A&E's new show "The Beast" features some intense acting from Patrick Swayze who basically comes off as Tommy Lee Jones playing Vik Mackey from "The Shield". And, like "The Shield" the show is about a rogue law enforcement agent who works by his own code and may or may not be dirty.

However, that's where the comparisons to the well-crafted "The Shield" end.

"The Beast" is a borderline parody. I almost feel like the original pitch was: Imagine if the FBI was run with the same level of logic or security as a podunk police department in Scranton. Nevermind that Swayze's character actually fires a rocket launcher and blows up a car in the middle of a city like it's no big deal but the FBI's evidence room is your stereotypical chain link fence and one old geezer working the window. The "Holy Grail" of FBI evidence (a drive with every FBI undercover agent's in the world's true identity) sits on the shelf closest to the front of the room for everyone to see. To get something out, you just need a single print out. Not one but two people essentially break in and get what the need during the show. It's like someone familiar with the FBI from the 1950's wrote the script and then a young kid just threw in a few new reference like computers and launch cards to make it seem like a present day script.

And while the drive with undercover agents' true identities is a highly sought after object, the actual characters in this show don't seem all that careful about keeping their own identities under wraps. Undercover Feds apparently work in the same city all the time (the same city in which they live), sometimes with what seems like just a week between jobs. They wander in and out of the FBI building without seeming to care that, you know, they are supposedly in the middle of an undercover sting operation. Swayze actually runs out of the building to his car in broad daylight with the box holding the rocket launcher as if he just picking up a pizza. His young partner (played unconvincingly by model Travis Fimmel) is literally starting to date a girl (using his real identity) minutes after working as an undercover.

But perhaps the best part was the ad for The Beast that appeared during the show. One of the quote was "Patrick Swayze elevates" from the Hollywood Reporter. Now I really don't think it takes even a 12 year old to realize that that is only a sentence fragment and that the rest of the sentence was probably cut off for a reason. The full quote was: "Patrick Swayze's work elevates an otherwise ordinary hour" which isn't exactly the kind of blurb you're going to hang your hat on.

Maybe some people will be able to enjoy the show as "Shield-lite", a brain-dead guilty pleasure. If that's what you're looking for though I'd recommend watching Leverage instead as that mediocre show doesn't pretend to be anything more than it is and has its tongue firmly place in cheek. Better yet, watch "Burn Notice" on USA (or Netflix the first season). That show also requires some leaps of faith but it's tone (more A-Team than The Shield) and the cases (more personal, helping the little guy odd jobs than government assignments) make it easy to suspend your disbelief.

"The Beast" takes itself too seriously to be a guilty please and is too ridiculous to be enjoyed as a gritty thriller. Swayze's presence is going to get me to give it one more chance but I seriously doubt that it will still be on the DVR To Do list at this time next week.