(S01E01) I haven't checked yet, but I'm going to assume that every single episode of 'Memphis Beat' is going to have a different Elvis Presley song as the episode's title, only slightly tweaked. Tonight's first episode was "It's Alright Mama," and I'm sure that future episodes will have titles like "Love Meat Tender," "Heartburn Hotel," "Don't Be Gruel," and "Suspicious Mimes."

I hope you like Elvis, because he figures heavily into this show in many ways. Not only is our police hero Dwight Hendrciks an Elvis impersonator at night (doing his own thing actually, more early thin Elvis than later overweight Elvis, thank God), there are dozens of other Elvis impersonators scattered around the Memphis landscape, at least in this first episode.

The show itself? Like Elvis, there's a lot to like and some things ... not so much.

First, the good.

• The cast is great. It's terrific to see Jason Lee play a serious, divorced, drinking cop -- albeit one with a quirky nighttime gig -- after playing such a goofy, spacey guy like Earl on 'My Name is Earl.' Remembering him from that show and then watching him in this one makes this performance even more effective. DJ Qualls has one of the great character faces in film. The look he gave when he had to frisk the nude guy was priceless. Alfre Woodard has the role that every show like this has, the hard-as-nails police chief who really as a heart of gold, but she's talented enough to give it a little something extra to make the character interesting.

• The location work helps a lot. You're not going to like this show unless you love being drenched in the entire atmosphere of Memphis, Tenn., from the various neighborhoods to the bars to the river to the skyline. A good location -- and good cinematography -- can make a show with a routine plot seem just a little more special.

• The music is the type of music that will make you want to buy the inevitable soundtrack. Besides the Elvis stuff, which is always good to hear, there are blues songs and country songs and honky-tonk that fit the show quite well. 'Memphis Beat' is one of those shows that uses songs as sort of a shorthand to get to the heart of a scene. Sometimes it's overdone; here it's well-done.

I bet producer George Clooney had a hand in the music selection. I think one of the repeated themes here was in 'Ocean's Eleven' too.

The bad?

• As I said, this could easily get to be a little routine, and the only reason we might like it is because there's a good cast and a good location and good music to cover up that routine-ness. But then again, so what? I don't know if any show can be so outrageously original anymore. Give me a routine plot with great stuff around the edges and I'm entertained. Still, I hope the plots are strong enough where we don't just say this is a show filled with quirks and "characters" and a good location. That could drift into faux-gravitas when it's really just a cop show.

• Yes, Woodard is a fine actress, and tonight we saw glimpses that she might actually be a real person and not just the typical chief who stands behind a desk and yells at the star of the show to "take a break or you're suspended." I was impressed that they actually had the character leave the station and go out to crime scenes and not just walk around office huffing and puffing and scowling at the "loose cannons" she has on her hands. But let's hope that the character actually does something different, like not threatening Hendricks in future episodes. Wouldn't that be great?

• So far the show is very moody, very talky, very music-oriented. I hope future eps has a little less conversation, a little more action.

More thoughts:

• You know what this show reminds me of? 'Burn Notice.' Loner hero who has a few close friends that help him on assignments, and he has a mom who is sometimes proud of him sometimes frustrated by his life and his job. It's 'Burn Notice' mixed with a little 'Justified.'

• Let's hope the Elvis stuff is toned down a bit. We don't have to see Elvis impersonators or even Lee performing his nightclub shows to remember that this is Memphis.

I did like that last scene. How many cop shows do you see that ends in the lead cop on stage, mic in his hand, singing an Elvis song (no, 'Cop Rock' doesn't count)? And they played the entire scene seriously, not as a joke, as his fellow officers -- even Woodard -- looked on with enjoyment. That's sort of a risky thing to do in a show like this, but the gamble plays off because they don't go for camp or laughs.

So the good outweighs the bad so far.

Here's Elvis singing "That's Alright, Mama" at his '68 Comeback Special. By the way, that's actor Lance LeGault playing tambourine on the left.

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