Jan 7, 2014 4 min read

As television becomes overpopulated with gimmicky attempts to put new twists on the standard police procedural, the formulaic directness of Dick Wolf is almost a relief.

“Chicago PD,” premiering at 10 p.m. today eschews computers that watch your every move, android cops of the future, trumpet-playing female Texas Rangers, master criminals working with the FBI, border cops with Asperger’s syndrome, modernized Sherlock Holmeses, agents of “S.H.I.E.L.D.” and resurrected literary figures from the 18th century tracking supernatural criminals in the present day.

Like almost every one of Dick Wolf’s shows, “Chicago PD” is about flesh-and-blood cops doing their job in a real city in real time with no CGI effects.

“Chicago PD” was incubated in Wolf’s other recent series, “Chicago Fire,” which is somewhat of a digression because it’s about fire and rescue personnel as opposed to cops. But Chicago cops have played a role in that series, first through the character of Detective Antonio Dawson (Jon Seda), brother of EMT Gabriella Dawson (Monica Raymond), then with a bad-cop story line focusing on Detective Hank Voight (Jason Beghe) and another about an undercover cop named Jay Halstead (Jesse Lee Soffer) who has infiltrated the mob, not to mention Gabriella’s affections.

Voight is back in “Chicago PD,” and seems not to have changed his stripes. He still appears, at least, to be on the take, while overseeing a secret intelligence unit of the Chicago Police Department. His unit includes Dawson, Halstead, Erin Lindsay (Sophia Bush), a former confidential informant, a cocky Police Academy recruit named Kyle Ruzek (Patrick John Flueger), veteran cop Alvin Alinski (Elias Koteas), and two uniform cops, Kevin Atwater (LaRoyce Hawkins) and Kim Burgess (Marina Squerciatti), whose past career as an airline attendant misleads some of her colleagues about how smart and tough she is. Last but not least, there’s the tech specialist. His name is Archie Kao (Sheldon Jin). He is, of course, Asian.

Really? At least “Law & Order: SVU” let BD Wong be a shrink.

Pilot episodes of most shows usually have a lot of work to do to establish character, story and theme. If the writers are very good – as the “Chicago PD” writers are – viewers won’t feel as though they’re watching a videotaped resume.

We get a sense of each character without all the blanks filled in. We know there’s a connection between Voight and Erin Lindsay, but we don’t know the specifics. We know Ruzek seems like a real cowboy on the surface, but we don’t yet know if there are hidden vulnerabilities. Most of all, though, we don’t really know which side of the line Voight is on. How can he still be on the take and be a good guy?

We’re meant to question the usual absolutes of right and wrong at several turns in “Chicago PD.” The desk officer, Sgt. Platt (Amy Morton), is tough, humorless and runs a petty theft racket out of the police station, brazenly ordering Burgess to steal a ring from the pinky finger of a DOA so she can pawn it. Platt’s sideline isn’t just a nice character detail: It subliminally contributes to our uncertainty about Voight’s allegiances.

Wolf’s shows have sometimes been criticized for being formulaic, but formula isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s true that he probably over-extended the “Law & Order” franchise with “L&O: Criminal Intent,” “L&O: Los Angeles” and “L&O Trial By Jury,” but more often than not, his approach to TV drama works. “Chicago Fire” represented a departure when it premiered in 2012, not only because it’s about fire and rescue personnel, but because it’s set in Chicago. The show’s challenge was that, unless it’s arson, putting out a fire tends to be a singular event, whereas tracking and capturing criminals and then putting them on trial is more easily adaptable for an hour-long drama.

But the key to the Wolf formula isn’t catch the bad guy in the first half hour, put him on trial the second: It’s about characters, and both “Chicago Fire” and “Chicago PD” are filled with them.