For those of you in a hurry, here's the deal on Jimmy Smits' debut in "NYPD Blue": There are bare buttocks, but none of them belongs to Smits.
Smits joins the ABC series tonight (WJZ-Channel 13 at 10 p.m.) as Det. Bobby Simone. He's replacing David Caruso, who played the sometimes-unclothed Det. John Kelly. (Caruso left in a salary dispute. Kelly quit rather than accept a transfer.)
It seems a natural enough replacement. As attorney Victor Sifuentes, Smits often was shirtless on another Stephen Bochco series, "L.A. Law."
Smits' character doesn't exactly ease into the show. About a minute after he's arrived and introduced himself to new partner Andy Sipowicz (Dennis Franz), Sipowicz is telling the lieutenant that this isn't going to work out. "He asked me, 'How's it going?' " Sipowicz complains.
But then Det. Adrienne Lesniak's crazed detective ex-boyfriend pulls a gun on her right there in the precinct house, Smits' Simone steps in to subdue him, and you start to get the feeling that everything is going to work out.
Soon, Simone and Sipowicz are off investigating the murder of a mobster near the apartment of the mobster's model girlfriend. (Model girlfriend, mobster, crazed detective ex-boyfriend -- why do I suddenly feel like I'm writing for the New York Post?) They pick up the girlfriend at a photo session -- bare buttocks alert! -- and bring her back for interrogation. As Simone questions her in a mostly sympathetic fashion, "L.A. Law" fans surely will recognize a familiar character.
But this is "NYPD Blue," after all, so Simone later has to threaten to pummel a man who is seeking to impede the investigation. Now, doesn't that feel better than just raising the possibility of a civil suit?
By the end of the show, the crime has been solved, Simone and Sipowicz have started to bond, and we learn that Simone is unattached. No love interest yet, though. How much can you expect in one episode?