Watch enough television and pretty soon it seems to come out of the same electronic blender.

Midseason shows especially. These are mainly leftovers that failed to crack the fall lineup. Such a show is Heist (premiering tonight at 10 p.m. on NBC and Global).

Heist is a formulaic cops-and-robbers show that wants to grow up to be a Quentin Tarantino movie. There are plenty of characters here all trying to out-cool each other. That's never cool.

Borrowing a trick from House's Hugh Laurie, Dougray Scott (Dark Water) completely loses his thick accent as professional thief Mickey O'Neil. He assembles a crack team of crooks each more darn eccentric than the next, and tells them his big idea: To knock off three of the biggest jewelry stores on Beverly Hills' Rodeo Drive in the week leading up to the Academy Awards. The proposed take: Half a billion worth of bling. All that's missing is Austin Powers' Dr. Evil holding his pinky up to his nose.

The crooks are such characters. There's Pops (busy character actor Seymour Cassel), an older dude whose wife suffers from Alzheimer's. (No emotional button goes unpushed.) There's Lola, a hot, motorcycle-ridin' babe with a temper (Marika Dorminczyk). There's a cute dumb guy (David Walton). There's a surly black dude (Steve Harris from The Practice) who works so much existential trivia schtick you half-expect Samuel L. Jackson to slap him upside the head for intellectual property theft. He gets to say things like a big butt on a waitress is like "20 pounds of sunshine in a 10-pound bag." Holy Lord, is it 2006 yet?

Then there are the good guys who are naturally less loveable than the bad guys: Michael Hicks (The Shield) plays Amy, the bitchy, tough-as-nails lady cop in charge of a misfit squad. Her first big idea is to team the resident racist (comedian Billy Gardell) -- a fat, lazy slob -- with the black guy (Reno Wilson). "This is just like Lethal Weapon except I actually do hate you," says one of them (don't make me rewind the tape).

This is yet another TV squad room filled with wiseguys and screwups. "As detectives, you all suck," the new girl tells the stooges. That's right after she throws a phone at one of them.

The series is shot like an independent movie. Lots of dark night scenes, hand-held cameras, gratuitous sex and violence. When a sweaty young man with dynamite strapped to his waist gets completely blown away after sticking up a bank, the fat slob cop at the crime scene later jokes that the kid's "remaining eye is unresponsive." Har-dee-har-har.

Heist isn't as good as Thief, a similar-themed U.S. cable drama starring always watchable Andre Braugher (Homicide: Life On The Street). Unfortunately, no Canadian network has picked it up yet. Heist is also nowhere near as good as Eyes, a stylish, mid-season caper drama starring Tim Daly that failed to crack the ABC schedule last spring.

That doesn't mean Heist won't steal viewers away from CSI: NY tonight. If only good shows worked, Arrested Development would still be in production.

There is a twist toward the end of Heist's first episode, and it is a whopper. Suffice to say the good/bad guy and the bad/good girl fall for each other like (add your cliche here).

I would spill more but the DVD screener sent by the network was a little wonky; besides, my remaining eye was unresponsive.