Gina Torres

Standoff: Drama. 9 p.m. Tuesdays, Fox.

Apparently "Moonlighting" just didn’t have enough workplace danger in it.

Private detective? Come on, even an ex-model can do that. Where’s the potential for blood loss? Private detectives are like fat investigative reporters with cheap guns. And yet, fast-forward 20 or so years beyond Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd and here are two talky, love-struck opposites in a drama as ... hostage negotiators.

There’s nothing like witty banter spliced into the very real possibility that a SWAT sniper will put a pumpkin shot in the gun-toting loon you’re talking down.

Hey, it’s not the worst idea ever. But it’s definitely on the higher side of high concept.

Fox’s "Standoff," airing tonight at 9, attempts the near impossible — mixing not just comedy with drama but romantic comedy with high-stakes drama. Now, there’s certainly a dramatic renaissance in television that is working on its fifth year or so, but we’ve yet to reach the point where producers can cavalierly assume they’ve mastered the genre and should thus shake it up and make it more complicated.

That’s what’s most galling about "Standoff." It has a swagger it can’t back up. So when it attempts to chat its way toward "Moonlighting" — or, if you prefer a more modern equivalent where the characters triple-talk their way around the fact they are attracted to each other, try Josh and Donna from "The West Wing" — it becomes far more annoying than charming.

In "Standoff," Matt (Ron Livingston) and Emily (Rosemarie DeWitt), play the two best hostage negotiators in the FBI’s Los Angeles unit. (That unit is called CNU, not to be confused with CTU on "24," another Fox show.) Matt and Emily are partners. In the pilot, Matt drops the big hook of the show as he’s negotiating with a father about to kill himself in front of his two young boys.

I’m sleeping with my partner, Matt says. We’ve been doing it three months. We’re not supposed to be sleeping together, and now my boss, hearing this, will probably fire me.

You, upon witnessing this, are supposed to gasp, one assumes.

Emily kind of gasps. She looks very annoyed. And when Matt says his co-workers will never let him live it down, all the SWAT-type guys with big rifles smile.

It would be a great YouTube spoof of "The Office." Or a kind of scary "Moonlighting" where they seek street cred a well as laughs. But all alone, as an idea that stands by itself?

Can we negotiate for a better premise if we release some hostages?

Really, what "Standoff" is attempting here is admirably difficult. But once Livingston — the best thing going in the series — sets the premise in motion, it has no emotional wallop whatsoever. The first thing you think is, "Huh?" You out your partner and potential girlfriend in public, breaking some alleged FBI rule that could get you fired — for what? To bond with the suspect? Well, yeah. That’s what they’re selling. But it’s hard to buy. It seems forced. Check that — it is forced.

Granted, once you get past that, you’ve got real drama. Emily is going to be upset. The boss, Cheryl (Gina Torres), is going to be none too happy, and it will forever linger in the work environment. No doubt the creators believe that this friction will lead to snappy exchanges and troublesome workplace issues. For example, Matt and Emily may be able to talk stupid people out of doing dangerous and/or stupid things, but they just can’t quite communicate with each other.

And yet, they are hostage negotiators. Get it?

Who wouldn’t? And that’s the problem, because varying the theme from week to week will be a gigantic creative undertaking, but the pilot doesn’t give us the confidence that the people involved in "Standoff" are up to the task. This is a premise issue. It probably sold itself in the pitch meeting, but where does it go from here? "Moonlighting" worked because 20 years ago nobody spoke snark quite like that, at such breakneck speed, with another person doing the same thing.

Now it happens more. A lot more. We don’t notice it regularly because shows that attempt it almost always fail. It’s hard to be in the kind of zone that Glenn Gordon Caron was when he did "Moonlighting" or Aaron Sorkin was when he did "SportsNight" or "The West Wing." Not only that, but other writers who manage this neat trick of dialogue and attitude that fuel drama without action — following the narrative flow, as they said on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" — often spread it around a large cast. But on "Standoff," the onus is on Livingston and DeWitt. For the show to work, their relationship, and its quirky, prickly side, must be front and center.

And that gets old — even in the pilot.

More troubling might be the fact that there really isn’t any chemistry between Livingston and DeWitt. Though he’s supposed to be spontaneous (hence the outing of the affair) and she’s supposed to be more clinical and reserved (hence the close-up of her looking annoyed and mystified about the secret being spilled), there’s precious little spark.

Maybe "Standoff" will blossom and go in really interesting lateral directions. But it appears the SWAT-type guys are there to kill someone when action is needed. What role Torres will have in all of this as their disapproving boss is uncertain — other than that she’s disapproving. Still, her first appearance does make for unintentional comedy. When Torres’ character arrives to bring reason and leadership to a (supposedly) tense situation, she looks as if she just left her runway seat at a fashion show. Torres is lovely. We should all be so lucky to have such hot bosses, particularly at the FBI.

And yet, the crisis of too much beauty can be negotiated in future episodes (perhaps Torres will wear a bulletproof vest or a bland FBI windbreaker). What to do with Livingston and DeWitt is more complicated. Never mind that, with this formula, Fox has essentially duplicated its other series, "Bones." But at least there’s still tension and chemistry between David Boreanaz and Emily Deschanel.

Here there’s just a standoff between two actors and a flawed premise.