Marti Noxon

Point Pleasant, N.J., is one of those safe, serene, slightly smug seaside towns that’s just begging for something evil to wash up on its shores.

Cue the stormy effects and the spooky music. Enter Christina Nickson (Elisabeth Harnois), whose angelic appearance and demure demeanor only temporarily obscure the fact that she is - yes! - the daughter of the Devil.

If this idea makes you snort or roll your eyes, go back to watching "Law & Order." But if you like your drama with a touch of the occult and a contemporary flair, welcome to "Point Pleasant."

Co-creator Marti Noxon, having worked on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" for six seasons and contributed to "Angel," is one of the ablest proteges of the wizardly Joss Whedon.

Christina - whose full name suggests Jesus, Richard Nixon and Noxon herself - is as conflicted as Buffy, but for very different reasons.

Where the earlier heroine struggled with the heavy burden of defeating evil, this new one has evil in her DNA. Just try being a nice girl when Dad was the god of hellfire.

Christina literally washes up in Point Pleasant, half-drowned in a roiling storm and rescued by lifeguard Jesse Parker (Milwaukee native Sam Page, "All My Children"). When she decides to stay in town and search for the long-lost mother who, conveniently enough, was born there, lives begin to change.

Ben and Meg Kramer (Richard Burgi, Susan Walters) and daughter Judy (Aubrey Dollar), who take her in, finally find some release from the grief that has shadowed them since another daughter died. Some others, however, are afflicted by Christina’s involuntary but disastrous tendency to go all Stephen King on those she dislikes.

The evil quotient rises whenever the all-too-suave Thomas Boyd (Grant Show, "Melrose Place"), a sort of unsavory uncle to Christina, arrives on the scene. If she thinks she’ll flee from her dark side, she should think again.

The series will air on two consecutive nights in a pair of hourlong episodes, only the first of which was available for screening. That single hour manages to introduce the characters, set the mood and start the plot in motion with noteworthy skill and an almost electric crackle.

Like Buffy and Angel, Christina is a sympathetic blend of the mortal and the otherworldly, her powers giving her a sort of heightened humanity. The ethereally lovely Harnois and the sturdier Dollar are especially good together, making the Christina-Judy relationship one of the more interesting ones.

There’s also a literacy, even an elegance, that recall Whedon’s best work. When buzzing insects begin to circle, you may or may not recall that one of Satan’s many other names is Lord of the Flies. No one’s going to hit you over the head with it.

The scene with the flies, by the way, gets pretty lurid, as do a few developments hinted at in the coming attractions for the second night. The name "Point Pleasant," you’ll have figured out before the first commercial break, is more than slightly ironic.

After this week’s premiere, the series will air weekly at 8 p.m. Thursdays starting Jan. 27.