• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, February 14, 2017

Here we go again: Another new CBS drama series whose storytelling seems full of holes to me, but based on my abysmal record of predicting the fates of CBS shows, this one will probably squeak through too, warts and all.

Nevertheless, you might say I have doubts about this show, but that would be a crass exploitation of the show's title, the single word “Doubt” -- a pun beneath the dignity of the TV Blog.

Hey, wait a minute -- wasn't “Doubt” the name of a play and then a movie starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams as nuns and Phillip Seymour Hoffman as a priest they suspected of having an inappropriate relationship with a boy in his parish?

Yes, it is the same name, but the TV show “Doubt” has nothing to do with nuns and priests (at least not in the first two episodes I watched in advance of its premiere date Wednesday night).

The TV show is a New York City-based legal drama, and the word “Doubt” in the title is probably meant to suggest the presence of “doubt” -- reasonable or otherwise -- when it comes to the guilt or innocence of the various defendants on trial here.

Of course, that's the question in any trial, particularly in TV dramas. If a defendant’s guilt or innocence was not in doubt, the stories would not be interesting. Thus, the TV show “Doubt” is a lot like TV legal dramas you've seen before -- basically, all of them.

There's even an evening scene in the premiere episode of “Doubt” in which the show's lead lawyer character -- sassy, sexy Sadie Ellis, played by Katherine Heigl -- and her boss and mentor, Isaiah Roth (Elliott Gould) sit on patio chairs on a Manhattan rooftop drinking scotch and discussing a case.

Scenes like this were a more or less weekly occurrence on “Boston Legal,” although on that show they were a comedic highlight thanks to James Spader and William Shatner. Here on “Doubt,” not so much.

One of the doubts about “Doubt” is brought about in the context of one of the show's cases -- one that will evidently be dragged out over multiple episodes. It concerns the murder trial of a 30-something pediatric surgeon (good-looking, brilliant and dedicated -- just like every character on CBS dramas).

The murder happened years before (1991, I believe) when this doctor was a Manhattan teen. Apparently, following a tiff one night with his then-16 year-old girlfriend, the future doc left her alone in a Manhattan park where someone bludgeoned her to death.

Here in the present day, the doctor (who was long suspected) has been charged with the crime due to the emergence of new evidence (I think).

But here's the thing: The writers of this story have inexplicably set this public park bludgeoning in Gramercy Park, one of the smallest in Manhattan and possibly the only one that you need a key to get into. And the keys are distributed only to people who live near the park.

In other words, Gramercy Park is a semi-private oasis of greenery in a tony Manhattan enclave. As such, it is probably the safest park in all of New York City. So why would TV writers set a murder like this in this particular park? Central Park would have made much more sense.

As a New Yorker, this kind of stuff drives me crazy because it makes you think these writers of a TV show set in New York are not acquainted with the city at all.

Thus, you get a fake, TV version of New York. While watching “Doubt,” I thought to myself at one point: Isn't America sick of TV New York by now?

Sure enough, two characters in Episode Two actually go and see “Hamilton” on Broadway. Perhaps CBS is just being shrewd in presenting a New York-based legal drama that portrays the city through the eyes of out-of-towners. That's who the network wants to watch the show, isn't it?

The verdict on “Doubt” is that it's a run-of-the-mill courtroom drama churned out by the CBS TV-show factory according to a time-honored formula -- a group of clichéd, diverse characters who are all the best at what they do, offbeat trials (such as one case in which a husband is charged with having sex with his wife who cannot give her consent because she has Alzheimer's) and various romantic subplots (such as the sexy Sadie character falling in love with the pediatrician).

It’s the same-old, same-old. As a result, it'll probably do fine.

“Doubt” premieres Wednesday night at 10 Eastern on CBS.