During Smith’s too-short run this fall, the main criticism leveled against it was that it was hard to root for characters that were thieves and murderers. I don’t believe the point of watching TV should be to root for against any characters, but, apparently, it’s something people do.

NBC’s new drama The Black Donnellys, about a thuggish quartet of brothers in Hell’s Kitchen, probably won’t run into the same problem. Smith’s main character was played by craggy, middle-aged Ray Liotta. The Donnellys, on the other hand, are the Backstreet Boys of crime. They’re young, pretty, and each of them has a defining character trait: the leader, the gambler, the lady’s man, and the bad boy. Besides, their motivation has more to do with preserving the family than greed. This, the show borrowed from The Godfather. The rest is straight out of Goodfellas: narration, flashbacks, and period music.

The pilot, which aired Monday and again Thursday, was pretty cutting-edge for network TV. There was drug use and murder at point-blank range. Still, though, substituting the Irish for the Italians doesn’t make it fresh enough to be something we haven’t seen done before, and better, on the big screen.

The Black Donnellys is an improvement over Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, but once The Sopranos kicks off its final season in April, the crime show to watch won’t be anywhere near a broadcast network.