"The Firm" on NBC, With Josh Lucas Should you watch "The Firm," the 1993 movie, before watching "The Firm," the 2012 television series? You should, because if you haven't seen the film (or read the John Grisham novel on which both are based), the TV show will be especially bewildering. A Harvard-educated lawyer, his blue-blood wife, his ex-con brother and the brother's Dixified girlfriend running a scrappy start-up law firm six months after they all left witness protection? Even David E. Kelley couldn't have dreamed it up. But then you shouldn't, because the comparison doesn't do the show any favors. The film wasn't great, but it got the job done - infusing the square Grisham thriller with a little Elmore Leonard jazz - and it wrapped its star, Tom Cruise, in a blanket of deluxe Hollywood talent (Sydney Pollack, Robert Towne, Gene Hackman). The series, which begins with a two-hour episode on Sunday on NBC, tries to keep the conspiracy framework of the original - if you're going to call your show "The Firm," there needs to be a sinister firm in there somewhere - while also providing weekly courtroom catharsis. In the premiere, unfortunately, the case of the week and the background story seem to be competing to see which can be sillier. Set a decade after the events of the book and film, the show puts Mitch McDeere (Josh Lucas) and his wife, Abby (Molly Parker), in Washington, where Mitch's newfound storefront idealism is tested by an offer of a partnership from a small, successful law firm. We can see that it's too good to be true - suspicions that are confirmed before the premiere is over - but Mitch doesn't seem bothered by the many parallels to his seduction by the mobbed-up Bendini, Lambert & Locke in the original. And speaking of the mobsters, they're still around, and still determined to knock off Mitch. Of course this doesn't jibe with the film, which ended with his having reached a détente with them while avoiding witness protection. It takes a couple of jarring, revisionist flashbacks in the first 10 minutes of the premiere to reconcile these details. Having performed such leaps of logic, the writers apparently didn't have much strength left for the weekly plot, which is notably slight and unbelievable, even for a TV legal drama. Mitch is forced by a do-gooder judge to defend a teenager in a schoolyard killing. Hearing that the dead student's father wants to put out a hit on his young client, Mitch does what any good lawyer would do. No, not call the police. He has his brother pretend to be a hit man and solicit the job. The folks over at "The Good Wife" will be wondering why they didn't think of that one. Mr. Lucas, a film actor best known as Patrick Dempsey's foil in "Sweet Home Alabama," brings a bland competence but not much fire to the role of Mitch; the talented Ms. Parker (Alma Garret in "Deadwood") is stranded in a part that looks like a drag so far. The actor who seems to be having the most fun is Callum Keith Rennie ("Battlestar Galactica") as Mitch's brother, Ray. Unlike David Strathairn in the film, Mr. Rennie feels like someone who might have actually committed manslaughter. The lead producer of "The Firm," Lukas Reiter, is a veteran of "Law & Order" and of Kelley lawyer shows like "The Practice" and "Boston Legal." In trying to combine Mr. Kelley's oddball idealism with elements of a crime procedural and long-arc thriller, he's set himself quite a challenge. They don't worry about things like that in the writers" rooms at "Harry's Law" and "Fairly Legal," but they do get second seasons. NBC, Sunday night at 9, Eastern and Pacific times; 8, Central time. Produced by Entertainment One Television in association with Sony Pictures Television Networks and Paramount Pictures. Based on the novel by John Grisham. Mr. Grisham, Lukas Reiter, John Morayniss, Michael Rosenberg and Noreen Halpern, executive producers; Helen Shaver, co-executive producer. WITH: Josh Lucas (Mitch McDeere), Molly Parker (Abby McDeere), Natasha Calis (Claire McDeere), Callum Keith Rennie (Ray McDeere) and Juliette Lewis (Tammy Hemphill).