicki Aycox).

• Dark Blue premieres tonight on M-Net Series at 8pm

Dark Blue fact

A New Jersey police officer accused producer Jerry Bruckheimer of stealing his identity for the character of Ty.

Though undercover narcotics detective Wayne Bradshaw decided not to go the legal route, he still felt that he got a raw deal. Apparently a spokesman for the show declined to comment.